Samsung Galaxy S22 could have at least one serious issue

Battery blues

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TheSamsung Galaxy S22is sure to be one of the most exciting and successful phones of early 2022, but it might not be one of the longest-lasting, as a leak suggests its battery could be disappointingly small.

This comes fromGalaxyClub, which claims to have acquired “concrete details” about the battery, and says that it has a rated capacity of just 3,590mAh, down from 3,880mAh in theSamsung Galaxy S21.

It’s worth noting that the rated capacity isn’t what’s generally marketed on phones, instead that’s the typical capacity, which is slightly higher. In the case of the Galaxy S21 that’s 4,000mAh, while for theSamsungGalaxy S22 it’s likely to be around 3,700mAh if this leak is right. All of which would make the S22’s battery about 7.5% smaller than the Galaxy S21’s.

That’s not a huge drop, but the Samsung Galaxy S21 doesn’t have a huge battery in the first place, and this would make the Samsung Galaxy S22’s even smaller than a previous leak had suggested, as we’d heard beforethat it would be 3,800mAh(so still smaller than the S21’s).

However, while we’d take this with a pinch of salt it’s a somewhat believable claim, since we’ve also previously heard that the Samsung Galaxy S22 Plus will have a smaller battery than its predecessor, at either 4,500mAh or 4,600mAh, with only the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra retaining the same 5,000mAh battery size as this year’s model.

Opinion: this could really hurt the Samsung Galaxy S22

If the Samsung Galaxy S21 had excellent battery life then a slight reduction in size might not worry us too much, but it doesn’t. In our review we found it reasonable – typically lasting a day unless you make heavy use of GPS and other power-hungry features, but that’s average rather than impressive.

So shrinking the battery in the Samsung Galaxy S22 could make its endurance below average. That won’t necessarily happen as there could be optimizations elsewhere, such as in the chipset, but it might. And at the very least it probably means the Samsung Galaxy S22’s life won’t be any better.

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That’s a real shame, because while most elements of expensive phones are now more than good enough, battery life continues to struggle.

So it’s really this that manufacturers should be focusing on, not shrinking batteries to make phones even thinner, or using the freed up battery space to marginally improve some already impressive feature.

ViaSoftpedia

James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.

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