Samsung made the switch to display panels with Quad HD resolution on its flagship phones almost a decade back, and a few years later, the company introduced the option to change the display resolution on flagship Galaxy phones.
Almost every flagship Galaxy phone since the Galaxy Note 4 has featured a Quad HD+ display panel, but back in 2017, Samsung stopped shipping flagship phones with the highest resolution enabled by default.
Instead, each Galaxy flagship the last few years has given users the option to switch between various resolutions. On the Galaxy S22 Ultra, for example, screen resolution options include HD+, Full HD+, and WQHD+, with Full HD+ enabled by default out of the box (or it might have been WQHD+; I don't really remember).
This was clearly a move Samsung made to improve the battery life on its top-of-the-line phones. And it makes sense, too: For displays that don't reach even 7 inches in size, Full HD+ is an option that has the best compromise between battery life and the sharpness of anything you see on the screen.
There are plenty of Samsung fans who make the switch to WQHD+ resolution as soon as they buy a new premium phone from the Korean giant, but what about HD+, the lowest resolution found on these phones? Well, I enabled that for a few days on my Galaxy S22 Ultra, and I have to say I've been unable to find any real-world differences in display sharpness or even battery life.
My Galaxy S22 Ultra pretty much lasts the same amount of time on both Full HD+ and HD+ resolutions. In fact, I'm not sure battery life is affected much by using the WQHD+ option, either, despite what Samsung says when you go into the screen resolution settings.
The same goes for sharpness. The way Samsung shows it in the screen resolution settings, the Full HD+ option can come off as pixelated and have prominent jagged edges while HD+ should be completely unbearable to use, but that's just an exaggeration. In actual use, it's hard to differentiate between them.
Of course, this is my personal experience, and many of you might have noticed different battery life outcomes when using different screen resolutions on your Samsung Galaxy flagship or can notice a difference in sharpness. I can't, however, and I feel that even having the option to switch screen resolutions is unneeded.
In essence, the point I'm trying to convey here is that switching screen resolutions on Galaxy phones that offer you the option feels like a gimmick. Some of you probably have noticed it's useless, but I never tried using the HD+ setting for a few days at a stretch before. I have now, and I wish changing screen resolution would actually have an impact. It probably does in games where a lower resolution means higher frame rates, but in day-to-day use, it's barely — if at all — noticeable.
What about you? What screen resolution do you use on your flagship Samsung Galaxy phone? Did you even know you could change resolutions in the first place? The comments section is open, so come join me and discuss!
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