Samsung may be planning a number of improvements for the release of the Galaxy S22 next year However, a larger battery is reportedly not among them

A report from Dutch site Galaxy Club claims that the power pack that will be in Samsung's Galaxy S22 will be smaller than the one in this year's Galaxy S21 flagship found by Android Headlines The report, which was spotted by Android Headlines, does not provide a source for the battery change other than citing "new information that has reached us"

Galaxy Club reports that the Galaxy S22 has a rated battery size of 3,590 mAh This translates to a nominal capacity of approximately 3,700 mAh According to the Samsung Galaxy S21 spec sheet, the nominal capacity of the battery in that model is 4,000 mAh, but the rated capacity is 3,880 mAh Whichever number is used, the Galaxy S22's is smaller

If accurate, this would be a curious move on Samsung's part, as the Galaxy S21's battery life was not necessarily high In our test, which involved continuous web browsing over cellular connection until the phone turned off, the Galaxy S21 logged 9 hours and 53 minutes, an average time for a smartphone However, these results were obtained with the screen refresh rate set to 60 Hz; when the S21's adaptive display feature was enabled, the battery test results dropped by more than three hours

Rumors of the Galaxy S22's reduced battery size come at the same time that Apple is introducing a new iPhone model with a larger battery time below the average We did not have a chance to test how the larger batteries in this year's iPhones would perform, but Apple has announced that the iPhone 13 will last up to 25 hours longer than the iPhone 12

The Galaxy Club report is consistent with earlier rumors that the Galaxy S22 Plus battery will also shrink, dropping from 4,800 mAh to 4,500 mAh The Galaxy S22 Ultra's battery appears to remain at 5,000 mAh The Galaxy S21 Ultra is the only one of the three S21 models to have a good battery test and ranks on our best smartphone battery life list

If Samsung has no intention of increasing the battery size of the S22 and S22 Plus models (and we should reiterate that it is just a rumor at this point), then they will have to find another way to enhance battery life in next year's flagship models We will have to That could include a more power-efficient processor; Galaxy Club also notes that the Galaxy S22 lineup could feature Samsung's Eco2 OLED panel

The Eco2 OLED panel debuted on the Galaxy Z Fold 3, so it is possible that the Galaxy S22 lineup will also use this display technology Of course, the Galaxy Z Fold 3 also struggled in battery testing

In any case, the Galaxy S22's battery situation will need to be watched closely as the launch date for the new flagship model approaches, scheduled for early 2022