The Galaxy S21 Ultra is designed to represent the best of Samsung's mobile expertise; spanning design, performance, camera and more. That all doesn't come cheap, though.
Should I Buy The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra?
Pros
- Best camera phone to date
- Excellent performance
- Lighter than expected
- Great battery life
- Beautiful display
Cons
- No charger may irk some
- Loss of microSD slot
- It's big
- Price
Our Verdict
- The Galaxy S21 Ultra is a no-holds-barred uber-flagship with sizeable proportions and a high price, but for your money, you get the most uncompromisingly capable smartphone on the market right now
Price when reviewed
- US$1199.99
There are all sorts of concessions that you can pay to a phone depending on factors like price or its standing within a brand's portfolio; when it comes to the Pro Maxes and Ultras of this world, however, there's far less room for error.
Just as hypercars have emerged as a class above supercars, so too have phones like the S21 Ultra in the flagship space - billed as uncompromising devices that can handle anything a user dares to throw at them, without so much as breaking a sweat - albeit for a premium, of course.
The idiom 'the bigger they are the harder they fall' felt apt for last year's Galaxy S20 Ultra, which promised so much - primarily from its impressive-sounding camera specs - but underdelivered as a final product. With this year's S21 Ultra, we're hoping Samsung has righted the wrongs of its predecessor and in the same breath, created a smartphone truly fitting of the 'Ultra' moniker.
Design And Build
There's no getting around the fact that aesthetically 2020 was an off-year for Samsung's Galaxy S phones. The S20 Ultra was possibly the worst offender of the bunch; with its large glossy form rendered in flat colours and laden with an unsightly black rounded rectangle of a camera arrangement, that seemed like an afterthought.
Almost one year on and while the S21 range is undeniably an evolution of the S20 line's design, it's experienced something of a "glow-up" that brings sharper aesthetics and more confident forms to the table.
The Galaxy S21 and S21+ may turn heads with their two-tone signature Phantom Violet colourway but the Ultra comes in far more sedate finishes that draw the eye to the phone's form first and foremost, and that's no bad thing.
The 'contour cut' camera module is the new defining design element across this year's Galaxy S range and the Ultra's interpretation is the boldest and most imposing yet, spanning almost half of the phone's width (it's so big that the phone actually benefits from less-severe wobble when placed back-down on a flat surface, compared to the narrower camera arrangements of its launch siblings).
Rather than contrasting colours, it's the contrasting textures that give the S21 Ultra a more sophisticated look and feel than its competition; with a glossy colour-matched metal frame against a lightly-textured satin-finish back and camera frontage that collectively imbue the phone's aesthetics with a subtle confidence, while also deftly repelling fingerprints and smudges.
Something about the alternative Phantom Silver colourway evokes the stylings of vintage 80s Japanese tech and grant the phone a distinct retro feel as a result, while the two-tone carbon-fibre-toting Samsung.com-exclusive finishes seem poorly-considered and executed by comparison - particularly the Phantom Brown option.
Being a Samsung flagship, there's the expected top-tier fit and build quality, the absence of a headphone jack and IP68 dust and water resistance to consider too.
Display And S Pen
While 0.1in smaller than last year's entrant, you're still getting an expansive 6.8in panel to play with; using the same WQHD+ resolution, 20:9 aspect ratio and HDR10+-compliant 'Dynamic AMOLED 2X' technology.
There was little to complain about with the screen on last year's Ultra and while the expansive size and the rounded edges won't be to everyone's taste, the S21 Ultra's display is a joy to interact with; boasting stunning contrast, vibrant colours, broad dynamic range and pin-sharp clarity that nothing else (save for perhaps Oppo's Find X2 Pro) collectively comes close to matching right now.
One small improvement is a maximum peak brightness of 1500nits (up from 1400), although both this year's and last year's phones offer excellent visibility regardless, even in bright surroundings.
Where the S21 Ultra's display pulls out in front is with its ability to display content at both its native resolution and at its maximum 120Hz refresh rate, simultaneously. Last year's Galaxy S and Note devices had you choose between full resolution or super-smooth viewing; with the S21 Ultra, there are no compromises to be made in this regard.
While you can lock resolution, refresh rate (under the 'Motion Smoothness' setting) can only be dialled from 'Standard' (60Hz) up to 'Adaptive'; which means the Ultra doesn't run at 120Hz constantly but instead automatically scales from as low as 10Hz to a peak of 120, depending on the use case at hand. This dynamic adjustment isn't unique to Samsung's devices but serves as an essential means of guaranteeing respectable battery life, while also still delivering high refresh rate viewing.
S Pen
One other display party piece is - for the first time on a Galaxy S phone - support for Samsung's S Pen stylus. At launch, Samsung introduced two new styli alongside the S21 Ultra; a conventional S Pen and the still-unreleased (at the time of writing) S Pen Pro.
