The new Galaxy S22 phones are now officially out in the open and true to the rumours and reports in the lead up to Galaxy Unpacked this evening, Samsung has a trio of new flagship phones to offer.

We were fortunate enough to get some hands-on time with the Galaxy S22, S22+ and S22 Ultra and, while a full review is still in the offing, we can at least weigh in with our initial thoughts on the devices.

With that in mind, here’s our first impressions of the new Galaxy S22 series.

Starting off on the design front and for the S22 and S22+, aesthetically next to nothing has changed. In fact, if we had to put the S21 next to the S22, outside of colour options, we’d struggle to spot the difference.

That said, the S22 and S22+ felt supremely solid in hand, which is what we have come to expect from Samsung and its Galaxy S lineup in recent years. These phones are not going to wow people with their design or innovation, but will certainly feel premium.

The S22 Ultra is a slightly different prospect, however, and does feature a small redesign.

Here Samsung have rounded the edges and given the device a few more curves that its predecessor. In fact, the design actually reminded us some of the Xperia devices we saw in recent years back when Sony were still selling them locally.

The redesign neither offends or excites, but we do find it odd that Samsung did not utilise the same aesthetic throughout the lineup. If it had done so, it would have at least made the S22 series more distinct from previous iterations.

As it stands right now then, the S22 Ultra is the only one in the series that is discernible to its predecessor.

In terms of performance, there is only so much we can talk about here, as the devices we encountered were marketing samples and did not feature the usual host apps we load during the review process.

As such it is difficult to get a grasp of performance, but what we did encounter proved speedy in response and we are definitely keen to see the 4nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor (present on all three phones) in action.

One element we were able to test out was photography, with Samsung noting that all three devices feature the same AI engine to handle on-device editing. There are a few new clubs in the bag for Samsung in that department, although the actual lenses and megapixels on offer for these phones do not differ much from last year’s ones.

As such, it is the software that is doing more of the heavy lifting in 2022.

Lastly we need to talk about the new S Pen stylus that features on the S22 Ultra. It is a step that we have been calling for, for quite some time on Samsung’s Ultra models and one we hope the company integrates into its foldables too, with the stylus truly making most of the increased real estate.

Samsung also says the sensitivity and response is improved on this iteration, although we never thought past flavours were lacking in that department.

Oh, one final note, there is no charger included in the box, so factor that into your budget when planning to buy one of these phones. Why Samsung insists with this strategy is beyond us, but it is clear they are sticking to it.