The Samsung Galaxy S22 is not only one of the best smartphones in the market right now, it also shows exactly how far the industry has come since the original Galaxy launched more than a decade ago. The Galaxy S line represents the best that Samsung has to offer, and has included several iterations of the company’s flagship smartphones over the years. Now that the Galaxy Note line has been officially discontinued, it is also the only mainstream flagship smartphone series the company has in its portfolio, barring the foldables.

The Galaxy S22 is part of Samsung’s current flagship smartphone lineup that is headed by the S22 Ultra – a massive phone with all the best features of the Galaxy Note series, including a built-in stylus. The Galaxy S22 series was unveiled at Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked event earlier in 2022, and also includes the Galaxy S22 Plus, which sits between the S22 Ultra and the vanilla S22. These are some of the best Android devices money can buy, alongside Google’s Pixel lineup and OnePlus’ flagship offerings.

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Samsung’s Galaxy lineup has come a long way since the original Galaxy (I7500) was launched in 2009. The first Galaxy smartphone came with a tiny 3.2-inch AMOLED screen, which seems small by today’s standards, but was par for the course back in the day. The resolution was also ordinary – just 480 x 320 pixels. In comparison, the Galaxy S22 comes with a 6.1-inch Dynamic AMOLED display with a resolution of 2,340 x 1,080 pixels. What’s really notable in the original Galaxy is the large D-pad and other physical buttons at the bottom of the device. Physical keys were still in vogue on Android devices back in the day, although Apple was already shipping iPhones with no physical keys, barring the large Home button at the bottom. While the original Galaxy had a thickness of 13.2mm, the Galaxy S22 is just 7.6mm thick.

Mobile Technology Has Improved Beyond Recognition

Samsung Galaxy S22

Another area where technology has improved drastically is the mobile processor. Back in the day, the Galaxy I7500 was powered by what now seems to be an anemic single-core 528MHz ARM 11 CPU. It also had just 180 MB (yes, MB, not GB) of internal storage. Cut to 2022, and the Galaxy S22 runs a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor that includes an octa-core CPU clocked at up to 3GHz. The device also ships with up to 256GB of internal storage. The latest device also has an ultrasonic under-display fingerprint scanner that was missing in the first-generation Galaxy, and its features like DeX, Samsung Pay, and voice assistants (like Bixby and Google Assistant) were a long way away from becoming a reality in 2009.

The camera technology in mobile devices has also evolved by leaps and bounds over the past 13 years. The original Galaxy came with a single 3.15-megapixel camera at the back, and it did not even have a front-facing shooter for selfies. In contrast, the latest Galaxy device ships with a triple-camera setup at the back, led by a 50-megapixel shooter. Also, video recording was limited to CIF resolution (352 x 288) at just 15 fps in the first-gen Galaxy, while the Galaxy S22 can record 8K videos at up to 24 fps and 4K videos at up to 60 fps.

Battery and charging technology has also undergone a vast transformation. While the original Galaxy S came with a 1,500 mAh battery, the S22 has a much larger 3,700 mAh battery with 25W fast charging. It also supports wireless and reverse charging, neither of which were available back in 2009. The final change is the software itself. Android was still very much a work in progress back in the day, and 1.5 Cupcake hardly made for a pleasant user experience. It is a far cry from the Samsung Galaxy S22’s Android 12 skinned with One UI 4.1, which is every bit the polished and sophisticated operating system people expect in modern smartphones.