The Android Phone I've Been Waiting For - Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra In Depth Review
I picked up a new Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra a couple of weeks ago, gave it plenty of time to test the battery, the cameras, all that good stuff, and now I'm finally bringing to you my full in depth review. There's also an unboxing video, along with some hands on looks at the Galaxy Buds Pro and some accessories, and a full deep dive about the camera lenses on my channel as separate videos. But today is all about the full review.
So, the S21 Ultra... It's now shipping in Phantom Black or Silver and Samsung exclusive colorways include Titanium, Navy, and Brown. It costs MSRP is $1199.99 for 128GB, $1249.99 for 256GB, and $1379.99 for 512GB. Included in the box: Your phone, a data cable, the sim eject tool and a quick start guide. No power adapter is included.
The phone is made out of corning gorilla glass victus on the front and back, and the frame is aluminum. It's a decent size, similar to my iPhone 12 Pro Max, at 165.1 x 75.6 x 8.9mm and 227g. The layout is similar to other S21's - The volume and bixby side button are on the side, and note that you CAN change the bixby button to just power your phone off instead of activating bixby, so I did that. USB-C and a single SIM slot is on the bottom. There are stereo speakers by AKG embedded at the bottom and hidden at the top of the display. The phone is also IP68.
The display is gorgeous. It's a 6.8", with curved edges - Quad HD+ dynamic AMOLED 2x Infinity O Display. The resolution is defaulted to FHD+ but you can increase it to QHD+, which is 3200 x 1440, at 515 ppi. This still gives you the full 120 hz refresh rate, but you may experience a slight drop in battery. The aspect ratio is 20:9, that's common, and the screen size to body size is 89.33%. When I took this out over the weekend to downtown Parker, it was super bright, 1500 nits, so I didn't even need to think about the brightness. The adaptive brightness did a great job of increasing as needed and at night, my eyes didn't feel tired thanks to the Eye Comfort technology.
You can also add the Always On Display and customize that with whatever details you want to show up while the screen is "off". - Weather... a clock... your calendar schedule... notifications... etc.
Onto the cameras! The S21 Ultra has a quad rear camera setup.
Quad rear camera:
The top one is an Ultra-wide (120°): 12MP, 1.4µm, f/2.2 - 0.6x zoom fixed focus
Next is the Main: 108-megapixels, 0.8µm pixel size, f/1.8 aperture, optical stabilisation (OIS), laser autofocus, FOV 83
Then you've got a Telephoto (3x): 10MP, 1.22µm, f/2.4, OIS, 35 FOV
and the smaller sensor is also a Telephoto (10x): 10MP, 1.22µm, f/4.9, OIS, 10 FOV - is a folded, or periscope, lens
This phone also has Laser Focus built into the design.
On the front, the Selfie camera: 40MP, 0.7µm, f/2.2, FOV 80
Video recording is just like it is on the regular S21.
You can record at several resolutions and framerates: FHD 30 and 60, UHD 30 and 60, and 8k 24. Super Steady is only available for FHD 30 and 60. Video can do digital zoom up to 12x.
Hyperlapse (basically timelapse), and slo mo are also included along with a bunch of extra filters and features in the camera app: That includes Single Take, Director's View, Panoramas, Food and night modes, pro modes for video and photo. Scene optimizer is still included, as is face retouching filters, but those can be turned off completely or enabled under the filter settings. So if you want to see a detailed comparison and review, look at my Deep Dive camera video.
Generally - videos are slightly over saturated but not overexposed. Audio from the mics was generally good but it does pick up a lot of background noise.
Photos - were generally impressive. I really liked the detail and the color balance using these four lenses. The front facing camera was also quite impressive, giving me excellent exposure even if the sun was setting behind me.
Portraits - one of the best I've seen so far. These have gotten far better than last years models.
Zoom - Still potatoes at 100x zoom but the clarity is pretty amazing all the way up to 30x zoom. Zoom Lock definitely helps with this, as it can help you keep your hand steady, but it doesn't do a good job locking onto subjects if the subject isn't clearly specified - like if the colors kind of melt together, it'll jump around a bit.
