Samsung’s Galaxy Note line might be gone for now, but its spirit could live on in the Galaxy S22 Ultra. The company is reported to be building the S22 Ultra with an S Pen silo, much like the Note-series has traditionally featured. It is also said to be shipping the phone with squared-off edges, as reported by Samsung leaker Ice Universe and publication Galaxy Club.
Renders of what appears to be the Galaxy S22 Ultra have also appeared online courtesy of leaker OnLeaks, showing a device that would look a lot like what we’d expect a Galaxy Note 21 to look like if one had appeared. It’s a squared-off phone with a flat bottom, like the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, and there’s a visible silo for the S Pen at the rear of the device. The display is reportedly 6.8 inches and curved, and it’s expected to be an S AMOLED display with a high refresh rate.
Interestingly, Samsung appears to have adopted an oddly shaped camera bump that’s less pronounced than the current one, if this render is accurate. The S22 Ultra is still expected to retain a quad-camera setup like the S21 Ultra, with a 108MP main camera and three 12MP cameras: Telephoto, ultrawide, and a periscope zoom lens with 10x optical zoom.
Samsung’s Galaxy S-line had grown closer and closer to the Note line over the past years. With the S21 Ultra, the Note had more or less become redundant as Samsung included S Pen support on the large flagship. The company would later bring that support to its foldables, but some still missed the Note.
This week, a report from Fierce Wireless noted that T-Mobile was unhappy with the cancellation of the Note, reportedly saying: “Many of our customers just loved” the Note series. While foldables such as the Galaxy Z Fold 3 do have appeal now, they still aren’t for everyone.
Samsung has not officially discontinued the Note, but the company did not launch it this year, opting instead to divert features from the Note to other devices. A Note-like S22 Ultra would go a long way in assuaging the concerns of customers who loved the overall aesthetic of the Note line, while retaining the Galaxy S brand and allowing Samsung to focus on its foldables during the latter half of the year.
