Under the pressure of fast charging that domestic friends have broken through the triple digits, this year’s Galaxy S22 series has finally improved in fast charging. The Galaxy S22 Ultra and Galaxy S22+ support 45W wired fast charging, while the Galaxy S22 is still the same 25W as the previous generation. So how do the new S22+ and S22 Ultra perform in terms of charging speed?
The review team tested the pair with three chargers — Samsung’s original 45W and 25W chargers, and a third-party 65W PD charger — to good effect. Note that these two Samsung chargers support both Power Delivery (PD) and Programmable Power Supply (PPS) standards, while third-party solutions are only PD certified.
As you can see, the Galaxy S22+ reached 62% charge after 30 minutes with a 25W Samsung charger and only 64% with a 45W charger. So, what about the S22 Ultra? 61% charge after 30 minutes with a 25W charger and 60% with a 45W brick. Our third-party 65W PD charger managed to charge the Ultra’s battery to 65% in the same amount of time, but these results are all within the margin of error.
Using the 45W charger, the S22+ took 1:01 hour from 0% to full charge, 1 minute longer than using the 25W charger. Using the 25W charger to charge the S22 Ultra from 0% to full took exactly 1:04 hours, while the 45W charger completed the task 5 minutes faster, or 59 minutes. The 65W PD third-party charger took 1:02 hours.
What does this mean? Well, Samsung’s claims of 45W charging rates are downright misleading, and even when paired with an original Samsung charger, it doesn’t offer any real benefit in terms of charging time over a 25W solution.
To make matters worse, Samsung had the same problem with the Galaxy Note 10+. The company then dropped 45W fast charging on the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. After reinstating 45W fast charging on the Galaxy S22+ and S22 Ultra, the fast charging experience on specs is not achievable in real life.
There are two important revelations here. For one, if charging speed is important to you, the Galaxy S22 series is as disappointing as previous Samsung flagships. As has been the case for the past two years, you’ll need an hour to fully charge.
The second problem is that if you end up getting the S22+ and S22 Ultra, there’s no need to spend $50/€50 on a 45W Samsung charger. A 25W brick will actually do the same thing for just $20/€20.