For most users looking to pull in Note-like functionality, the standard S Pen will do the trick (or if you have an existing Note device, their S Pens work too). Latency is excellent (when testing with the Note 20 Ultra's S Pen), with a seemingly-identical 9ms response time, or something very close to it (likely made possible by its use of an LTPO display, instead of the S21/S21+'s LTPS panel, just like the Note 20 Ultra).
While the S21 Ultra is already a more niche device compared to the standard S21 and S21+, and the subset of those who buy one who might also consider pairing the experience with an S Pen is smaller still, it's nice to see that Samsung has brought as much of the established feature set of its signature stylus to a product line that previously had nothing to do with the peripheral.
Samsung also sells numerous cases that feature a cavity to hold the S Pen, as unlike the Note, there's no integrated S Pen storage on the S21 Ultra, while we're yet to hear of any storage setup for the S Pen Pro.
Software And Features
The latest build of Samsung's user experience - One UI 3.1 - debuts on the Galaxy S21 range.
For those coming from Android devices that run closer to a stock experience (Google's, Motorola's or Nokia's, for example) One UI will take a little getting used to, although the learning curve will likely be shallower than moving to a heavier-handed skin like Oppo's ColorOS, Xiaomi's MIUI or Huawei's Emotion UI.
At the same time as ensuring One UI is distinct, the experience doesn't completely turn its back on the underlying improvements and tweaks introduced in Android 11, with notifications grouped by app category and active media playback controls contained within a dedicated carousel in the notifications shade. Samsung Free - Samsung's dedicated news and experiences feed - is also optional, with the ability to display it or replace it with Google Discover, as you'd find on a near-stock Android device.
Performance
At launch, the S21 range features as part of a rather exclusive group of phones powered by Qualcomm's latest flagship Snapdragon 888 SoC - or in markets including Europe and the UK - serve as the debut devices for the company's own top-tier Exynos 2100 chipset (as in the model tested here).
Those in Exynos-toting regions have, in the past, been driven to frustration, as the models relying on Samsung's own silicon have consistently fallen short of their Snapdragon-based doppelgängers, with regards to both performance and power efficiency.
In the lead up to the Exynos 2100's release, however, Samsung and the early benchmarks suggested that its latest chip would finally be able to hold its own against Qualcomm's 888.
While we didn't perform any side-by-side testing with the Ultra specifically, working with our colleagues at sister site PC World in the US and our respective Snapdragon and Exynos-powered base S21's, we learnt that both variants offered up a pleasing consistency.
In the wider review sphere too, while 888-toting Ultras still tend to lead over Exynos versions, the performance gap is insignificant, especially with regards to real-world use cases. Power efficiency does also still favour Qualcomm's hardware but what was once a chasm of disparity is now more of a crack that we home Samsung continues to close.
In the case of the Ultra, the phone's top-tier silicon comes accompanied by the most amount of (LPDDR5) RAM across the S21 range, with a baseline of 12GB (as tested) and a top-tier 16GB - if you fork out for the highest 512GB storage capacity model.
While fast UFS 3.1 storage is appreciated, the removal of microSD expandability across the S21 range feels like a loss, especially on the otherwise feature-crammed Ultra. The Galaxy S series has long been one of the last flagship phone families to offer such flexibility, so its removal is disappointing here.
Fixed storage aside, it's hard to argue with the rest of the hardware Samsung has chosen to slot into the S21 range and, in particular, the Ultra.
The results from our benchmarking tests, which include all three Exynos-powered S21s devices, revealed that generally speaking, the S21+ delivered the most consistent performance, although the gap between each device was negligible.
For those looking to pick the S21 Ultra up with competitive mobile gaming in mind, it's also worth dropping resolution down to Full HD+, as graphical tests place it on-par with its launch siblings by doing so (all of which are some of the highest scores we've tested on any phone).
If you're buying a phone for performance above all else, then right now, the S21 range as a whole are among the best options out there; the additional RAM packed inside the Ultra, will simply help ensure the phone can more readily multitask and remain more responsive in the long-term.
Battery Life
Battery capacity remains consistent compared to last year's S20 Ultra, at a respectably large 5000mAh. Considering the S21 Ultra is the first Galaxy device to offer 120Hz high refresh rate viewing at WQHD+ resolution, with the exception of the benchmarks specifically stated above, the device was tested with both these key display features enabled at all times.
In spite of the expected strain running the display at full tilt undoubtedly causes, the S21 Ultra's longevity is impressive, able to deliver a day's worth of heavy use, and a day and a half of more conventional use; with almost six hours of screen-on time on offer each charge.
