Samsung suggests the Galaxy Note is dead, but it's not really - the S Ultra is

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra
A Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra (Image credit: Future)

We must have written some version of this story a dozen times by now, but if you were still holding out hope for a Samsung Galaxy Note 22 or any future Note models, you’re almost certainly going to be out of luck, with two Samsung execs virtually confirming that we won’t get them.

First up, TM Roh (Samsung’s mobile chief) said in an interview with Bloomberg that “In the near term, our operation will focus on a two-track strategy: flagship S series in the first half of the year and innovative foldable lineup in the second half. We will keep this strategy until there’s another major breakthrough and we are working hard to make it happen.”

While Samsung will release phones beyond those (such as in the mid-range Galaxy A series), the Note range is significant enough that we’d expect it to be mentioned in that statement if any new handsets were planned.

Then, according to Phandroid, Drew Blackard (Vice President of Mobile Product Management for Samsung America) said “We see the Note as an experience these days. We’ve put the Note experience in our PCs, our tablets, our foldables … From a device perspective, we see the S22 Ultra as the natural next step for a Note owner.”

So this again doesn’t outright state that the Note series is dead, but it heavily implies it. Given the lack of a Samsung Galaxy Note 21 and all the other evidence of the series’ demise we’ve seen this last year, we really think it’s time to give up hope of ever seeing a new one.


Samsung Galaxy S22 S Pen

A Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra (Image credit: Future)

Analysis: except the Note series isn’t actually dead, the Galaxy S Ultra is

All that said, all that’s really died is the Samsung Galaxy Note name, as evidenced by the fact that the new Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is, for all intents and purposes, a Samsung Galaxy Note.

It looks like a Note, has all the power of a Note, and comes with an S Pen stylus and a slot to house it. It’s a Galaxy Note.

So what’s actually happened is that there’s no true Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra – no phone that looks like the rest of the Samsung Galaxy S22 range but with truly top-tier specs.

If this is the future of the range then the Galaxy S Ultra as we know it is gone, while the Note is alive and well – albeit with only one model launching each year, and the timing of that launch having changed.

James Rogerson

James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.