Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G review: the return of the King

The Galaxy S21 has the tough job of succeeding last year’s S20 Ultra. It is funny to note that if in 2020 the Samsung flagship had to face the OnePlus 8 Pro and the Mi 10 Pro, it is the same story this year with the OnePlus 9 Pro or the Mi 11 Pro opposite. On the price side, the S20 Ultra was launched at 1349 € while this version with 12 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage is displayed at the price of 1309 € (it can now be found at € 950 at Rakuten). A lower price, but be careful, you won’t find a charger in the box. A hell of a mistake, especially since the company had made fun of Apple for having done the same thing on its iPhone 12s.

The presentations…

On the design side, last year’s criticisms have been heard since the device has a real signature. Admittedly, it does not please everyone with its photo island that looks like an induction hob, but at least we recognize it from afar. And then at a time when all smartphones look the same, we adhere to the concept (above all, do not hesitate to say that we are taking money from Samsung in the comments).

The device is roughly the same size and weight as in 2020: small, frail hands may not like the grip too much, especially with a protective shell. The back of the device is very classy, ​​at least for the black version which was loaned to us by the brand. The fingerprints are not very present, which is appreciable.

The Galaxy S21 Ultra has an IP68 certification, but ignores the jack. The stereo speakers are very good with an impeccable rendering. This year, the Galaxy S offers compatibility with the S Pen. But not the Note20 Ultra’s S Pen. Indeed, the S21 Ultra does not have a place to store and recharge it: the stylus therefore does not offer Bluetooth functionality, which reduces its interest. To take it with you, you will therefore necessarily need a Samsung case (count 80 € with the stylus which is of course not provided in the box).

For all the features, you will have to invest in an S Pen Pro, but when you know that this device is really dedicated to a very small audience, you don’t really see the point.

A screen that makes “Wouha”

When it comes to device specs, we don’t really like superlatives, as they will definitely be outdated the year after. The screen of the S22 Ultra will undoubtedly be better, but currently that of the S21 Ultra is perfect. There is nothing to say. The curvature, less pronounced than that of the S20, helps prevent handling errors, and the 6.8-inch (17.2 cm) AMOLED display is a feast for the eyes. While on the S20 Ultra or Note20 Ultra you had to choose between 120 Hz and high definition (WQHD + in 3200 x 1440 pixels), here it’s cheese and dessert.

The colorimetry is configurable at will. Some prefer the Natural mode, others the Vivid mode, but you can also adjust the white balance and the predominance of each color. For gaming or watching videos, it’s a very good screen with a very impressive maximum brightness. Certainly the best asset of the device. A real “Wouha! “. After testing both for a long time, it is perhaps a little better than that of the OnePlus 9 Pro.

An Exynos 2100 moving

On the performance side, it’s always a bit of the same discussion: devices sold in Europe do not offer Qualcomm, but Samsung’s “home” chip. This is a false problem, because in use you almost never differentiate between the two and only fans of benchmarks of all kinds will complain about missing out on the Snapdragon 888 and having to settle for the Exynos 2100. The “bitchs” can stop “biting” this year, because the Korean chip is very solid and the gap with the American giant is narrowing. With 12 GB or 16 GB of LPDDR5 RAM, this Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is very powerful, ideal for gaming, for video processing or for any heavy task (like the daronne of loafers who comment). No worries on this side.

A versatile “photophone”

The S21 Ultra is once again taking on board a 108 megapixel main sensor this year, which turns out to be excellent during the day, whether in 12 MP mode or in 108 MP mode (because the pixel binning here groups the pixels by 9 and not by 4) . The colors are bright, the sharpness is excellent. We can blame him for a treatment that is a little too pronounced sometimes.

That’s right, but you have to know what you want with a device like this. If you are a user who wants a camera in the pocket or a photographer who already has a device and wants to have fun. Either way, the S21 Ultra is a camera cut out for photography. Night time is also very good even if direct artificial light is sometimes poorly managed. Here the treatment is sometimes a little “too much”, but the colors are respected and the focus is on the hair.

Be careful, as we already told you during our test of the Note20 Ultra, you should not avoid trusting the scene optimizer for night shots, prefer to go to the More tab of the photo application for manually activate Night mode. The 12 MP ultra wide-angle is of the same ilk as that of the Note20 Ultra. It’s very good with excellent distortion correction outdoors. Oddly, indoors or vertically it works less well, but it is an optical illusion. Note that the ultra wide-angle also offers a Night mode. It works even if it doesn’t work a miracle. On church photos with this focal length, it still looks very good with once again slight problems with lamps in direct lighting.

Samsung has put two zooms in the box for this S21: an optical x3 telephoto lens (with a “normal” aperture of f / 2.4 and another x10 with a slightly less “comfortable” aperture of f / 4.9. Daytime, outdoors with ideal lighting it’s really at the top and you can really enjoy yourself in x10. Beyond that you necessarily lose in quality and the x100 zoom is completely anecdotal (even with the zoom lock). a shot that is not a pixel porridge at x30.

In difficult lighting, you should not rely on the second zoom beyond x5. At night, the zoom is really not comfortable, but remember that almost no device offers this kind of treatment on a telephoto lens. On x3 it is consistent and even very good sometimes: we are surprised to see some photos, even if the processing is very present. In x10 it is more complicated especially without light of any kind. Between the smoothing and the noise, it is not easy to have a shot specific to x10. It is still exploitable and it is a small miracle.

Let’s quickly talk about portrait mode which does the job whether with the main module on the back or with the selfie module on the front. It’s even a very good job when you consider that the results are clean indoors, outdoors or even against the light. For video, we are entitled to 8K at 24 fps and 4K at 60 fps on the back or front sensor. Note the presence of a slow motion mode at 960 fps in HD and a very convincing stabilization.

Good battery life, but a fast strawberry charge

It’s unclear if it’s better power management or the new 5nm etched chip that’s less power hungry, but the Galaxy S21 Ultra does better than last year’s model with the same 5,000mAh battery. Even with the 120 Hz accumulated at WQHD + we arrive at ease at the end of the day with a gauge at 15% whereas for the same use we had a little trouble finishing the day in the same conditions.

It has been a long time since the Korean firm had offered a device so serene at this level: users who do not have their device in hand all the time can even consider going on weekends without a charger. Small downside on the other hand for the fast charge which only offers a power of 25W. The gauge goes from 2 to 50% in less than 30 minutes, but when we know that more and more entry-level Xiaomi offer 33W … And what about the OnePlus 9 Pro which has a 65W fast charge with a gauge which goes from 4 to 100% in 25 minutes. Finally, the 50W wireless charging of the latest OnePlus literally humiliates that of the Korean with its 15W at the cleat.

Our verdict:

The 2021 vintage of the Samsung flasgship does not revolutionize the genre, but adds small touches of improvement here and there to make the product a very convincing smartphone: perfect screen, finally correct endurance and extremely successful photo part. On such a good device, the flaws are all the more visible. We think of the x100 zoom which is useless and overweight of the device. And then there is also the high price which is more marked this year since the charger is not in the box… But hey, it is the best on this range.

Shooting tests