The Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G, unveiled aboard Samsung ‘s Galaxy S21 and S21 Plus phones, proves that sometimes you have to do something doubly to get it right. While just ampere bold as last year ‘s Galaxy S20 Ultra, the S21 Ultra is a polish second take on the concept. There ‘s still the 100x Space Zoom, but it ‘s easier to use. There is still the “ boastfully for the sake of being boastfully ” design, but it looks more attract. And there ‘s still a high price, but at $ 1,200 ( £1,149, AU $ 1,849 ) it costs $ 200 less than the S20 Ultra in the US. If you want the absolute best specification and features, the S21 Ultra is undoubtedly appealing. The phone will besides attract television camera nerds, thanks to the improvements. The summation of S-Pen hold — it ‘s the inaugural Galaxy S telephone to support the stylus — will probably catch the eye of Galaxy Note users looking for a different choice .
8.9
Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G
Like
- gorgeous apparition black stopping point
- Two telephotograph cameras
- The screen is dramatic
- S-Pen support
Don’t Like
- It ‘s heavy
- Lacks a microSD card slot
- $ 1,200 is still expensive
final class ‘s Ultra model seemed like it came out of nowhere. It was a telephone all about surfeit that, by plain destine, was launched at the begin of a global pandemic and recession. Its bluff, behemoth take on the Galaxy S wrinkle was undercut by its $ 1,400 ( £1,199, AU $ 1,999 ) price and issues with its closely domino-size television camera system. overall, the S21 Ultra is a major update both in terms of hardware and software over the S20 Ultra. And when you factor in a lower price, it all kind of makes sense. And that ‘s why the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra earned a CNET ‘s Editors ‘ Choice Award. The whole Galaxy S21 batting order is available to purchase — here ‘s how you can buy one .
Watch this:
We review the Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G and its bonkers cameras
Read more: Samsung Galaxy S21 vs. S21 Plus vs. S21 Ultra
The Galaxy S21 Ultra has the best black finish
I would n’t call the S21 Ultra ‘s design radically different, but my review unit has the best black finish I ‘ve ever seen on a call. It ‘s the stuff that goth dreams are made of. The color is called apparition black, and seeing it in person makes you understand why Samsung made a closely three-minute video recording explaining the blackest black polish. The S21 Ultra besides comes in apparition silver and there are limited-edition phantom finishes in titanium, brown and navy, which can only be found on. The television camera dislodge is large and melts into the sides of the telephone, which are glossy black. And while the unconstipated S21 and S21 Plus looks snazzy in their two-tone colors, the all-black S21 Ultra is cool, elegant and badass all at the same meter. Read more: Galaxy S21 drop test : It broke on the beginning drop The S21 Ultra is heavier than last year ‘s S20 Ultra and the iPhone 12 Pro Max. It ‘s the second heavy call I have tested in the by class, precisely behind the Asus ROG Phone 3 .
The display is brighter and adds S-Pen support
Around the front is one of the most impressive displays I ‘ve seen. It has a Wide Quad HD settlement and a variable star freshen rate between 10 and 120Hz, which is determined by what ‘s on the screen. And just to be clear, it can be set to 120Hz without the strike to resolution that the S20 Ultra had. The 6.8-inch display is bright and the contrast is gorgeous. Covering the front and rear is Corning ‘s Gorilla Glass Victus . Sarah Tew/CNET Under the blind is a larger supersonic fingermark reader which feels bouncing. I had a hard clock telling if it was faster than the one on the S20 Ultra. The display besides has S-Pen subscribe. The Galaxy Note phones line always tempted me, but I did n’t think I ‘d use the S-Pen adequate to justify getting one. I like the iPad Pro-Apple Pencil approach Samsung took with the S21 Ultra. Without an S-Pen, you can still enjoy using the S21 Ultra. But if you ‘re S-Pen curious, you can buy a fresh S-Pen or find an old one and it will work. There ‘s a lot you can do like draw, take notes and sign documents. I love editing photos and making adjustments with the S-Pen. There are a few S-Pen considerations. The S21 Ultra does n’t come with an S-Pen and does n’t support Bluetooth or gesture functionality. For exemplar, the S21 Ultra ca n’t send you a notification if you leave your S-Pen behind. besides, the Ultra does n’t have a built-in slot to store an S-Pen. Samsung does sell cases for the earphone that include S-Pen storage .
