Samsung Galaxy F22 review: Is it a worthy buy for budget-conscious consumers?

Samsung Galaxy F22 review summary:

Editor’s rating: 3.25/5

Before the pandemic hit us hard, Samsung’s portfolio was evenly balanced between online and offline markets. Post the Covid-19 disruption, the brand decided to add an online exclusive F-series to its portfolio earlier this year with the launch of Galaxy F62 (review). Now, Samsung has introduced its third offering in the F series – the Galaxy F22 which is (as expected) a budget offering for the masses. 

The Samsung Galaxy F22’s biggest play is a 90Hz super AMOLED screen which is currently a rare occurrence in the under 15k segment. It might make a catchy headline feature but is it really a compelling enough reason to buy one? Let’s find out answers in this Samsung Galaxy F22 full review.

Navigate this review:

• Samsung Galaxy F22 specs and price in India
• Samsung Galaxy F22 unboxing
• Samsung Galaxy F22 review: Design & build
• Samsung Galaxy F22 review: Display
• Samsung Galaxy F22 review: Software and Performance
• Samsung Galaxy F22 camera review
• Samsung Galaxy f22 review: Battery 
• Review verdict: Should you buy the Galaxy F22?

Samsung Galaxy F22 Unboxing: What’s in the box?

Samsung continues to follow the packaging approach that it established late last year. F22 comes in a biodegradable box. There’s no TPU case or headphones bundled within the box. Here’s what you will actually find inside:

• Handset
• Wall charger
• USB cable
• Documentation
• SIM ejector tool 

Samsung Galaxy F22 Price, Specs

Dimensions: 156.8×72.1×7.59mm; About 182g
Screen: 6.4” HD+ AMOLED, 90Hz refresh rate, HDR, 600nits peak brightness
CPU: 12nm MediaTek Helio G80 SoC
GPU: Mali-G52 MC2
RAM: up to 6GB
Storage: up to 128GB
Rear cameras: 48MP Main Camera + 8MP Wide Angle Camera + 2MP Macro Camera; 2MP Sensor
Front camera: 13MP
Battery: 6000 mAh with 15W charging
OS: Android 11, OneUI 3.1
Connectivity: 4G, Dual Nano Card Slot, Dual-band WiFi, Bluetooth 5.0, NFC

Samsung Galaxy F22 variants, price in India

Variants: 4GB RAM+64GB ROM; 6GB RAM+128GB ROM
Price in India: Rs 12,499 / Rs 14,499

While designing the Galaxy F22, Samsung religiously adhered its rulebook of affordable phone designs to the T. The Galaxy F22 flaunts a plastic unibody design coming in Denim Black and Denim Blue finishes. The back panel has a matte texture finish with fine grooves. This ensures that the aesthetics don’t appear boring at a time when most budget offering comes with flashy gradient backs. The matte finish also ensures one doesn’t have to bother about finger grease sticking to the back unceremoniously. And finally, the tapered edges ensure that the phone feels secure in the hand.

Depending on the size of your hands, you will love or hate the Galaxy F22 design. The Galaxy F22 fits well in hands for an average-sized person like me without giving a bulky feel. 

Thanks to its polycarbonate build, it feels really solid in the hands. It didn’t bend even when we applied pressure from our fingers. We didn’t notice any creaking sounds whatsoever. 

Samsung once again backs a capacitive fingerprint sensor that is embedded in the power button. Both volume rocker and power key find real estate on the right edge. 

The screen has dominated the front but two things are prominent – a chin at the bottom of the screen and a waterdrop notch above the display. At the bottom edge, Samsung has positioned a 3.5mm headphone jack, USB C port, and loudspeaker. 

All in all, we found not much to complain about Samsung Galaxy F22 design and build. 

The Samsung Galaxy F22 gets to flaunt a 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display which is a rear sight at this price. The F22 screen supports  HD+ resolution (720×1600) with a 90Hz refresh rate. You might feel that content looks less sharp on your Galaxy F22 as compared to your friend’s phone. That’s because of the lower pixel count as compared to the standard FHD+ screens. Having said that, most budget users will fall in love with the Galaxy F22’s vividness and black levels. Like most Samsung AMOLED  panels, it is also on point in terms of colour and contrast levels.

