Samsung Galaxy F22 review: A big budget smartphone that's not for gamers
Samsung's latest F-series smartphone looks quite practical, offers great battery life and seems to offer decent hardware at an affordable price. However, after using it for more than a week, I discovered that this is not what the Samsung Galaxy F22 offers, but what it does not offer, it just makes it a budget smartphone average overall.
Samsung Galaxy F22 price in India and variants
Samsung's Galaxy F22 comes in two variants. There is a base variant with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage, which we received for this review, and priced at Rs 12,499 in India. Then there is the second variant with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, priced at Rs 14,499.
Design Samsung Galaxy F22
The Galaxy F22 has a no-frills design, which is practical at best. It is available in two finishes - Denim Black and Denim Blue. The smartphone has a plastic body with the display panel made of Gorilla Glass 5. The plastic unibody has a matte finish with fine grooves on the back, which provides a good grip. The display glass and back panel hold up well to fingerprints. Fit and finish are solid with no creaking. Despite being 9.4mm thin and weighing 203g, the relatively tall body of the Galaxy F22 made it easy to hold. It's even comfortable enough for one-handed use, which is quite a feat for a smartphone with a 6,000mAh battery.
The plastic unibody of the Samsung Galaxy F22 has a matte finish with fine grooves on the back
The Samsung Galaxy F22 has a 6.4-inch display with a teardrop notch at the top and a visible chin at the bottom. The display notch looks a bit dated, as most smartphones at this price now have screens with punch-hole cutouts. Placing the ambient light sensor in this notch caused the display to dim randomly while gaming in landscape mode, as I ended up blocking it with my thumb. Luckily, the Game Booster app has a handy toggle to disable automatic brightness adjustment while playing games.
Samsung Galaxy F22 Specifications and Software
The Galaxy F22 uses the MediaTek Helio G80 processor, which was announced in early 2020. This SoC has two Cortex-A75 cores clocked at up to 2 GHz and six Cortex-A55 cores at 1.8 GHz. The phone has 4GB or 6GB of RAM and 64GB or 128GB of storage, along with a microSD card slot for storage expansion up to 1TB. Connectivity options include support for 4G/LTE, Bluetooth 5 and dual-band Wi-Fi ac.
The 6.4-inch display has an HD+ (720×1600) resolution and 90Hz refresh rate. Since it's a Super AMOLED panel, Samsung has enabled an Always On Display feature ( AOD), which displays icons for notifications when the phone is locked.
The Samsung Galaxy F22 has a single bottom-firing speaker.
There's also an FM Radio app, which lets you listen to local stations after plugging in a pair of wired headphones. The phone has a single speaker located at the bottom and a 3.5mm headphone jack at the top. There is a 6000mAh battery and this phone supports wired charging up to 25W.
The Galaxy F22 runs Samsung's One UI 3.1 software, which is based on Android 11. Samsung seems to have been working on optimizing its bloated One UI to run well on the 4GB RAM variant of the Galaxy F22. Still, there is a collection of pre-installed Samsung-branded apps that you can't get rid of, as well as several third-party apps from Microsoft and others that can be uninstalled. Despite all these apps, I was surprised to see very few promotional notifications while using the phone.
Samsung Galaxy F22 performance and battery life
Using a 90Hz refresh rate display definitely improved the Galaxy F22's software experience, and it felt fluid when swiping between screens or scrolling through long social feeds. The HD+ resolution is low compared to the Full HD+ panels used by some competitors at this price point, but the panel has vivid colors and deep blacks that are evident when streaming movies and gaming. Although it was sharp enough for everyday use, Netflix only recognized Widevine L3 media, which allowed SD quality playback. So some content didn't look as sharp as on competing smartphones, some of which support Widevine L1 with HD resolution.
The Super AMOLED display has a notch at the top, which feels a little outdated compared to the competition
While the experience using the device was satisfactory, the benchmark tests we ran showed generally below-average performance for this price point. The Samsung Galaxy F22 scored 161,369 points at AnTuTu, while the Realme Narzo 30 scored 356,846 points. I also noticed performance differences between the two phones in Geekbench, in which the Galaxy F22 scored 372 and 1,313 in single and multi-core tests, while the Realme Narzo 30 scored 532 and 1,700 respectively.
