Is a physical SIM slower than an eSIM?

No. The format is only how the carrier profile gets onto the phone. Once it is there, both run on the same network at the same speed with the same coverage. Anyone selling eSIM on performance grounds is selling you something else.

Do I have to remove my existing SIM to use an eSIM?

No. That is the point of the S22 keeping its tray. The physical SIM stays in and the eSIM is added as a second line, with each one assigned to whatever you want it doing.

For a one-week trip, which is the better buy?

Usually the eSIM, in our judgement. A local SIM's saving is real but on a week's data it is often small in absolute terms, and you pay for it with an errand on your first day. On a month-long trip that calculation reverses.

Can I move an eSIM profile to a different phone later?

That is set by the provider, not the handset. Some allow a transfer, some issue a new profile, some do neither. A physical SIM you simply move across, which is one more small argument for keeping the tray in use.

Does the Galaxy S22 have eSIM? Yes, and it kept the tray

Same year, opposite decision

Yes, the Galaxy S22 has eSIM. It also has a SIM tray, and in 2022 that combination stopped being a given.

That was the year Apple shipped the iPhone 14 in the United States with no SIM tray at all — eSIM only, no slot, nothing to put a plastic card into. Samsung kept both. Four years on, that decision still shapes what an S22 owner can do abroad, and it is why this page reads nothing like the iPhone 14 one.

Why the tray is still worth something

An eSIM-only handset can only use plans that are sold digitally. That is a large market and getting larger, but it is not the whole market. In a lot of countries the cheapest mobile data is still a physical prepaid SIM sold over a counter by a carrier who either has no eSIM product aimed at visitors or prices it higher when they do.

An S22 can buy either. Walk into a phone shop anywhere and whatever is on the counter will work in your phone. That optionality is worth having, and it costs you nothing to keep.

It is worth being concrete about what the other side of that choice means, because "eSIM only" sounds like a minor spec detail until it isn't. Someone holding a US iPhone 14 cannot use a SIM sold over a counter at all. Not a cheaper one, not a better one, not the emergency one a hotel desk digs out when a plan fails at the wrong moment. There is physically nowhere to put it. Every option they have must be a digital one, sold by a company willing to provision a profile remotely.

An S22 owner is never in that position. If the eSIM you bought turns out to have poor coverage where you have ended up, the fallback of buying a local SIM in a shop is still open. That is a small thing right up until the moment it isn't.

Which to use, and when

Neither format is better in the abstract. They are different purchases with different trade-offs.

A travel eSIM is bought before you go, installs over wifi at home, and has you connected the moment the plane lands. No shop, no ID, no queue. You pay some premium for that.
A local prepaid SIM is bought there, sometimes needs a passport, and costs you an errand on your first day. In exchange it is frequently the cheaper option per gigabyte, and often by a margin that is not marginal.
Both, on a longer trip: eSIM for the first day so you are never stranded, local SIM once you have found a shop and worked out what things cost.

Our country guides do this arithmetic country by country, because the answer genuinely differs — Vietnam and Portugal are worked through separately for exactly that reason. Where the local SIM wins, we say so, and those pay us nothing.

Running both at once

With the tray occupied and an eSIM installed you have two lines. Point mobile data at the eSIM, leave calls and texts on the home number so the codes and the callbacks still arrive, and turn data roaming off for the home line before you fly. That last step is what stops the phone reverting to your home carrier's roaming rates without telling you.

Confirm it before you buy a plan

Dial *#06#. An EID alongside the IMEI means the eSIM hardware is there. On an S22 it will be, but the check costs ten seconds and it also flushes out the other scenario worth knowing about: a handset that was sold locked to a carrier will accept the download and then refuse to register the profile. That is a lock problem, not a hardware one, and carriers generally unlock on request once the phone is paid off.

The full compatibility list covers the rest of Samsung's range, and our plan comparison is the next step once your handset checks out.

Galaxy S22 eSIM: Samsung took the other road in 2022