Samsung Galaxy A22 Review: MediaTek Chip Fights Smoothly

It is quite surprising that Samsung has recently brought Galaxy A22 4G and Samsung A22 5G into the market. It is immediately impressive to see the pairing as the company takes the lead in bringing OIS optical stabilization technology to the budget segment. Apart from the above-advanced features, what are the notable points of this series? Come find out with us in this Samsung Galaxy A22 review.

Design

The Galaxy A22 and A22 5G both have a similar plastic back and soft edges, a common feature of the popular models. However, it still comes equipped with a good-looking appearance and diverse youthful shades to score points for looks.

The back of the Samsung A22 4G standard version is designed to be more compact, thanks to its smaller size, which brings a neat feeling when holding.

The design of the Samsung Galaxy A22 5G is a bit more square with a larger size, but the curves all around help it hold up without need. I think the design of the 5G version is more suitable for men’s hands, or women would also like it because of the youthful complexion.

Both the Galaxy A22 4G and 5G versions have the same layout of physical buttons, SIM tray, and connection port. Both have a 1-touch fingerprint sensor, which is integrated with the power button. The position of this sensor on a fingertip is wide enough for any hand to put in and touch, no need to reach out.

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The camera parts are both housed in a square module, but there is a difference in the number of lenses and the layout accordingly. In the Samsung A22 5G, all the three camera lenses and flash are housed in a square cluster. For the Galaxy A22, the square module is where the quad-camera lenses are located, the flash part will be moved down, located in an independent position.

Display

The Galaxy A22 flaunts a Super AMOLED screen, with a 6.4-inch HD+ resolution. Meanwhile, the A22 5G flaunts a bigger screen with a size of 6.6 inches and a TFT LCD panel with FullHD+ resolution.

At a glance, it seems that both of them have the same front camera design with a waterdrop notch display, but taking a closer look side-by-side, we see that both have different screen defects. The Galaxy A22 sports an Infinity U design, while the 5G version sports an Infinity V design.

However, both have one thing in common that they both come equipped with a 90Hz refresh rate and offer smooth swiping or entertainment experiences. In actual use, we can switch back and forth between 60Hz and 90Hz frequencies in the settings. For us, we will always set 90Hz to use, why don’t we choose the best experience that the manufacturer equips?

Large screen, huge size is the trend of users when choosing a smartphone as entertainment content, watching on the phone is increasingly popular and almost becoming a demand. The A22 and A22 5G both meet this need well, although the screen border at the bottom is still not very thin. However, according to a study conducted by American scientists, the thick bezel at the bottom can help reduce the rate of the wrong touch with one hand by about 40%.

Camera

Before getting into the main topic, let’s take a look at the camera specifications of the Galaxy A22.

• Main camera: 48 MP resolution, f/1.8 aperture, phase detection focus, OIS optical stabilization.
• 123˚ Super wide-angle camera: 8 MP resolution, f/2.2 aperture.
• Macro Camera: 2 MP resolution, f/2.4 aperture.
• Depth sensor: 2 MP resolution, f/2.4 aperture.

In all the pictures in this Samsung Galaxy A22 review, we have used only a macro camera and this camera does not have OIS optical stabilization like the main camera, so we will talk more about this macro camera.

Luckily, we have some cool things to shoot with this macro camera, finding whatever little things around that were overlooked for a long time.

There are many orchid plants around us and their flowers are everyone’s favorite because they are beautiful purple mixed with white. These flowers look really attractive in the eyes of the macro camera. Besides orchids, we also have roses and confetti. You are probably already familiar with this flower, it is grown in many places.

What we like about the macro camera on the Galaxy A22 are the bright colors, good autofocus capability, easy capturing objects when shooting flowers, and more importantly, the ability to blur the background. Thanks to the natural bokeh effect, the flowers become more prominent and beautiful.

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We will continue this Samsung Galaxy A22 review and try to take a picture of a rice grain. We wish that the camera on the Galaxy A22 could see more clearly, but in reality, this camera has a resolution of 2 MP and the best focusing distance is from 3 – 5 cm. So this picture has reached the physical limit of this camera and we will switch to something bigger.

With this watch it seems a bit big, so everything is much clearer. We can see dust and scratches all around the watch.

Switching to an aluminum ruler, at a close-up angle like this, you can see each scratch.

The challenge is a bit more difficult, we switched to capturing text fn the Galaxy A22’s charger. Both English and Russian texts are available. Take a macro photo to see if the text looks clear.

Commenting on the color of the Galaxy A22’s macro camera, we found the device to have bright, honest colors. The tricky point when taking macros with the Galaxy A22 is manual focus, after focusing you have to manually align the light to suit. When shooting, automatic focus, as well as lighting adjustments, will be done automatically and very quickly.

