As the year draws to a close, the rumored launch of the Samsung Galaxy S22 is getting closer and closer. As a result, leaks and snippets of information are accelerating, ranging from details about how similar the Galaxy S22 Ultra is to the Note to claims about a release date.

For this reason, we are now chewing through the main things we want to see from the Galaxy S22 lineup. The Samsung Galaxy S21 launched a great flagship phone at a competitive price, and the Galaxy S21 Ultra was one of the best phones of the year.

However, there is still room for improvement. So here are the main things we hope Samsung's Galaxy S22 series will offer us in early 2022.

Although the Galaxy S21 has a great camera, Samsung did not upgrade the sensor hardware in the standard model and the Galaxy S21 Plus. Rather, they worked on software improvements. That's all well and good, but we'd like to see a camera spec upgrade in each of the rumored Galaxy S22 phones. [Fortunately, the Galaxy S22 and S22 Plus are rumored to have upgraded main and telephoto cameras, with the main sensor rumored to be 50 megapixels. Coupled with improved computational photography, the Galaxy S22 could be at the top of our best smartphone camera list. And the competition is fierce, especially with the Google Pixel 6.

The current charging speed of the Galaxy S21 is 25 watts, which falls into the fast charging category, but is not the fastest; as for what kind of charging the Galaxy S22 will be capable of, one rumor claims it will stick to 25W charging, while another claims that Samsung has 25W, 45W and 65W charging are being tested.

We expect the latter, especially for the Galaxy S22 Ultra with its 5,000 mAh battery capacity. After all, a high-capacity battery is only part of the battery life equation. Also, the OnePlus 9 Pro and Oppo Find X3 Pro both offer 65W charging, so Samsung has room for improvement.

The Galaxy S21 Ultra's S Pen support was a neat addition, especially since the Samsung Galaxy Note 21 went the way of the dodo. Unlike the Note phone, however, there was no neat way to store the S Pen in the S21 Ultra unless you purchased an optional case.

However, all that could change as the Galaxy S22 Ultra is rumored to be the spiritual successor to the Galaxy Note. We expect the S22 Ultra to have an S Pen slot in its body, as the S Pen built-in storage was one of the Note's best features.

There probably isn't a huge difference in photographic technology between the top flagships, and much of it will come down to taste and consistency. However, video is likely to be the next frontier in the smartphone battle, and it is an area where Samsung is losing ground to Apple.

In our experience, the iPhone 13 series remains the king of video, delivering top-quality recordings with excellent color, detail, and white balance. iPhone 13 video modes are also very easy to use, including a new cinematic mode that offers professional-grade rack focus effects including a new cinematic mode that provides a professional-grade rack focus effect, and is extremely easy to use. For this reason, we expect Samsung to catch up a bit with the Galaxy S22.

The current Galaxy flagship is capable of up to 8K recording, but its video sophistication and quality is not as good as Apple's phones. Therefore, the Galaxy S22 will be a very welcome improvement in overall processing, stabilization, and quality, as well as functionality.

If I had to place a bet, I would put a significant amount of money on the Galaxy S22 being powered by Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip. It was thought that Samsung would use AMD's graphics accelerator in the Exynos 2200, but that rumor seems to have died down and Qualcomm's silicon will be used in the Galaxy S22.

However, it also raises the question of whether Samsung will continue the bifurcation of Galaxy flagships by offering handsets with Snapdragon chips to users in the US and China and handsets with Exynos chips to users in other regions. In the past, this has meant that those with Exynos-based phones have gotten an unfair deal by getting Galaxy handsets that do not match the performance and efficiency of their Snapdragon-powered siblings.

So we expect Samsung to finally decide to fully commit to Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and include the system-on-chip in all versions of the Galaxy S22. And furthermore, they expect the performance and AI capabilities offered by the new Snapdragon chip to be improved.

Of course, if the Exynos 2200 with AMD graphics becomes a reality and meets the expectations of a pseudo-Xbox phone, we hope it will be adopted in all regions, not just some countries.

These are the five main things I would like to see in the Samsung Galaxy S22. These may seem like fairly standard requests - see our article on what the Galaxy S22 could copy from Google's Pixel 6 for alternative ambitions. But they can all be added to make the Galaxy S22 a contender for our best phones list when the early 2022 comes calling.