The Samsung Galaxy S22’s release date is the subject of hot debate amongst leakers, with Jon Prosser suggesting that the pre-order window will open in the second week of February, and Ice Universe claiming that it’s still set to be a January handset.
But with the consensus that early 2022 is the goal, production has to begin ramping up in earnest. Sure enough, that’s now happening, according to German site WinFuture.
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The site claims that Samsung began production of the flex cables that connect the internals of the S22 family together in the middle of last week at its factories in Asia, with volumes already hitting tens of thousands.
There were some early quality control issues, the site reports, but no more than generally expected in the early stages of production. Components for the regular Samsung Galaxy S22, Plus/Pro and Ultra are all being produced in parallel, though the site notes that the Note-like Galaxy S22 Ultra is set to be heavily marketed in the United States, with the more pocket-friendly units pushed hard in other territories.
It’s encouraging to hear that production is being ramped up now, as the ongoing delays to the Galaxy S21 FE prove that even a company of Samsung’s size isn’t immune to the perils of the global chip shortage. Like the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Z Flip 3, the S22 is a key product for the company, and you’d imagine Samsung will be working hard to ensure the phone is available in reasonable quantities early next year.
This could be the first phone to benefit from Samsung’s partnership with AMD and the potential game changing graphical boost this could provide with the Exynos 2200 chip. However, the Exynos chip that could offer this will be, according to the leaker FrontTron, in pretty short supply and reserved for select regions. The rest of the world will likely be given whatever Qualcomm has up its sleeve, likely the Snapdragon 898.
Does this production schedule shed any more light on whether it’s going to be Jon Prosser’s February prediction, or Ice Universe’s January one? Not really, as the WinFuture report says, Samsung devices tend to enter mass production two-to-three months ahead of release which means either leaker could still prove to be correct.
Speaking of leakers and accuracy, there's another rumor that has the Samsung Galaxy S22 line up is slated to get a price increase, with the Galaxy S22 Ultra getting a notably hike in price.
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