In addition, this camera has a physical limitation with a focus distance of 3 – 5 cm, so you cannot hold the camera too close to capture micro-objects as we did with a grain of rice above. We believe that with a macro camera, you can make many different photos independently, but for us, probably the most beautiful is taking still pictures of flowers.

Don’t forget, the Samsung Galaxy A22 also has OIS optical stabilization and supports it very well when you hold the phone in your hand, shooting very close to the object. Just a small handshake will blur the image and then OIS is a very valuable defense at the right time.

Performance

Before going into the detailed evaluation of the performance of the device in this Samsung Galaxy A22 review, we will quickly refresh its configuration parameters:

• CPU: MediaTek MT6769V 8-core (12 nm) and the highest clock speed 2.0 GHz.
• GPU: Mali-G52.
• RAM: 6 GB.
• Internal memory: 128 GB (expandable via MicroSD card, supports up to 1 TB).
• OS: OneUI 3.1 (based on Android 11).
• Battery: 5,000 mAh, supports 15W fast charging.

According to us personally, the configuration parameters of the Samsung Galaxy A22 are also relatively stable compared to the price of less than $300. MediaTek MT6769V gaming chip is what makes us most curious, as we have never heard of this processor and so neither most of today’s users. After researching the information, we found out that this chip is manufactured on a 12 nm process, has 8 cores and the highest clock is 2.0 GHz.

If it is said that MediaTek MT6769V is as strong as any Snapdragon chip, then we will confirm that this chip is stronger than Snapdragon 665 (8 cores, 11 nm process) but slightly less than Snapdragon 678 (8 cores, 11 nm process) is weak. We will explain why the performance is down in the scoring section.

To give you the most intuitive view of the power of MediaTek MT676 on Galaxy A22, we will proceed to score the performance of this chip with software such as GeekBench 5, 3DMark, and PCMark. Before sharing the results, we will talk a little bit about the grading conditions:

• The battery was at 90% – 100% (if the battery is below 90%, the performance of the device will be affected).
• The battery did not charge during the scoring process.
• Score 3 times and take the average result after 3 consecutive tests.
• The results we got are as follows:

GeekBench 5:

• Single-core/multi-core: 359 points/1,348 points.
• GPU (GPU Compute) score: 1,147 points.

3DMark:

• 2D graphics score (OpengGL ES 3.0): 67,669 points.
• 3D graphics points (Vulkan): 328,663 points.

PCMark: 6,838 points.

As you can see, the performance score of the MediaTek MT6769V chip on the Galaxy A22 is quite impressive. We also tried to get GeekBench 5 and 3DMark scores to compare the results with some competitors in the same segment with the Galaxy A22 such as Vivo Y50 (using Snapdragon 665), Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 (using Snapdragon 678). You can see the picture below.

Through the comparison table above, it is clear that the MediaTek MT6769V chip has stronger performance than Snapdragon 665 and slightly weaker than Snapdragon 678. We note to you that the above results are for reference only. Simply because each manufacturer will have its optimal method for the chip.

Well, in the process of searching for information about Galaxy A22, We noticed that some of you are comparing the performance of Galaxy A22 to Galaxy A7 (2018) (using Exynos 7885), Galaxy M31 (using Exynos 7885). Just like you want to do with an old Galaxy smartphone. Using Exynos 9611) or Galaxy A32 (using Helio G80). For comparison, We’ll also take each device’s Geekbench 5 score and the results you can track in the image below:

Again, we would like to remind you that the above results are for reference only. One of the reasons for this is that Galaxy A22 is a recently launched device and the performance scoring software has more potential at present. So, if we look at the current time for a smartphone like Galaxy M31 or Galaxy A7 (2018), the results will be different.

In general, we recommend that the scores are for reference only and cannot reflect the full power of a phone. Hence, we invite you to follow our gaming experience below to understand the performance of this smartphone better than we have done during this Samsung Galaxy A22 review.

I have downloaded some popular games such as Free Fire, PUBG Mobile, and Zing Speed Mobile to see if the gaming experience on Galaxy A22 is smooth or not.

When we played Free Fire on the Galaxy A22, the experience that the device brought was still not good. Every time we change the angle of view, aim to shoot and fight things, the phenomenon of lag or frame drops often occurs. Although the Galaxy A22 can achieve a frame rate of 60 FPS, the device cannot maintain this number consistently throughout the game.

In terms of graphics settings, we have to commend the Samsung Galaxy A22 because it allows us to adjust the graphics to the highest level. However, what makes us a little bit confused is why we can turn on High FPS but the machine cannot maintain the frame rate at 60 FPS during gameplay. Probably because this game is still not very well optimized for the Galaxy A22. Therefore, we recommend that if you want the best Free Fire experience, you should consider reducing the graphics quality a bit.

