The stage is set. In a few hours from now, Samsung will take the wraps off the Galaxy S22 Ultra, alongside the S22+ and S22 (and probably as many Galaxy Tab S8 tablets). It’s a good time to revisit the Galaxy S21 Ultra and hope for even better things. The fact of the matter is, the S22 Ultra doesn’t really have to best the S21 Ultra. It just has to be as good.

Not only was the S21 Ultra the best premium flagship Android phone of 2021 in India, but it was also Samsung’s redemption song. Coming after a rather lacklustre (but feature heavy) S20 Ultra, the S21 Ultra was the first “ultra” phone from Samsung worthy of the title.

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A year later, the song remains the same. In fact, a slew of updates that have since followed, have only made it more desirable. (And, if rumours are to be believed, Samsung is set to announce extended support for up to 5 years with 4 major OS updates in the pipeline, giving Google something to think about while putting other OEMs from OnePlus to Xiaomi, on notice.)

I have only good things to say about the S21 Ultra. A lot of really exciting phones have launched in the last one year. Samsung itself upped its “foldable” game to a point where it’s a lot easier to recommend a Fold 3 or Flip 3 to those who find the genre appealing. But regardless of all the innovation, the S21 Ultra remains to be my favourite Android phone—a phone I keep coming back to, despite testing so many phones, so very frequently.

The secret sauce is balance.

The S21 Ultra is a perfectly balanced phone. Before you call out, it’s supposed to be because it costs a bomb, I’d like to tell you—not all expensive phones are worth buying. At the same time, I’d also like to point out that the S21 Ultra is not perfect. It could use faster charging. Samsung could have bundled a charger in the box. Storage expansion would have been highly appreciated, too, considering how it used to hype this feature big time once upon a time. Chunky phones like this could fit a headphone jack also (if you could find space to stash a stylus).

But none of these imperfections are deal-breakers. What could have been a deal-breaker, was performance.

Stellar performance, battery life

Samsung—not to anyone’s surprise—chose to launch the S21 Ultra in India with the Exynos 2100 chip (while in markets like the US, it sells a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888-based version). A decision like this is always polarising. But this was a blessing in disguise. The Snapdragon 888 is known to be a major resource hog and it’s very hard to cool. After having used the S22 Ultra, for over a year now, it has become abundantly clear that the Exynos 2100—though not as powerful—offers more value with a fine mix of performance and thermal efficiency. All this bodes well for battery life, too.

The phone feels buttery smooth, plays demanding games with ease, and does not get toasty (though it does get warm when stressed)—even after such extended use. There is some throttling, when you push it, but it’s not alarming so as to hamper experience. This was a very fast phone out-of-the-box. It’s very fast, even today.

It won’t be wrong to say, the Exynos 2100 chip was a gamble that paid off well. I am hoping, the Exynos 2200 chip with AMD’s ray tracing GPU will build on this further, so keeping my fingers crossed there. The alternate version of this will be the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, that’s again—as far as preliminary reports are concerned—turning out to be, too hot to handle. Whatever chipset that Samsung chooses to launch the S22 Ultra with, in India, must be up to the task. Not beat the S21 Ultra at benchmark scores but be as good—if not better—in the real world.

Picture-perfect cameras

Despite being a year-old, the S21 Ultra’s camera system still packs quite a punch. There have been quite a few phones from Vivo and Xiaomi (and others), that have shown great potential, but none comes close to the S21 Ultra’s picture quality and versatility.

The output is hallmark Samsung, which is to say, photos are bright and contrasty with wide dynamic range, plenty of detail and sharpness. Using the S21 Ultra extensively has also made me realise how underrated—and underappreciated—a good telephoto camera is in smartphones.

The 40MP front camera clicks great selfies, too.

Premium design, great display

There are some things that Samsung does well like clockwork. Design is one. Display, another. With its sharp, understated look and satin matte finish, the S21 Ultra is also a very desirable piece of hardware you would absolutely want to have if money is not a constraint. Its contour-cut aesthetic is probably the most original and striking workaround I have seen any brand pull off to embrace its camera bump. The method is sheer genius.

The 6.8-inch Quad HD+ dynamic AMOLED 120Hz display is nice and tall without being overbearing. Brightness can go all the way up to 1500nits. Samsung gives you enough options to fine tune colours as per your liking. Viewing angles are excellent.

Rest of the ensemble is again, textbook Samsung. There is IP68 dust and water resistance, dual stereo speakers, and a dual-SIM slot along with support for 5G, Wi-Fi 6E and ultra-wideband (UWB). There is optional support for the S-Pen as well.

What’s not to like?

The complete package

Very few phones—even premium phones such as this one—manage to give you the complete package, which is why I mentioned earlier, not every expensive phone is worth buying. But this one totally is which is why, the S22 Ultra will have some big shoes to fill.

Also Read | Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G review: Is the sequel as good as the original?

All signs point to a merger with the Galaxy Note and while all of this is nice and welcome, I am more interested to see how well that AMD GPU performs, if at all Samsung brings the Exynos 2200 version to India. If not, I’d be more interested to see how the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 version keeps up with thermals. But whatever be the case, I am hoping the Galaxy S22 Ultra will be as good as the phone it will replace. Everything else, will only sweeten the deal.