The S21 Ultra has two telephoto cameras
The S21 Ultra ‘s camera system received several meaning updates. There are four rear cameras : one wide, one ultrawide and two telephotograph cameras. The time-of-flight detector on the S20 Ultra is gone ; in its invest is a laser autofocus module. The 108-megapixel detector on the main camera is modern and has better autofocus for both photos and videos. There ‘s even a new focus foil cock that pops onscreen to help the earphone focus faster. The tool looks like it might be switching to a wide opinion to do so. Read more: S21 Ultra vs. iPhone 12 Pro Max vs. Pixel 5 : Which telephone has the best night mood ? Patrick Holland/CNET The dual-telephoto cameras add a total of benefits. One has 3x exaggeration and the early 10x. This means when you zoom in, there are two places in your zoom roll where the persona is n’t cropped and where you ‘ll capture the best image quality. Another benefit is stability. The two cameras are paired to help make zoom in, even at 100x, easier and more brace. At 30x or higher, a zoom lead appears to help you find the specific touch that you ‘re zoomed in at. You can lock it indeed the cameras do n’t move, which turns the guidebook jaundiced. This works quite well. obviously you have to be careful not to move the call around excessively much, but it ‘s less finical and frustrating than the S20 Ultra .
Photos from the S21 Ultra are excellent, with full detail and a wide-eyed dynamic range. There is a 108-megapixel mode, but I found that the 12-megapixel photos that come from pixel binning attend systematically bang-up. Below are several photos I took with the S21 Ultra . Patrick Holland/CNET Patrick Holland/CNET Patrick Holland/CNET Patrick Holland/CNET Patrick Holland/CNET In first gear unaccented, the S21 Ultra ‘s night manner is outstanding. Flaring on the lens is minimized and photograph look bright without a bunch of double noise or noise-reduction smear. Below are a few night mode photograph I took : Patrick Holland/CNET Patrick Holland/CNET Patrick Holland/CNET For selfies there ‘s the lapp 40-megapixel camera that the S20 Ultra had. You now have an option to change the coloring material tone to either brilliantly or natural which is excellent . Patrick Holland/CNET Samsung added the ability to take raw 12-bit color photograph. There ‘s a new video have called Director ‘s View, which gives you a thumbnail preview of the video feeds coming from all of the cameras on the phones. As you record, you can switch between them. Within Director ‘s View, there ‘s a vlogger apparatus that gives you a side-by-side television see or a stacked one if you ‘re shooting vertically. This means you can record yourself with the selfie camera and show what you ‘re seeing or reacting to with any of the back cameras. On newspaper, Director ‘s View seemed like something I might try once and not very use. But after some prison term using it, some people will decidedly be into the feature. A downside to Director ‘s View is that the final examination video is saved in HD rather of 4K or 8K. I ‘d love to see a similar thumbnail preview interface of all the rear cameras when recording a regular 4K television. I ‘m excite to pit the S21 Ultra and its cameras against the iPhone 12 Pro Max and Google Pixel 5. Each phone takes a different approach to photography and will appeal to different people.
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S21 Ultra has a Snapdragon 888 chip and 12 or 16GB of RAM
Powering the S21 Ultra is the raw Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chip, along with 12GB of RAM, or 16GB in the most expensive model — which besides has 512GB of storehouse ( see the chart below for prices ). In my benchmark tests, the S21 Ultra scored better than last year ‘s S20 Ultra. And in use, it handled everything I threw at it, even playing Xbox Game Pass Ultimate games on it . Sarah Tew/CNET Supplying juice to the phone is a 5,000-mAh battery. I ‘ve easily been averaging a day and a half on a single appoint. Battery tests on the S21 Ultra for continuous video playback on Airplane mode clocked an average of 22 hours and 57 minutes with the review rate set to Auto 120Hz. That ‘s actually an hour less than the S20 Ultra lasted in the same test. Though keep in take care, in real global habit my colleague Jessica Dolcourt found the S20 Ultra ‘s battery drained like it was being bitten by a “ thirsty vampire. ” Below are the results of my benchmark tests for the S21 Ultra .