The big caveat with the Ultra isn't charging speed so much as the charger itself - there isn't one, not in-box, at least. Samsung has followed Apple's lead and ditched in-box power adapters, meaning the Ultra comes in much more compact packaging but will also likely charge slower than the advertised maximum rate, unless you've already invested in Samsung's 25W charger.]
As such, while forking out for an official Samsung charger doesn't hold any value if you already have a fast PD charger where the Galaxy S21 and S21+ are concerned, it makes a notable difference when paired with the S21 Ultra.
Camera
As touched on earlier, the Galaxy S20 Ultra's biggest stumbling block was a bold camera setup that, in practice, underdelivered - primarily as a result of some problematic focusing issues and zoom capabilities that just weren't as impressive as Samsung had hyped them up to be.
With the S21 Ultra, the company has reworked every facet of this system and the results speak for themselves. An updated 108Mp (ISOCELL HM3) lead sensor is now supported by a laser autofocus module (as implemented on the Note 20 Ultra) and while the autofocus-capable 12Mp ultrawide is just as you'd find it on the S21 and S21+, there's new a dual telephoto zoom system that features dedicated 3x and 10x optically-magnified lenses (the latter using a periscope setup). The front-facer is also the highest resolution among the S21 range, at 40Mp (up from 10Mp).
As for focussing, the S21 Ultra is faster and far more confident in both finding and holding focus, compared to the S20 Ultra, even in low light; which is likely a result of both the addition of the laser system and the new 108Mp sensor's 'Super-PD Plus' tech.
Video capture is also some of the best tested on a smartphone, with great dynamic range, stability and zero apparent artifacting; with the versatility to move between the various lenses on the fly allowing for some really creative shooting.
The collective result is not only an improvement on the S20 Ultra and a delivery on the promises of the phone's marketing but this just might be the best camera phone on the market right now, albeit offering different strengths to its biggest contender, the iPhone 12 Pro Max.
Price And Availability
Despite the improvements made over last year's model, like its launch siblings, the S21 Ultra actually arrives with a lower opening price than its predecessor, albeit only slightly.
The phone starts at £1,149/€1,249/$1,299.99 SIM-free for the 12GB RAM/128GB storage SKU. You can double the storage for £50 more or double it again and benefit from a total of 16GB of RAM for £1,329 at the absolute top end.
If you'd rather spread the cost, Giffgaff now also offers a pay monthly handset plan (provided by Klarna) that costs just £25 upfront, plus £57.32 a month over a 24-month span.
As for alternatives, true competitors are few and far between right now, with the aforementioned iPhone 12 Pro Max being the only worthy rival out there at present, everything else sacrifices something in one area or another, or relies on less-capable hardware and software from 2020.
The S21 Ultra's early release in 2021 places it ahead of most of its expected competition, with entries from the likes of Oppo, OnePlus, Xiaomi and even Sony, just around the corner.
Verdict
The 'pros and cons' list at the start of this review should have been an early indicator of how picky we had to be to find any notable faults with the Galaxy S21 Ultra. Provided you're already aware of the product line's reputation for big screens and high prices, those aspects of this year's Ultra shouldn't really come as a shock.
The S21 Ultra goes to show that the company actually listens to feedback and actions it with the care and attention a four-figure phone like this demands. Every facet of the phone is exceptional; from its display to its performance, battery life to camera versatility; the collective effect also renders the Ultra one of the greatest all-rounders to date, befitting of its name.
Specs
- 6.8in WQHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X 10Hz-120Hz display
- Ultrasonic in-display fingerprint sensor
- Gorilla Glass Victus (front and back)
- Metal frame
- 5nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 888/Samsung Exynos 2100 SoC (market dependant)
- 12GB/16GB RAM
- 128GB/256GB/512GB non-expandable storage
- 108Mp main w/ PDAF, f/1.8, 0.8µm pixels, OIS
- 12Mp ultrawide w/ dual-pixel PDAF, f/2.2, 1.4µm pixels, 120° FoV
- 10Mp 3x telephoto w/ dual-pixel PDAF, f/2.4, 1.22µm pixels, OIS
- 10Mp 10x telephoto w/ dual-pixel PDAF, f/4.9, 1.22µm pixels, OIS
- Laser autofocus system
- 40Mp front-facing camera
- Stereo speakers
- Android 11 w/ One UI 3.1
- Samsung DeX support
- IP68 dust/water resistance
- 5G
- WiFi 6E
- UWB (ultra-wideband) support
- 5000mAh battery
- 25W fast charging (includes PD charging support)
- 10W wireless charging
- Reverse wireless charging
- 75.6mm x 165.1mm x 8.9mm
- 228 grams
- Launch colours: Phantom Black, Phantom Silver
- Samsung.com colours: Phantom Titanium, Phantom Navy, Phantom Brown
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