Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra First Impressions Of Features & Look
The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra has gotten many Samsung fans excited no doubt, and from our first impressions, we can see why.
First off, when you take it out of the box, it certainly looks different from its predecessor. From the back, that is. The S20 Ultra had more of a glossy finish, while the S21 Ultra opted for a matte metallic finish instead.
This already gives the phone a more premium look right off the bat, especially with how the Phantom Silver (which we received) can take on pink hues in certain lighting.
If you bring your eyes to its quad-camera setup, youâd notice that something looks a little different too. The camera bump (which some dislike and others just donât care about) is still very much present, adding another 2mm to its overall thickness, but Samsung has attempted to make its design a bit more seamless.
Theyâve done this by integrating the cameraâs edge with the phoneâs, rather than have it stand out in a rectangular box on its own, protruding out from the back. It doesnât really affect the way it feels in the hand though.
Hefty For That Premium Feel
Looks aside, the phone itself carries some weight physically (weâll head to the internal specs shortly). Upon weighing it ourselves and checking with other sources, we can come to the consensus that it weighs between 228-229g.
In comparison, the S21 weighs just 171g, while the S20 Ultra weighs 220g.Â
Holding it for a while isnât too bad, but if youâre using it for extended bouts of entertainment and news, youâre probably going to feel some strain after a while.
The large cameras also make it so that the weight is skewed slightly to the top right of the phone, which could unbalance your grip if youâre not careful.
However, all this weight does add to the premium feel of the phone, since it doesnât come off as light and âplastickyâ.
A Snapshot Of Its Cameras
We only had the S20 and Note20 as our other Samsung comparison phones on hand, so the S21 Ultraâs selfie camera felt like a huge upgrade.
The difference between its 40MP camera versus the S20 and Note20âs 10MP selfie camera was so obvious, with the pictures being clearer and overall better quality. If youâre coming from the S20 Ultra though, they share the exact same specs, so you may be less impressed.
Rather than attempt to impress with extremes like on the S20 Ultra, Samsung also opted to tone it down and refine the experience more. In line with that, they opted for a 108MP wide, 12MP ultra-wide, and two 10MP telephoto lenses, one with a 3x zoom and the other with 10x zoom.
The 100x Space Zoom is still present, but Samsung promises that itâs much better this time round thanks to a new laser autofocus system. We can see that it works to help stabilise your subject, but donât expect crisp pictures, which still begs the question of, why would we ever need this feature?
A Display That Knows What Youâre Doing
Samsung introduced a new adaptive display (10-120Hz on the S21 Ultra) so that users no longer have to pick between having a high resolution or high refresh rate display.
You can now have the best of both worlds, as the displays will automatically adjust to whatever youâre doing. For example, if youâre simply reading an article online, its refresh rate will drop. Turn on a game, and itâll pick back up.
This is meant to help save some battery life, though with the 5,000mAh battery that the S21 Ultra is packing, we donât see quick battery drainage being that big an issue.
It could be thanks to this new adaptive display that we noticed how good the screen quality looked. At 6.8â, its Quad HD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X display is impressive.
-//-
The S21 Ultra is also Samsungâs first S series phone to work with an S Pen. We didnât have its own S Pen to test, but we tried it with the Note20âs S Pen and it worked fine. It was smooth and responsive, making note-taking a breeze.
We canât confirm if the S21 Ultraâs S Pen has the same 9ms latency that the Note20 Ultraâs S Pen did, but it would make sense that it should.
The only thing worth lamenting over is that the S21 Ultra doesnât come with an S Pen itself, nor can it be stored within the phoneâs body like the Note20 and Note20 Ultraâs. Instead, youâd have to make an add-on purchase of a bulky case to get the S Pen.
But hey, maybe thatâs more incentive to protect the pretty back and prominent cameras of the S21 Ultra.
Weâll be spending more time with the S21 Ultra to write up a more detailed review soon, so stay tuned for that!