The gaming experience was decent at best, and the smartphone got quite warm while playing demanding games like Call of Duty: Mobile and Asphalt 9: Legends on default settings. Call of Duty: Mobile was running with many dropped frames at default Medium graphics and framerate settings. Asphalt 9: Legends also stuttered and dropped frames during gameplay. Indeed, this is a smartphone that is not designed for intense 3D games, but is better suited for casual titles.
The 6,000mAh battery can be charged at up to 25W, but Samsung only includes a 15W charger in the box. Obviously, charging was relatively slow – the Galaxy F22 took 2 hours and 41 minutes to go from empty battery to fully charged. A big battery also means good battery life, and Samsung's software optimizations seem to have paid off, with the phone lasting 29 hours and 35 minutes in our HD Video Battery Loop test. With regular use, which involved lots of social media apps, an hour of gaming, two or more hours of video streaming, and taking photos, the phone easily lasted two days before I needed a charger . The screen refresh rate was set to 90Hz during testing, and changing it to 60Hz would have added a few extra hours.
Samsung Galaxy F22 Cameras
The Samsung Galaxy F22 has a quad camera setup on the back with a 48-megapixel main camera, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera, a 2-megapixel macro camera, and a 2-megapixel depth sensor used when Portrait mode is active. Selfies are handled by a 13-megapixel camera, which sits inside the display notch. The camera interface is easy to use with easy access to relevant controls as well as a customizable camera mode dial.
Samsung Galaxy F22's square-shaped camera module features four rear-facing cameras
Photos taken in daylight using the main camera came out crisp and had good detail and dynamic range. The colors were a little saturated, but didn't look too different from the actual scene. Photos captured using the ultra-wide-angle camera weren't as detailed as those taken with the main camera and looked decent at best, with visible purple fringing and flared highlights in the darkest areas. bright.
Samsung Galaxy F22 daytime camera samples. Top: main camera, bottom: ultra-wide-angle camera (tap to see full size)
Daytime selfies when using Portrait mode became a bit blurry, with brightly lit backgrounds becoming overexposed. I noticed the same issues when using Portrait mode with the rear camera. Edge detection was decent and the camera didn't hesitate to cut my hair when I felt like it. Macro photos showed passable detail, but weren't sharp enough to be usable.
Samsung Galaxy F22 selfie camera samples. Top: Auto, bottom: Portrait mode (tap to view full size)
As expected, the camera's low-light performance wasn't great. The main camera was slow to lock focus and shots had a lot of noise in the darker areas as well as blurry textures throughout. Night mode improved these photos by making them brighter, but textures and detail only got worse, and some photos ended up looking quite blotchy. The ultra-wide-angle camera was not usable in low light, producing only blurry photos, and the Night mode was of no help here. Using the front camera in low light resulted in selfies with noticeable noise, average detail, and lackluster colors. Night mode handled better color, but couldn't fix noise.
Samsung Galaxy F22 low light camera samples. Top: Auto, bottom: Night Mode (tap to view full size)
Video recording maxes out at 1080p 30fps for both front and rear cameras. Video captured in daylight using the front camera was a bit shaky and backgrounds were overexposed, but there was a decent level of detail in foreground subjects. 1080p 30fps video captured with the rear camera looked quite good with good stabilization and detail. The phone can also shoot 1080p video using the ultra-wide-angle camera, and those clips showed decent stabilization with passable detail, but the brighter parts of the scene were overexposed. Low-light images had noticeable noise, but were usable provided there was ambient light nearby. Switching to the ultra-wide-angle camera at night resulted in videos that looked very dull.
Verdict
After using the Samsung Galaxy F22 for a week, I found it to be a decent budget smartphone for those with basic needs, but with a few shortcomings.
There is a 90Hz refresh rate Super AMOLED display which is good for watching videos and enhances the user experience. Then there's the 6,000mAh battery for those looking for no compromise in battery life.
But if you look closely at the competition, you'll start to realize that other companies offer a lot more, not just in terms of specs, but even convenience. You also have to consider that the Super AMOLED display doesn't actually mean you get crisp video quality, as you're limited to SD content for OTT apps. Battery life is well optimized, but the 6,000mAh mega battery takes well over two hours to charge with the included 15W charger.
Some people might be okay with these compromises, but the
Realme Narzo 30
(
Review
), offers good battery life, a Full HD+ display with support for HD content streaming, and faster charging with a 30W charger in the box. Then there is
Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
(
Review
), which for an additional Rs 500 offers 33W charging, an HD+ Super AMOLED display and stereo speakers.
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