Galaxy S22 Ultra, complained of problems with the operation of the screen

It’s not the first time a Samsung phone with a state-of-the-art screen has seemingly inexplicable problems, with the Galaxy S22 Ultra only needing minor adjustments to the firmware.

Two years ago, the new owners of Galaxy S20 Ultra phones reported symptoms manifested by coloring the screen in shades of green, the defect being noticeable especially on dark background images. Apparently, those symptoms were only the result of insufficient optimization of the Samsung firmware, manifesting itself only with certain combinations of settings, such as setting the screen refresh rate to 120Hz, and the brightness less than 30%.

In the case of the S22 Ultra’s successor, the problems are different, taking the form of a pixelated strip across the entire length of the screen. Interestingly, the visual artifact is always reported in the same part of the screen, suggesting that the problems may be hardware. However, the intermittent nature of the symptoms described makes it unlikely to be associated with a hardware failure.

A possible suspect could be the adaptive refresh rate technology used by Samsung, which has been the subject of controversy after it was revealed that the South Korean manufacturer has “corrected” the post-release list with S22 specifications. Initially, Samsung claimed that the Galaxy S22 and S22 + models benefit from LTPO screens with a refresh rate varying between 10 and 120 Hz. This capability would have been identical to what the company already offered on past Ultra models, such as the Note20 Ultra and S21 Ultra. However, it seems that the screens on the S22 and S22 + can allow various stages of screen refresh, but not in a completely dynamic way. Thus, the two phones are now listed online with screens that allow refresh rates from 48 to 120 Hz.

It is unclear whether the adaptive refresh rate system is the source of the inconvenience, but reports so far seem to target the Galaxy S22 Ultra editions with the Exynos 2200 chipset, not the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 platform.

Although Samsung has not officially confirmed the reported issues, we can be sure that the incidents are already under investigation, with a view to remedying them as soon as possible.