3DMark Slingshot Unlimited
Galaxy S21 Ultra
10,088
Galaxy S20 Ultra
9,553
Asus ROG Phone 3
10,646
iPhone 12 Pro
11,494
Note:
Longer bars indicate better performance
Geekbench v.5.0 single-core
Galaxy S21 Ultra
1,107
Galaxy S20 Ultra
771
Asus ROG Phone 3
999
iPhone 12 Pro
1,605
Note:
Longer bars indicate better performance
Geekbench v.5.0 multicore
Galaxy S21 Ultra
3,414
Galaxy S20 Ultra
3,201
Asus ROG Phone 3
3,439
iPhone 12 Pro
4,107
Note:
Longer bars indicate better performance
Android 11 and 5G support
The Galaxy S21 Ultra runs Android 11 with Samsung ‘s OneUI 3.1 lead layer. And I like it a distribute. I can now default to Google Pay or Google Discover News feed alternatively of Samsung ‘s versions. The expect for everything from settings to pop-up book windows is clean and contemporary. And with a telephone this adult, OneUI helps make it easier to use one-handed.
last, the Galaxy S21 Ultra has 5G and supports both sub-6 and mmWave flavors of 5G. You should n’t get the Ultra for its 5G. But as 5G networks get better, so will your 5G speeds and connection. And then we ‘ll truly have something to talk about .
Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra specification vs. Galaxy S20 Ultra, Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, Galaxy Note 20
Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra
Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra
Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra
Samsung Galaxy Note 20
Display size, resolution
6.8-inch AMOLED 2X, 3,200×1,440 pixels
6.9-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X
6.9-inch; 3,088×1,440 pixels
6.7-inch; 2,400×1,080 pixels
Pixel density
515 ppi
511ppi
496ppi
393ppi
Dimensions (Inches)
2.97×6.5×0.35 in
2.99×6.57×0.35 in
6.49×3.04×0.31 in
6.36×2.96×0.33 in
Dimensions (Millimeters)
75.6×165.1×8.9mm
76.0×166.9×8.8mm
164.8×77.2×8.1mm
161.6×75.2×8.3 mm
Weight (Ounces, Grams)
8.07 oz; 229g
7.76 oz; 220g
7.33 oz, 208g
6.84 oz, 194g
Mobile software
Android 11
Android 10
Android 10
Android 10
Camera
108-megapixel (wide-angle), 12-megapixel (ultrawide), 10-megapixel (3x telephoto), 10-megapixel (10x telephoto)
108-megapixel (wide-angle), 48-megapixel (telephoto), 12-megapixel (ultrawide), time-of-flight camera
12-megapixel (ultrawide), 108-megapixel (wide-angle), 12-megapixel (telephoto)
12-megapixel (ultrawide), 12-megapixel (wide angle), 64-megapixel (telephoto)
Front-facing camera
40-megapixel
40-megapixel
10-megapixel
10-megapixel
Video capture
8K
8K
8K
8K
Processor
Snapdragon 888
Snapdragon 865 Plus
Snapdragon 865 Plus
Snapdragon 865 Plus
Storage
128GB, 256GB, 512GB
128GB, 512GB
128GB, 512GB
128GB
RAM
12GB, 16GB
12GB, 16GB
12GB
8GB
Expandable storage
No
Up to 1TB
Up to 1TB
No
Battery
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
4,500 mAh
4,300 mAh
Fingerprint sensor
In-screen
In-screen
In-screen
In-screen
Headphone jack
No
No
No
No
Special features
IP68 rating, 5G-enabled, 100x Space Zoom, 10W wireless charging, 10x optical zoom
5G enabled; 120Hz refresh rate; 100x zoom; water resistant (IP68)
120Hz screen refresh rate, 5x optical zoom, 120Hz display; UWB sharing, S-Pen stylus; 5G connectivity; Wireless PowerShare; water resistant (IP68)
S-Pen stylus; 5G connectivity; Wireless PowerShare; water resistant (IP68)
Price off-contract (USD)
$1,200 (128GB), $1,250 (256GB), $1,380 (512GB)
$1,399 (128GB), $1,599 (512GB)
$1,300 (128GB), $1,450 (512GB)
$1,000
Price (GBP)
£1,149 (128GB), £1,199 (256GB), £1,329 (512GB)
£1,199 (128GB), £1,399 (512GB)
£1,179
£849 (4G) and £949 (5G)
Price (AUD)
AU$1,849 (128GB), AU$1,949 (256GB), AU$2,149 (512GB)
AU$1,999 (128GB), AU$2,249 (512GB)
AU$1,849 (4G) and $AU$1,999 (5G)
AU$1,499 (4G) and AU$1,649 (5G)
first base published Jan. 21 .