Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra review

The Galaxy S21 Ultra has surpassed the limits of any other Samsung phone in the past, with leaps and bounds in camera zoom technology, performance, battery life, and display.

The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is the leader among the best budget Android phones. It offers all the features you could want in a phone, especially if you prefer large screens. Although it lags behind other competitors, it is still a great device for all Android enthusiasts. For $1,199, $100 more than the iPhone 13 Pro Max (guarded), you get a dynamic 6.8-inch display and a dual telephoto lens for crazy zoom performance. The S21 Ultra also supports the S Pen, a first for the Galaxy S series.

The Galaxy S21 Ultra has a slimmer design and offers faster performance thanks to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 chip. And unlike the regular Galaxy S21, you don’t have to compromise. You get a better 108-megapixel main camera, a glass back (instead of plastic), more RAM, and a higher resolution display. Samsung’s new all-in-one phone does very well this time: more and better cameras, more powerful features, reliable battery life, and even S Pen compatibility, so we have little to complain about. This is a big difference from its predecessor, the S20 Ultra, which had similar ambitions but failed on many fronts.

While Snapdragon 888 phones are still waiting, the new Exynos 2100 finally bridges the gap and makes the S21 series feel as powerful and efficient as a super-premium phone should be. Gone is the mediocre performance and battery unreliability that have been the Achilles’ heel of Galaxy flagships for years. The five cameras, led by a 108-megapixel sensor, two telephoto lenses, a 100x zoom, and 40-megapixel selfies, plus 5G and up to 16 GB of RAM, are all packed into an Android phone with a 6.8-inch 120-Hz Quad HD display and an improved on-screen fingerprint sensor with 1.7 times the area of last year’s phone.

Design

The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is a monolith of a phone. Sure, the contour-cut camera design blends the camera protuberance with the glass back, but it is still a massive device that you want to use with two hands. With a 0.35-inch profile and a weight of 8.08 ounces, the S21 Ultra is thicker and heavier than the iPhone 12 Pro Max. The display is gently curved, but not distracting, unlike the regular Galaxy S21, which is completely flat. We never accidentally touched anything on the screen as happened with last year’s Ultra.

The Galaxy S21 Ultra is only available in two colors: Phantom Black and Phantom Silver. We would choose the black for its slimming effect. However, Samsung.com offers exclusive colors for the S21 Ultra such as Phantom Navy, Phantom Titanium and Phantom Brown. Best Buy also has an exclusive navy color scheme. One of our favorite design upgrades is the 1.7 times larger fingerprint sensor. Unlocking the phone is easier, and we noticed that the S21 Ultra did not ask us to press the sensor again as in previous phones.

Display

The Galaxy S21 Ultra’s 6.8-inch Dynamic AMOLED display is one of the best screens on a phone. It’s bright, vibrant and doesn’t let you choose between higher resolution and higher refresh rate like its predecessor. Yes, you will be mesmerized when you watch videos on this phablet. Colors are as rich as ever and viewing angles are wide when watching Netflix. But the Ultra outperforms the iPhone with its dynamic refresh rate. Not only do you get ultra-smooth scrolling and gameplay, but 120Hz and Quad HD resolution at the same time.

Therefore, you do not need to choose between the maximum resolution and the maximum refresh rate. The S21 Ultra is also smart enough to automatically reduce the refresh rate to 10 Hz to save energy. The S21 Ultra’s display is easy to read outdoors, as it can reach a nominal brightness of 1,500 nits. In our tests, the S21 Ultra achieved an average of 821 nits, surpassing the 654 nits of the iPhone 12 Pro Max. The S21 Ultra’s display proved to be very colorful in our lab tests, with the panel delivering 81.4% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, compared to 84.8% for the iPhone 12 Pro Max.

Software

The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra was launched with Samsung’s One UI 3.1 based on Android 11. The One UI 3.0 brought a number of new features, such as support for bubble notifications, quick access to widgets, more precise volume control, and introduction of the Samsung Free. The 3.1 update brings a number of small improvements, such as background call videos, director’s view in videos, and the ability to record simultaneously with the front and rear cameras.

On the left home screen, Samsung offers the option of using Google Discover or Samsung Free. Samsung Free is a new service very similar to the old Bixby House and offers many free Samsung apps and services such as Pluto TV. On some variants of the phone, Samsung has also set many Google apps as defaults, such as Google Messages for SMS.

That’s not the case with the US model, however, as Samsung Messages is still set as the default option. Overall, the One UI is unmistakably Samsung. The company has managed to cement a certain style in its user interface since it introduced One UI with the Galaxy S10 series, and it remains instantly recognizable. Most elements of the UI are rounded, which complements the curves of the Galaxy S series devices.

