The Galaxy S22 and S22 Ultra (Exynos) went through rigorous audio testing to measure their performance both at recording sound using their built-in microphones, and at playing audio back through their speakers.
The phones were released in February as part of Samsung’s flagship S22 series and their position of 21 makes them the highest ranking Samsung smartphones in DXOMARK’s audio ratings.
DXOMARK tested the audio capabilities of the S22 Ultra first. According to DXOMARK, the S22 Ultra “placed in average territory in playback and was on par with other Galaxy smartphones.”
DXOMARK went on: “There were no glaring weaknesses — the smartphone is functional across use cases — but it only rises above average in the volume and artifacts attributes.
“As a recording device, the S22 Ultra (Exynos) was a much stronger performer, especially in high sound pressure level scenarios, where it did an excellent job at capturing the dynamic range of the music with good tonal balance, pleasing midrange, clear treble, and a lot (maybe a little too much at times) bass.
“It also performed ably in more normal situations, capturing pleasing and accurate sound with good timbre, dynamics, and spatial attributes.”
Since the S22 has the same audio specifications as the S22 Ultra, DXOMARK said that the two phones audio performance was close enough to be within their margin of error.
However it noted that the S22 “gained some points in the recording subscore over the Ultra, particularly in timbre, mainly because of a better performance when recording loud environments such as an electronic concert.”
By contrast, the S22 Ultra performed slightly better than its sibling in playback.
DXOMARK’s ratings are widely recognized as the industry standard for smartphone benchmarking. The company recently rated the S22 Ultra third-best in the world for its display quality.