Samsung has officially launched the Galaxy S22 Series in Kenya during their Unpacked event last night. The Samsung Galaxy S22 series has been one of the most anticipated smartphones of this year – at least in the Android world.
The Samsung Galaxy S22 series succeeds the Samsung Galaxy S21 series from last year. The Samsung Galaxy S22 series brings with it the regular S22, the S22 Plus and the S22 Ultra.
Let’s start with the regular Galaxy S22 and the Galaxy S22 Plus. These two entry-level flagships borrow the design from last years S21 series including having the camera bumps integrated into the back of the phone’s top left corner and the flat screens.
The displays of both phones get a small reduction to 6.1″ for the regular and 6.6″ for the Plus variant. Both are Dynamic OLED screens with a 120Hz refresh rate with HDR10+ support.
The front and the glass back are both protected by Gorilla Glass Viuctus+ with an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance.
Both phones boast 1300 and 1750 nits in terms of brightness.
All three phones are powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and Exynos 2200 with AMD GPU chipset coupled with 8GB RAM and either 128 or 256GB of storage.
Both phones rock 3700 and 4500mAh batteries respectively with the regular S22 supporting 25W wired charging while the Plus version supports 45W wired charging. It’s worth noting the charging brick doesn’t come included with the retail box.
When it comes to optics, they both rock 50MP main cameras(1/1.56” sensor), coupled with 12MP ultrawide, and 10MP telephoto(1/3.94” sensor).
There’s a 10MP selfie camera too.
Samsung promises that the cameras in the new S22 lineup will let you “own the night” and take “the best and brightest photos and videos you’ve ever captured with a phone.”
The S22 series ship with Android 12 and OneUI 4.1 straight out of the box. They are also bound to get four years of major OS updates and five years of security updates.
The S22 Plus starts at $999 while the regular S22 starts at $799.
Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra
Samsung saved the best for its beast in the S22 lineup. The S22 Ultra comes with a squared-off design reminisce of the Note lineup.
It also features a built-in slot for its S-Pen stylus.
We also get a 6.8″ 1440p OLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate.
Powering the ultra flagship is a 5000mAh battery With support for 45W wired charging and 15W wireless charging.
For optics, the S22 Ultra has a 108MP main, 12MP ultrawide, and two 10MP telephotos with 3x and 10x zoom plus a 40MP front-facing camera for taking selfies.
The S22 Ultra comes with either 8GB or 12GB of RAM(No 16GB RAM option like the S21 series) and 128, 256 and 512GB of onboard storage.
It comes in Burgundy, Phantom Black, Phantom White and Green.
The S22 Ultra starts from $1199.
Pricing, Pre-order Details and Availability
Pre-orders for the Samsung Galaxy S22 series start on March 1st. The phones will be available from March 10th. Samsung says hours after the official launch, 200 units were already booked.
With each pre-order, you get Buds 2 earbuds and Samsung Care + that lets you get one free screen replacement.
Samsung has striked different partnerships with companies like:
- Badili Africa that lets you trade in your device for one of the latest S22 smartphones and this offer will be available in 12 official Samsung Stores starting with Nairobi. This is a limited offer.
- Safaricom will offer upto 15GB of data when you purchase from their official stores
- Aspira will offer 0% interest when you opt to use them to get one of the latest S22 smartphones. This offer is limited too.
- When you use a KCB Credit card to buy one of the latest S22 smartphones at Safaricom stores, you get 0% interest too.
In terms of pricing, the 256GB versions of the S22, S22 Plus and S22 Ultra start from Ksh 99000, 117000 and Ksh 149,000. The 512GB version of the S22 Ultra starts at Ksh 160,000.
Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Series
Samsung took to stage to announce the Tab S8 series that includes the regular Tab S8, Tab S8 Plus and Tab S8 Ultra featuring Aluminium design and are all powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.
The Tab S8 and the S8 Plus come with 11″ LTPS TFT and 12.4″Super AMOLED screens(2800 x 1752px) with a 120Hz refresh rate respectively. For selfies, we get 12MP ultrawide front-facing cameras.
The Tab S8 has a side-mounted fingerprint reader while the Tab S8 Plus has an in-display fingerprint.
At the back, we have a dual-camera setup featuring a 13MP main and 6MP ultrawide camera. You also get S Pen Stylus and AKG-tuned quad-speaker setup.
The Tab S8 and Tab S8 Plus ship with Android 12 and OneUI 4.1. Samsung will update them to Android 12L when the OS becomes available later this year.
The Tab S8 series comes with either 8 OR 12GB RAM and either 256 or 512GB onboard storage.
They start selling from $700 for the regular Tab S8 and $900 for the Tab S8 Plus.
The Tab S8 Ultra reigns at the helm of the tablet series.
It rocks a 14.6″ SUPER AMOLED screen(2960x1848px) and 120Hz variable refresh rate. Audio is AKG-supported and we also have an in-display fingerprint sensor. S-Pen stylus comes included too.
Surprisingly, the tablet brings with it a notch that houses the dual 12MP selfie camera setup that comprises an ultrawide(120-degree field-of-view) and regular camera.
Good thing is that they support up to 4K recording.
At the back, we sport a dual setup that includes a 13MP main and 6MP ultrawide camera.
Powering the Tab S8 Ultra is Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor coupled with three RAM options starting at 8GB, 12GB and 16GB paired with 128GB, 256GB AND 512GB onboard storage.
Like its siblings, we have Android 12 and OneUI 4.1 running the show.
Inside is an 11,200mAh battery that supports 45W wired charging.
The Tab S8 Ultra starts from $1100.
We’ll update this post with local pricing once we get confirmation.