We can completely play PUBG Mobile on Galaxy A22, but in terms of stability, this smartphone has not yet satisfied us. At least, the Galaxy A22 handles this game better than Free Fire, the frame rate is maintained at 30-40 FPS.

Talking about graphics settings, the Galaxy A22 allows us to adjust at medium level, graphics in HD, and frame rate at High. You may feel that this level of graphics is not very impressive, but we accept this because we can’t ask for anything more from a smartphone that costs less than $300 like the Galaxy A22.

Finally is the high-speed racing game, Zing Speed Mobile. Of course, because the graphics of this game are not too heavy, we find that the experience of playing Zing Speed Mobile on the Galaxy A22 is extremely smooth, fast, and rarely occurs frame drops.

We easily adjust the graphics in Zing Speed Mobile to the highest level with the Galaxy A22. In general, we are completely satisfied with the performance of the Galaxy A22 in the Zing Speed Mobile game.

Battery

This is one of the questions that many users are interested in the battery life of the Samsung Galaxy A22. To answer the question above, we performed a test to check the level of the 5,000 mAh battery, and the conditions of this test are as follows:

• Play a single game until the battery runs out (from 100% to 0%). Screen brightness: 100%.
• Plug in a wired headset all the way through, and the volume is 100%.
• Turn on WiFi and social media notifications.
• Do not enable battery saver, adaptive display, GPS, and Bluetooth.
• Here are the results we got:

• Free Fire: 3 hours 47 minutes.
• PUBG Mobile: 6 hours 37 minutes.
• Zing Speed Mobile: 8 hours 3 minutes.

We see in survival shooting games with open space, heavy on graphics like Free Fire or PUBG Mobile, the battery of the A22 will last not too long because the device must work continuously to handle the high-end visual effects in the game.

In games with slightly lighter graphics such as Zing Speed Mobile, the Galaxy A22’s 5,000 mAh battery can operate continuously for a long time.

According to experience with the Samsung Galaxy A22, we found that the battery of this smartphone can last for nearly a day and a half (using the device with basic tasks and playing games). It can be said that Galaxy A22 is the device with the longest battery life among Samsung devices that we have ever used. We think the Galaxy A22 battery lasts so long because the MediaTek MT6769V chip inside the Galaxy A22 has optimized energy consumption very well, helping the battery of the device to work more durable.

The Samsung Galaxy A22 supports 15W fast charging and Samsung is also very thoughtful when it comes with a 15W charging cable inside the device’s box. Without further ado, here are the results we measured:

Thus, it took about 2 hours and 14 minutes to fully charge the 5,000 mAh battery of the Galaxy A22. As far as we can see, this charging time is also a bit long but we can still accept it, moreover, we only need to wait for 30 minutes to charge and have 26% of the battery for temporary use.

Besides playing games, we also measured the battery life of the Galaxy A22 when using common tasks such as messaging via Messenger, Zalo, YouTube, surfing the web with Chrome browser, and Facebook. The conditions for us to perform this test are as follows:

• Use a single application until the device runs out of battery (from 100% to 0%).
• Screen brightness: 100%.
• Plug in a wired headset all the way through and the volume is 100%.
• Turn on WiFi and social media notifications.
• Do not enable battery saver, adaptive display, GPS and Bluetooth.
• The result we got is:

• Zalo: 8 hours 3 minutes.
• Facebook: 9 hours 29 minutes.
• YouTube: 10 hours 39 minutes.
• Messenger: 11 hours 36 minutes.
• Chrome: 12 hours 14 minutes.

Indeed, after this test, we don’t need to argue about the level of the 5,000 mAh battery on the Galaxy A22 anymore. For each task, the battery of this smartphone gives an average of 9 – 10 hours of use, quite impressive, right?

Final line

In summary, we appreciate the 5,000 mAh battery of the Galaxy A22 when the device gives an extremely long time to use, especially in common tasks such as making calls, texting, surfing the web, etc. Not to mention this smartphone also offers quite an impressive gaming time, so if you are wondering whether to buy a Galaxy A22 to fight the game or not, just bravely hit one.

In our Samsung Galaxy A22 review. We can see that although this smartphone has a rather strange chip from MediaTek, its performance is not too inferior to a few Qualcomm chips like Snapdragon 665 or 678.

So how do you feel about this Samsung Galaxy A22 review? If so, remember to leave a comment below to let me know, thank you for your interest and follow-up.

Samsung Galaxy A22 Price

The Samsung Galaxy A22 5G Factory Unlocked, International Model can be purchased via the Newegg.com and Amazon.com stores for $289.99 or £186.99 on Amazon.co.uk.