Samsung Galaxy S22+ 5G S906U 128GB GSM/CDMA Unlocked Android Smartphone (USA Version) - Phantom Black (Renewed)

Well, the S22+ is an excellent phone. Yes, I've lost the microSD card and aux port from my S10+, but it's actually faster at everything. Be it loading a game/app or installing updates. This phone doesn't even get warm through my case. The camera is great. These phones are coming with Samsung AI with the OneUI versions it has and updates to. And it should be getting OneUI 7, I believe, this year along with the next Android update.I'd definitely buy it again. Screen looks great. It does better with memory management than my S10+ did, even though both have 8GB RAM.I prefer to get these phones that are 2-3 years old but never used because I save 75-80% on the price of a new phone while being able to do everything that they can do. Then I do it again when the battery life runs down enough to be a hinderance.It's the first Galaxy to introduce the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 line up. And if it matters to anyone, the 128GB model uses UFS 3.1 storage. Quite fast. S10+ was on UFS 2.1, and we know it was fast. This practically doubles all speeds in speed tests... maybe even more so.But, yes, when I swipe the screen, it swipes. No hitches, stutters, glitching, nothing. Same for opening apps. It is ALWAYS... FAST. Battery life? I saw complaints about batter life from reviews a couple of years ago. I think they've fixed a lot of that over the years with updates. I wouldn't say it has the BEST battery life by any means, but it lasts. And if you turn on power saving (the regular power saving option), it really just sips on the battery. Then without power saving, you have 3x levels of power settings to choose from. So far, for me, I've been happy with "Optimized" the lowest level.Anyways, to cut it short, I've had zero issues with the phone. No overheating, no crashes, freezes, glitches, stutters, nothing. It's a great phone, with a great screen and amazing cameras.

The phone I ordered was listed as excellent and came with some cosmetic damage around the frame, the front and rear glass was fine and after setting it up and charging it to 100 and running AccuBattery through a full cycle it came in as 85% of the design capacity which exceeds Amazon's criteria of 80%.The battery is almost as bad as my S9 battery for how quickly it discharges and that phone is very old, so I'll be running this phone on locationless power saving mode permanently and using maximum battery protection to keep it from charging over 80%. Honestly Samsung should never have released this line with such a bad battery.The screen is quite a bit larger than my S9 and it not being curved is amazing. Samsung should never have introduced curved screens but... well it happened and I am definitely happy that they went back, although I can't blame misspellings on the poor screen now.Sadly there is no headphone jack or microSD slot as us niche users who adored such technology seemingly don't matter and getting everyone spending money on microtransactions has been the focus for a while now anyway.Tested the camera and it's quite nice, the landscapes of Arrested Development will look like what they actually are, not to mention it's an improvement over the cursed images from the S9 camera I used to use as a "last known photo" generator.Why the resolution of the phone decreased I'll never know but perhaps it's a good thing as the battery can't hold up against a potato.As for using the phone, well I got it working for most things although Duolingo no longer believes I am speaking so there is going to be a bit of faffing about to do.Ideas: The phone functions, it's compatable with something I dunno, the phone does have a brightness slider (weird that was in the ideas list), and the phone weighs about as much as a phone.

I'll come back to this review every once in a while as I continue to use the phone.EDIT2: 7/9/2023 Okay the line is not going away after locking and waking the phone like it did before. You can see in the second picture, it's faint, but it's there (ignore the orange glow, that's from my old s7 that can't take pictures of other screens without struggling).The fact that it wouldn't go away makes me think it's getting worse. I had to restart it this time to make it disappear. Went ahead and started the refund process because it seems like it's getting worse. Unfortunate because this was labeled as an excellent condition phone too. I guess it's hit or miss what you get when you buy refurbished. I'm not a phone repairman, so I'm not going to be able to open it up and figure it out. I'm just gonna refund this and get a different phone to avoid the problem happening again.EDIT: Okay, it's been 4 days since the review. Woke this morning and unlocked my phone, typical. Was adjusting notification volume settings then all of a sudden BAM, bright PINK (not green this time) line right through the same spot as usually from top to bottom of the screen. Wanted to take a picture with my old phone but was afraid of leaving the error on the screen for too long (was busy using restroom) so I locked the phone and unlocked it again and the line went away. Man... I might return this thing because this is scaring me.So far the phone has been pretty great. One thing's for sure though, it's crazy the difference (s7 to s22+) 2 oz of weight (including cases) can feel while holding it. This thing feels like I'm holding a brick compared to my old phone lol.All of these things that I am giving it accolades for are, of course, from a biased perspective of somebody who has used the s7 since it's launch, so take it with a grain of salt if you are coming from something like an s20 or later.Great/Solid battery, Great performance, Great visuals. Little heavy though. Those are the main points.Since it is refurbished, the only actual visible damage you can see well is the small scratch at the bottom left corner of the screen (as seen in picture) that is on the glass for a length of about 2mm and then goes off to the side a bit. Not a problem though, it's quite out of the way. Saving around $350 just to have a scratch on the screen is quite the deal. I make my phones last, so this thing is going to be built like a tank by the time I'm done putting protective layers and cases on it.(This is the reason for the 4/5 and not 5/5) So far my only real scare with this phone (purchased as an excellent condition renewed s22+ with 256gb storage from Macalegin Electronics) is, since I've received it as of June 29th, it's now July 3rd, it's had this very thin vertical green line from the top of the screen to the bottom of the screen 3 times upon waking the phone. Seems to really only happen when I wake the phone. If I see it again I'll try to take a picture with my old phone and add it to the review.First time it happened I kinda had a mini freak-out, thinking that this is the end of having this phone and I gotta return it before it's too late and it gets worse.If it does get worse and more frequent, then I will get the refund because that's unacceptable as an excellent condition phone.Some people online say that it is because of a loose connection from the motherboard to the screen panel (I don't know the actual technical lingo), usually caused by the phone being dropped. Well, it's "brand new" to me, so it wasn't me who dropped it.Either way, the phone is great except for that scare. To be honest though, I do miss my more compact and sleek phone designs. I do kinda wish I had gotten the s22 instead, but I wanted to see what it's like having a bigger screen. Well, we'll see as the years go by.