OnePlus 10 Pro vs Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra: Which is the top Android flagship?

Should you choose Samsung’s highest-spec phablet, or is the latest flagship from OnePlus better suited to you?

Samsung and OnePlus are two of the biggest brands n the business when it comes to high-performing Android smartphones, and that’s why it’s certainly a difficult choice to pick one of these two manufacturers’ most prestigious devices. Read the full breakdown below to see which one suits you best.

Design and Screen

The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is a very large and boxy phone, and frankly its design didn’t really make us warm to it.

Though there are some neat distinguishing features such as the onboard S-Pen, we didn’t really like the fact the way that camera lenses simply sat on the back of the phone without being housed in a module, collecting dust and failing to sit flat on a surface. Its sheer size also means that it’s quite tricky to use with just one hand.

However, when it comes to the screen we had no such reservations; this screen could well be the very best on any smartphone around, being bright, smooth, and punchy to an extent that was utterly immersive.

The OnePlus 10 Pro arguably has the opposite design quirk to the S22 Ultra; its camera module is enormous, taking up a huge chunk of the rear panel. This look is bound to be divisive, but aside from that, we were certainly fans of the smooth matte finish on the back.

The display is also very impressive, with a very sharp 3216x1440p resolution, an adaptive refresh rate that swings from 1Hz to 120Hz, and the LTPO-enhanced OLED also boasts HDR support, which makes for fantastic contrast.

Camera

The S22 Ultra goes all-out on the camera system, and the results are something to behold. The array of four sensors – 108-megapixel main camera, 10-megapixel periscope lens, 10-megapixel telephoto sensor, and 12-megapixel ultrawide lens – give it a brilliant level of versatility, and it packs detail into every shot.

The zoom capabilities are peerless; even at 10x zoom the results are still fantastic. Along with the high-resolution sensors, AI kicks in to make the most of your pictures depending on the shooting conditions, generally reducing noise and upping detail to brilliant effect.

The OnePlus 10 Pro has a promisingly versatile triple camera system, which consists of a 48-megapixel main sensor, an 8-megapixel telephoto lens, and a 50-megapixel ultrawide camera with an astonishingly large 150-degree field of view. Once the full review is published we’ll be able to give you a greater insight into its photographic ability, but for now we’re hoping that it’s a significant improvement on the brand’s somewhat spotty photographic record over the years.

Performance

The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is available in two variants worldwide, either with an Exynos 2200 chipset (Samsung’s own silicon), or the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, which is the same one that the OnePlus 10 Pro uses.

Using the Exynos 2200 variant, we noticed a slight improvement over its predecessor in benchmarking scores, although notably, the phone seemed to heat up less while performing arduous tasks. It certainly feels fast when you’re using it, but there were a few minor bugs present when we reviewed the handset.

Performance is often a real highlight of OnePlus devices, and with as fearsome a chip as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 on board, we have reason to believe that this tradition will continue.

Battery Life

The S22 Ultra boasts a 5000mAh battery, and in our judgement it is good but not great. After extensive use on the highest settings it would always be in the red zone after a busy day, although there are plenty of customisations that you can make in order to conserve battery if that’s a concern. There’s no charger supplied in the box, but with a 45W charger that was bought separately, the device managed to fully charge in around one hour.

The OnePlus 10 Pro also runs on a 5000mAh battery, but the charging specs are quite significantly different; it supports 80W SuperVOOC fast-charging, and even wirelessly it can support a 50W standard. There’s little doubt that this device will able to replenish itself at an astonishing rate.

Early Verdict

The OnePlus 10 Pro will be offered in two models in the UK and Europe. The 8GB RAM/128GB model in Volcanic Black will sell for £799/€899, while the 12GB/256GB model in Emerald Forest will sell for £899/€999.

The base model of Galaxy S21 Ultra, with 128GB storage and 8GB RAM, retails for £1149. An extra £100 gets you 256GB of storage and 12GB RAM. For £1329, storage rises to 512GB and for £1499, it rises again to 1TB.

We’re not yet ready to give a definitive verdict on the two devices, but early indications are that it could be a tricky decision between the two.

The fast-charging system on the OnePlus 10 Pro seems likely to surpass that of the S22 Ultra, but Samsung’s flagship is known to have an incredible screen and a brilliant camera system that are likely to prove very difficult for OnePlus to beat, even though the specifications we know so far look promising.