The display can get plenty bright (up to 600 nits) ensuring you don’t really have to worry about sunlight visibility. It can do a 90hz refresh rate delivering smooth scrolling and transition effects. Samsung has ensured that the Galaxy F22 comes with WideVine L1 certification for watching OTT content in HD quality. 

Let’s start with the software first. One UI has been a prominent highlight of all Samsung phones for the last several years and the same is the case with Galaxy F22. it ships with One UI 3.1 software, which is based on Android 11. Samsung has done some work to optimize it for the Galaxy F22’s hardware. 

The phone has several preinstalled apps that eat into your system resources. Both Samsung and Microsoft apps can’t be uninstalled. However, thankfully most of the other third-party apps can be uninstalled. 

The OneUI on the Galaxy F22 does offer several customization options. It allows users to choose between display profiles, has an option to use dark mode, to toggle between screen refresh rate profiles, download themes, fonts, and do a lot more.

As far as performance is concerned, the Galaxy F22 is driven by the MediaTek G80 chipset, which is not the most powerful offering from Mediatek. The chipset will fall short of the competition in terms of benchmark numbers but manages to handle everyday tasks with ease. 

We tried Call of Duty: Mobile, and Battlegrounds Mobile India and it manage to run both games at medium settings but its temperature started to shoot up within minutes. If you are planning to buy a phone for gaming, the Galaxy F22 is clearly not it. 

For your better understanding we ran several benchmark tests on the Samsung Galaxy F22 and here are the findings:

1. Antutu: 1,63,239 
2. Geekbench: 365 (single core); 1325 (multi-core)

The Samsung Galaxy F22 includes a quad-camera setup at the back and a standalone selfie sensor at the front. The rear setup includes a 48-megapixel primary camera, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera, a 2-megapixel macro camera, and a 2-megapixel depth sensor for portraits. A 13-megapixel takes up the job of selfie snapper. Samsung hasn’t made any changes in its camera interface so if you have used a Samsung smartphone in the recent past, you will feel right at home.

The Galaxy F22 primary snapper clicks clean images with good detail and dynamic range in daylight conditions. Like most budget offerings, colours science is tuned for saturated colours but it didn’t digress from the actual scene by much. The ultra-wide sensor lost out in detail as compared to shots with the primary camera and looked decent at best as it fails to get highlights right in most situations. Both front and rear cameras manage to detect edges and blur out the background. But there have been instances where hairs or some part of the body is clipped. In Low-light, the Galaxy M31 cameras struggle to control grain and delivers slightly subdued details.

The Galaxy F22 packs a massive 6,000mAh battery which comes with 25W fast charging support. However, Samsung only bundles a 15W charger inside the box. The phone takes more than 2 hours and 30minutes to fully refill the battery. 

The large battery of Galaxy F22 offers good endurance levels. It can easily last a day on a single charge with regular use which involves using 2-3 social media apps, calling, playing games for about 30 minutes, streaming videos, and taking pictures. Samsung software also lets users change battery profiles. so you can switch between battery saver and performance depending on how you plan your day. Changing screen refresh rate from 90Hz to 60Hz will also help you conserve battery in the hour of need. 

Review verdict: Should you buy Samsung Galaxy F22?

Expert rating: 3.25/5

If you are looking to buy a decent smartphone with a limited budget, in that case, the Samsung Galaxy F22 is worth considering despite its shortcomings. It’s a big battery smartphone that manages to offer a 90Hz AMOLED screen on a limited budget. Of course, an FHD+ panel and a more powerful chipset would have made it more recommendation-worthy. If you are into gaming, the Galaxy F22 wouldn’t be the right choice. 

Reason’s to buy:

• Decent AMOLED screen
• One of the better UI
• Excellent battery life

Reason to not buy:

• Bloatware apps
• Poor gaming performance
• Low light camera performance