Hardware and Performance

The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is equipped with the latest Exynos 2100 chipset, manufactured by Samsung itself on a 5nm node. The chipset clocked at 2.9 GHz as a high-performance core has a Mali-G78 MP14 graphics processor and up to a whopping 16 GB of RAM. It has a blazing fast UFS 3.1 storage system with a maximum of 512 GB, but unfortunately there is no memory card slot available. The Exynos 2100 SoC is available for international variants, while the Chinese and North American variants have Snapdragon 888 SoC on board.

The chipset comes in a tri-cluster arrangement with a maximum frequency of 2.9GHz, allowing it to take on heavy tasks no matter what, while the four battery-efficient cores at 1.8GHz handle other everyday tasks. The chipset takes on a whopping 46 percent improvement and offers the best graphics processing. A UFS 3.1 storage system is blazing fast, while the 12GB and 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM make it a must-have, although we would not recommend it if you are a hardcore gamer. This is because you get high-end gaming phones for half the price of the Galaxy S21 Ultra.

Camera

The camera system of the S21 Ultra received several important updates. There are four rear cameras: one wide-angle, one ultra-wide-angle and two telephoto cameras. The S20 Ultra’s time-of-flight sensor is gone; in its place is a laser autofocus module. The main camera’s 108-megapixel sensor is new and has better autofocus for photos and videos. There’s even a new focus booster tool that pops up on-screen to help the phone focus faster. The tool looks like it will switch to a wider view to do this. The dual telephoto cameras offer a number of advantages.

One has a 3x magnification and the other a 10x. This means that when you zoom in, there are two places in your zoom range where the image is not cropped and where you get the best image quality. Another benefit is stability. The two cameras are paired to make zooming easier and more stable, even at 100x magnification. At 30x or higher, a zoom guide appears to help you find the exact point you zoomed in on.

You can lock it so the cameras don’t move, which will turn the guide yellow. That works quite well. Of course, you have to be careful not to move the phone too much, but it’s less finicky and frustrating than the S20 Ultra. Photos from the S21 Ultra are excellent, with good detail and a wide dynamic range. There’s a 108-megapixel mode, but I found the 12-megapixel photos, which come from pixel binning, to look consistently great.

Battery Life

Samsung has made good use of the S21 Ultra’s large body by fitting it with a large 5,000mAh battery. Combined with the 5nm chipset, it offers the best battery life we have seen on a Samsung flagship in years, easily lasting a full day. Most of our testing was done at FHD+ resolution with a 120Hz refresh rate, and we were able to consistently get 5-6 hours of screen-on-time. Also helpful is the fact that the 120Hz refresh rate is variable. It’s technically “up to 120Hz,” so it won’t be as high if it doesn’t have to be, saving your battery.

Samsung’s backend software automatically adjusts between 11Hz and 120Hz depending on your activity: reading an eBook (low) vs playing a 3D game (high). On the loading front, however, the situation isn’t nearly as exciting. First, no charger is included, so you’ll need to resort to another adapter that has a USB Type-C output. Secondly, the fast charge is only 25W, which is much less than what we are used to from Android smartphones.

Price and Availability

The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is harder to find these days-Samsung does not even offer it anymore. You can still find it at other retailers and operators, but be sure to pay less than the launch price of $1,199, because then you will get a newer Galaxy S22 Ultra. At the time of writing, Best Buy is selling an operator-locked version of the Galaxy S21 Ultra for $849, while unlocked versions are available on Amazon for $750.

Purchasing a refurbished Galaxy S21 Ultra could bring the price down even further. The entry-level S21 Ultra includes 12 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage. You can also upgrade to 256 GB of storage and a model with 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage. The 256 GB model cost $1,249, or $50 more, while the Galaxy S21 Ultra with 512 GB of storage costs $1,379.

Be sure to check our Samsung promo codes page for any remaining offers and discounts on this older phone. In the UK, the Galaxy S21 Ultra debuted at £1,149 for the base model with 12 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage. The price rose to £1,199 for the 256 GB model and to £1,329 for the 16 GB model with 512 GB of internal storage.

Conclusion

The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is not a cheap device. But considering the specifications it contains, we wouldn’t call it too expensive either. Many phones have been launched with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888, but the Galaxy S21 Ultra was one of the first available in the United States and still one of the best.

Also, if you want 10x optical zoom, the choice is between the S21 Ultra and the Huawei P40 Pro Plus, and only one of these is easy to buy and has full access to Google services. Interestingly, Samsung seems to be pushing customers toward the S21 Ultra with its latest evolution of the Galaxy S series.

Lucas Simonds
Lucas Simonds
Lucas Simonds is a skilled content editor at Bollyinside, specializing in "How to" and "Tips & Tricks" articles focused on Gaming, Software, and Apps. With a genuine passion for video games, he not only writes about them but also actively engages in gaming. His commitment to providing insightful and approachable content has earned him a trusted reputation within the online community.

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The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is not a cheap device. But considering the specifications it contains, we wouldn't call it too expensive either. Many phones have been launched with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888, but the Galaxy S21 Ultra was one of the first available in the United States and still one of the best.Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra review