Samsung Galaxy S21 / S21+ / S21 Ultra

[Awesomesince86]

Good as shutter lag was bad on the S20 series and even fold 2.

What will be interesting to me is how improved it is with photos of kids (your own obviously) pets and moving objects. As I know this area some here have had issues with

Skin tones seem better but saf in his comparison says it’s still not where it should be

Looking forward to peoples thoughts here when you all get yours

Gotta be honest, when you said "your own obviously" I laughed out loud. Hahaha.

But yeah, one of my biggest complaints of Samsung's cameras has always been the shutter lag causes moving objects to be blurry. If they've fixed that, the cameras goes from pretty good to excellent in my eyes. People big into photography would probably still prefer on iPhone due to color accuracy and some of the RAW photo stuff, but for the average person it will be great.

I've watched a handful of reviews now, and the general consensus seems to be its the best Android phone currently available. Cant wait for it to arrive next week.

 

[mi7chy]

Amazing how far ahead of the pack apple has been for a long time now when it comes to their A series chips.

Sustained performance is more important than short boost performance plus synthetic benchmarks are useless anyway since they don't relate to real world performance. For example, iPhone 12 Pro does well on these useless synthetic benchmarks but experience frame drops/lag on games like Need for Speed No Limits.

 

[mjschabow]

Whoops. Ordered one.

 

[mjschabow]

In the Verge review, Deiter mentions specifically that the S21 Ultra has almost no shutter lag. Which is awesome if true. He says it has the best smartphone camera just behind the 12 Pro Max.

Whoops. Definitely not canceling the order either.

 

[Awesomesince86]

Sounds like the Ultra may be the new battery champ thanks to the LTPO panel and the adaptive refresh rate. Battery test videos will still favor the 12 Pro Max because those videos consist of constant gameplay and videos. But in practical use where a lot of the time you are just looking at a still screen, the Ultra will ramp down to 10hz and get excellent battery life. Some of the reviewers called it comfortably 2 day battery life.

 

[mjschabow]

Sounds like the Ultra may be the new battery champ thanks to the LTPO panel and the adaptive refresh rate. Battery test videos will still favor the 12 Pro Max because those videos consist of constant gameplay and videos. But in practical use where a lot of the time you are just looking at a still screen, the Ultra will ramp down to 10hz and get excellent battery life. Some of the reviewers called it comfortably 2 day battery life.

That's amazing. Coming from the Note 20 Ultra, I'll appreciate that.

 

[mi7chy]

Fundamentally, bigger camera sensor pixel is better than more mega pixel especially for like low light. Waiting for S21+ main 12MP/1.4um camera comparisons with S21 Ultra 108MB/0.8um to see if I want to keep my order or switch to S21+.

 

[The Game 161]

Whoops. Ordered one.

Woah! You caved before me then

 

[Ludatyk]

yeah he's never this positive about a samsung device. you can tell he just doesn't like the software.

Definitely, if he can put stock on Samsung devices... that would be his daily driver! But me, personally I prefer OneUI over Stock... don’t @ me.. Pixel lovers lol

 

[The Game 161]

Gotta be honest, when you said "your own obviously" I laughed out loud. Hahaha.

But yeah, one of my biggest complaints of Samsung's cameras has always been the shutter lag causes moving objects to be blurry. If they've fixed that, the cameras goes from pretty good to excellent in my eyes. People big into photography would probably still prefer on iPhone due to color accuracy and some of the RAW photo stuff, but for the average person it will be great.

I've watched a handful of reviews now, and the general consensus seems to be its the best Android phone currently available. Cant wait for it to arrive next week.

For sure, I’m sure we will see a fair few great android phones this year but yes this is the benchmark for android phones for sure

 

[mjschabow]

Woah! You caved before me then

Yeah the only thing I don't like is no expandable storage, but I think I'll manage.

The camera improvements and battery life is enough to get me to trade in my Note 20 Ultra.

 

[The Game 161]

Sounds like the Ultra may be the new battery champ thanks to the LTPO panel and the adaptive refresh rate. Battery test videos will still favor the 12 Pro Max because those videos consist of constant gameplay and videos. But in practical use where a lot of the time you are just looking at a still screen, the Ultra will ramp down to 10hz and get excellent battery life. Some of the reviewers called it comfortably 2 day battery life.

The adaptive refresh rate going down to 10hz is great.

Seen one review state he was sometimes going to bed on like 50-60% battery life which is stunning

 

[The Game 161]

Yeah the only thing I don't like is no expandable storage, but I think I'll manage.

The camera improvements and battery life is enough to get me to trade in my Note 20 Ultra.

What storage you go with? I’m sure you will be happy with it. Seems a close to perfect phone really certainly now both chipsets are comparable

 

[Peterg2]

Sounds like the Ultra may be the new battery champ thanks to the LTPO panel and the adaptive refresh rate. Battery test videos will still favor the 12 Pro Max because those videos consist of constant gameplay and videos. But in practical use where a lot of the time you are just looking at a still screen, the Ultra will ramp down to 10hz and get excellent battery life. Some of the reviewers called it comfortably 2 day battery life.

I have ordered the Ultra but, without raining on your (or my) parade a couple of reviews have doubts about battery endurance. I wait for something like Anandtech who are never first out of the gate:

Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra review: A capable but costly flagship | Engadget

"Clearly, there’s much more going on inside this phone than usual, so how does its battery stack up? So far, the Galaxy S21 Ultra has seemed on par with devices like the Note 20 Ultra. With the screen set to Full HD, I usually finished a day of consistent use with between five to six hours of screen-on time logged and plenty in the tank left for the following morning. For many people, the Ultra will be a multi-day phone. Just know that it’s definitely possible to drain the phone in a day without much effort, especially if you run the screen at its max resolution.

Frankly, I was expecting a little better since the S21 Ultra has a 5,000mAh battery, and because the Snapdragon 888 has a built-in modem instead of a separate module. On the whole, we’re looking at quite good — not game-changing — battery life."

Galaxy S21 Ultra, 72 hours later: 5 takeaways after using Samsung's best phone (xda-developers.com)

Too long to quote but scroll down towards the end.

 

[Awesomesince86]

I have ordered the Ultra but, without raining on your (or my) parade a couple of reviews have doubts about battery endurance. I wait for something like Anandtech who are never first out of the gate:

Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra review: A capable but costly flagship | Engadget

"Clearly, there’s much more going on inside this phone than usual, so how does its battery stack up? So far, the Galaxy S21 Ultra has seemed on par with devices like the Note 20 Ultra. With the screen set to Full HD, I usually finished a day of consistent use with between five to six hours of screen-on time logged and plenty in the tank left for the following morning. For many people, the Ultra will be a multi-day phone. Just know that it’s definitely possible to drain the phone in a day without much effort, especially if you run the screen at its max resolution.

Frankly, I was expecting a little better since the S21 Ultra has a 5,000mAh battery, and because the Snapdragon 888 has a built-in modem instead of a separate module. On the whole, we’re looking at quite good — not game-changing — battery life."

Galaxy S21 Ultra, 72 hours later: 5 takeaways after using Samsung's best phone (xda-developers.com)

Too long to quote but scroll down towards the end.

Hmm, that's different than the 5 or 6 review videos I watched. Battery life is user dependent but that LTPO screen with low adaptive refresh should stretch it out a lot.

Also, I wouldn't put too much into anandtech. They used to be great but lately they have changed their tune to bring hyper critical and ******** on every device.

But your point is taken. Guess we'll have to wait and see until more end users get them in their hands.

 

[Shanghaichica]

Camera Comparison

 

[Shanghaichica]

 

[Shanghaichica]

Review from Mr Mobile

 

[mjschabow]

What storage you go with? I’m sure you will be happy with it. Seems a close to perfect phone really certainly now both chipsets are comparable

I went with 128gb. My biggest need for extra storage is music that I can't find in Spotify. But I also realized that I can upload it to Google drive and it will show up in YT Music. So that should suffice.

 

[valinda]

I wish mine wasn’t coming on Friday. I work that day.

 

[mjschabow]

The only thing I'm worried about is if the phone will be slippery. I prefer gloss backs like the black Note 20 Ultra because it has more grip.

 

[mi7chy]

A few more camera reviews to analyze. Good thing video recording doesn't flicker in snow scene as exposed in first video.

 

[jamezr]

The FPS is blazing fast

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1352435068061421568

 

[maka344]

I have ordered the Ultra but, without raining on your (or my) parade a couple of reviews have doubts about battery endurance. I wait for something like Anandtech who are never first out of the gate:

Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra review: A capable but costly flagship | Engadget

"Clearly, there’s much more going on inside this phone than usual, so how does its battery stack up? So far, the Galaxy S21 Ultra has seemed on par with devices like the Note 20 Ultra. With the screen set to Full HD, I usually finished a day of consistent use with between five to six hours of screen-on time logged and plenty in the tank left for the following morning. For many people, the Ultra will be a multi-day phone. Just know that it’s definitely possible to drain the phone in a day without much effort, especially if you run the screen at its max resolution.

Frankly, I was expecting a little better since the S21 Ultra has a 5,000mAh battery, and because the Snapdragon 888 has a built-in modem instead of a separate module. On the whole, we’re looking at quite good — not game-changing — battery life."

Galaxy S21 Ultra, 72 hours later: 5 takeaways after using Samsung's best phone (xda-developers.com)

Too long to quote but scroll down towards the end.

Could the Exynos 2100 actually be more power efficient than the Snapdragon 888 this time round? That would be such a turn of events for sure.

 

[5105973]

The FPS is blazing fast

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1352435068061421568

That’s why I am making the change from my s20. I had no intention of giving Samsung a dime unless they did something about the FPS. One upgrade should fix my problems since my fingerprints are perfectly normal these days since I take on landscaping work only rarely now.

Unfortunately, I think the frustration of finding a good screen protector that works well with the FPS will remain a concern. I have just been using the one that came my S20. But it looks like the S21 Ultra doesn’t come with a screen protector pre installed this time. At least in the US.