Night Mode - Actually pretty good. The Ultra did a better job than the S21 of cutting down on the overexposed signage so the brightness was a little more level with the rest of the photo. The tree was clear, and traffic lights didn't blow out my photography. It definitely wasn't bad but I do want to use this some more.
Focus - No issues. It's faster at focusing than previous gen and did better at focusing on the correct subject. The speed of capture has also increased, which may be thanks to the faster processor.
The camera gets a lot of it's tech from the AI engine and the more powerful components. For example: you get 12GB RAM 128 or 256 GB storage space, 16GB RAM with 512GB storage space. BUT, there is no sd card support, no expandable storage.
My 3D Mark Scores were comparible to chose on the S21. I hit 5606 on the new Wild Life test, and 5567 on the new stress test. This score kinda matches up with what I'd expect, because when I tested some games, it also did well with load times and had no lag or long loading times.
When it comes to general experience with this phone, it was already easy to get acclimated to it since the system is setup basically the same as the previous gens. So I was able to find everything I needed with no issues, which I appreciate since I tend to customize Samsung's OneUI 3, which brings some of the perks of Android 11, which it's built on top of, along with it's own interface additions. Additionally, S Pen Support is included on the S21 Ultra. My S-Pen is on order, so I cannot currently test this feature til it arrives.
There is still some bloatware from Samsung. many of which you can't uninstall. Pro tip: whenever you open these apps, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT check any check boxes that might pop up without reading them first, since oftentimes these are completely optional - like "I agree to accept personalized ads" - you don't have to click that box, just skip it. Samsung Dex, wirelessly linking to a pc or viewing on a tv. Samsung Pay...
Edge panels and those edge screen shortcuts are also included. And I did want to mention that accessibility features are included, like Androids new live transcribe and captions, display options, and hearing aid support.
I'm always curious about the security of new devices - and this one features Samsung Knox for hardware and software security, so that will protect the kernel from haxx, it's got the Knox Vault, and DEFEX or defeat exploit, which is used to deter rooting.
Face Unlock works but it's not as accurate as the iphones FaceID. The fingerprint sensor, on the other hand, has gotten a lot better. They include Qualcomm's new Ultrasonic Fingerprint sensor, which is not only a lot faster and isn't as bright for example, when using this at night, but more data is captured to increase accuracy, it's a bigger area, which also means it brings upgraded security.
Models vary depending on your location and carrier, but both sub 6 and mmwave versions are available, Bluetooth 5.2, up to wifi 6e, NFC, SIM (mine supports single SIM, dual and e-sim are available on certain carriers and locations). Ultra Wide Band included. UWB can be used to give you better accuracy for location - i.e. with the smart tags. I felt like call quality on this phone was fine, and I was able to use the 5G speeds on Google Fi here in Denver, no problem.
Stereo speakers made by AKG, support Dolby Atmos, no headphone jack. Speakers are on the top of the display and on the bottom rail. Well balanced, excellent clarity. Bass lacks. They sound exactly like the S21 regular.
The Battery is a 5000mAh and it supports fast wireless charging 2.0 - that'll get you 15W and Fast charging wired - at 25W. Wireless powershare works great for charging up the Galaxy Buds. So this phone went from 100% charge to about 60% in 7 hours, with that full time being used to watch Youtube videos, all radios but Wifi turned off, full resolution, adaptive refresh rate, adaptive brightness.
So I think this will be my daily driver for a while. It does define Ultra in many ways. I would still have preferred some better color options for a vibrant lifestyle like I obviously live, but that's a small tradeoff for excellent specs. I've never been incredibly impressed with the Samsung cameras, but they've made some really worthy upgrades this year, to the point where it's a big big contender. I think this is one of the best phones on the market right now. Samsung has commonly had some of the best hardware but... I often go back to vanilla android, sacrificing the better hardware, because I don't want all the bloatware - and there are still some annoyances with the software on the S21 Ultra.
Obviously, I love it, especially since my trade in helped me get it for much less than $1200. So for me, it was very much worth it. Should you buy it? Yes, if it's in your budget. If you have no need for the extra perks like the higher resolution, extra zoom, or bigger battery, then much of the experience will be similar on the S21 and S21+.
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