Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra review

The Galaxy S21 Ultra is shaping up as the ultimate cameraphone but aside from its cameras, it's also at the top of the food chain in all other smartphone aspects. In this video, we have the Exynos version of the S21 Ultra and we cover its top features, build and screen quality, battery life, and performance. We'll leave the camera aspects for another in-depth video.

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[video timestamps/chapters]
0:00 Intro
0:46 Design and build, IP68
1:30 6.8’’ Dynamic AMOLED 2x display with QHD resolution
2:44 S-Pen stylus support
3:14 Battery life test (5,000mAh)
3:38 No in-box charger, charging speed test
4:00 Wi-Fi 6E
4:10 Quad camera specs
4:31 Selfie camera specs
4:47 Daylight image quality
5:44 Low-light image quality
6:42 Selfies
6:53 Video quality
7:08 Camera recap
7:28 Ultrasonic fingerprint reader
7:36 Stereo speakers and audio quality
8:01 No headphone jack, microSD slot
8:19 Exynos 2100 performance
9:03 Samsung One UI 3.1 over Android 11
9:49 Conclusion

[TheJaHa]

The amazing thing about this channel, in all my years of watching their videos, I don't recall them telling (or begging) people to like and subscribe, yet, they have 1.21 million subscribers!

[valkyrie]

When phones are getting 16gb ram and my phone still has 16gb storage :")

[chrisv]

This looks like a really great phone! But remember not long ago you can get everything on a flagship phone such as headphone jack, expandable storage, ir blaster, removable battery, included headphones and charger for a lot less. What happened??

[ajiwibowo]

I follow gsm arena since 2008,
The calmest review

Hahahhaaha

[jashith]

Rewind to 2012 when I was super excited for the Note 2 launch and Gsmarena was the only authentic webpage, and would wait for their review to come reviewing every aspect category wise. Well time has flown and here I am nitpicking every aspect of the phone before pre ordering s21 ultra as if it would even matter in practical usage. Miss those simpler real life reviews that matters. And as always GSMARENA keeps it simple and real..

[stevenlatham]

I ordered mine yesterday and it should be here Friday fingers crossed. I was worried about watching any reviews incase I'd made a massive mistake. Thanks to your review I can relax and just looks forward to getting my hands on it.

[tianic]

I'm gonna wait for 2 years for this phone to drop in price and get it.

[Garret]

This channel could have been much bigger. They made the best in depth reviews online from the beginning of smartphones.

[nipunsharma]

I got my s21 ultra on the 25th of Jan. Pre order deliveries began for us here in India. You are spot on with the image processing issues. I'm noticing extreme oversharpening in the images coming out of this camera. The selfies are even worse. I can't believe how this happening. I'm coming from the s20 ultra and I'm surprised how Samsung has managed to make the camera even worse. I know it's very early and there might be updates, but we've seen what updates really bring. It's Samsung! I don't have much hope. The s20 ultra remained a bad camera throughout last year.
You're the only channel that has brought up the image processing issues. Kudos! Nobody else is doing this. All reviews are raving about the camera on this. My iPhone 11 pro max takes better photos with more consistent image processing.

[dreamer_prince]

I can afford to buy it now after 3 years 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[genesis]

Honestly i’m an apple person, i have an iPhone 12 but after seeing this phone all over k-dramas and k-pop i starting investigating and now i want to switch 🥲

[karmapolice]

Well, you've convinced me. Just put in my order for the 512GB version and I'm super excited!

[Lalinjaman]

You sir are the most hyped tech reviewer out there. You could just hear the hype on his voice...

[Zebrajellyfishphoto]

Can you do a review of the Pro settings with the cameras? It would be great to know these capabilities for those who want complete control of photography. Thanks also for a fine review.

[bige]

I ordered the 512g model. So I don't have to worry about not having a SD card.

[frannyp.]

For me as a Samsung user, the removal of the microSD card (which is still the best way to use SmartSwitch back up rather than their PC/Mac counterpart) slot and the removal of wall adapter is basically the most hypocrite and lowest blow Samsung had ever been so far. And although the intention in adding S-Pen functionalities is good on their newest flagship the implementation sounds very wrong from the very beginning. Cuz apart from that's what made Note series special that's by far a very redundant thing to do. And although S21 Ultra is very good compare to Note20 Ultra (atleast here in the Philippines where they sell 2 Note20 Ultra; a 5G with 12GB RAM, which is carrier exclusive & a non-5G with an inferior 8GB RAM inferior than its predecessor Note10+, which is still my phone at the time of this comment) the omissions Samsung did to their latest flagship is a tough and bitter pill to swallow for most of us and asking to pay $1400 (local price of an unlocked S21 Ultra 256GB here in the Philippines) is just another insult to the injury Samsung has made when they did drastic changes on the way they sell their phone. For now I'm staying with my Note10+ until it essentially stops getting any major Android updates which is likely by end of 2022. I'll give S21 Ultra a PASS for now.

[bradleyswaney]

I picked up a perfect 21ultra couple of months back. It's still a bad ass phone!❤❤❤

[Sarah.J.Jacobson]

Shit, I hope they bring back the MicroSD card slot. I like having the extra space for downloads for offline use when I'm outdoors.

[frostyber]

People shouldn't buy a phone based on the camera specs, they should buy a dedicated camera for that, like an EOS R5.

[ronaldocamaclang]

Pre ordered will coming tomorrow. So excited..plus Watch 3..