The S21 Ultra exceeds expectations

The promise he embodies Galaxy S21 Ultra, Samsung’s new smartphone, quite simple to explain (and difficult to perform): It is supposed to be “only” the most advanced Android smartphone on the market today, with the best screen, best camera, best processor. For people who are willing to carry around a pocket with a very large phone that weighs almost 230 grams, it should give the feeling that they are not compromising on anything. And the truth is, he’s pretty successful. Equally important is that all this is done at a lower price than before, as part of a more aggressive pricing of the S21 series rule.

We tested the new Samsung devices

(Photo: Nitzan Dror)

The most noticeable improvement, literally, in the Galaxy S series is its design, and no device benefits from it more than the S21 Ultra. The photo component of the previous phone in the series was a huge rectangle. In fact, Samsung seems to have built the phone around this component, and not the other way around. In the new generation it has become, visually, an integral part of the top-left corner of the device, and the result is much more pleasant to look at. It’s still huge, and when you look at it, five huge glass eyes will stare back at you, but that’s the price you pay for good photography these days.

The only downside to the new design is that only about 10% of you are relevant. When Mali, who used to hold the phone in his left hand, the index finger of the hand kept getting stuck in the edge of the photo component. This forced me to change the grip from the one I am used to, with a hand diagonally to grasp the phone better, for a less comfortable horizontal grip. In time I would probably get used to it.

During the phone announcement event, Samsung unveiled a long and exaggerated video about the journey to finding the perfect black color for its new phone. I got the S21 Ultra in this color, and it did not move me to tears, but I was pleasantly surprised by its resistance to fingerprints and its pleasant texture on the back of the device. It’s a back that sometimes feels plastic in the good sense of the word – as if it will not break from anything. In fact, this is Gorilla Glass Victus, the newest generation of glass for phones from Corning, which is also on the front of the device. It’s supposed to be more durable than ever, but yeah I would be careful and put a cover on the phone anyway.

(Watch: Samsung discovers the color black)

Another point to the credit of the phone is that it is the first of all the Samsung phones I visit where the convex edges of the screen did not bother me. It is a very delicate curve, which is almost imperceptible on the one hand and on the other hand allows the corners of the phone to be slightly rounded so that it is more comfortable to hold. Since this is a large and wide phone (165.1 by 75.6 mm) this is a significant yes. IPhone 12 Pro Max, For example, despite being 1.5 mm thinner, less comfortable to hold in one hand because it is wider and with straight edges.

If already a screen, Samsung has quite surpassed itself here. In last year’s model, you had to choose between a high resolution and a high refresh rate. This time you can get both (without fatally damaging the battery, and about that later). To me, the refresh rate is a more important component because it is much more noticeable to the eye while moving, but hey, if you can get both 120 Hz and 1440×3200, why not?

Also in terms of colors and screen brightness Samsung may not yet have created a gap with competitors but it is definitely among the leaders. It is a beautiful screen, which can also be very bright, and includes quite a few color display options, including the option to decide which shades will stand out and which less.

There are two more interesting things there on this screen. The first is a new fingerprint reader from Qualcomm. This is one of the areas where size definitely matters, and the size of the reader is 77% larger than the previous generation, which allows you to put your finger on a larger area of the screen and improves reading speed. As long as we walk around with masks outside, reading a quick and comfortable fingerprint is not a minor matter at all.

The second interesting thing is the identification layer for a touch pen. This is the first Galaxy S device to support the pen, perhaps in preparation forThe cancellation of the Galaxy Note series in the near future. But unlike the Note, the pen does not come with the phone and there is no dedicated place to store it. Samsung has a kit that includes a simple pen that only allows writing and cover for a phone with room for it, but for now it seems to be mostly a kind of test balloon to see how many people even care about the pen. Later this year Samsung will launch a more advanced version of the Touch Pen, with Bluetooth connectivity that mimics the more advanced capabilities of the Note Pen. Anyway, the test kit we received did not include the simple pen either, so I have nothing to say about its quality and the quality of support for it. Every time a new Samsung phone arrives in Israel, there is an inevitable wave of rage that we (like most of the world) got the version with the Axinus chipset from Samsung while the Americans and Chinese received a Qualcomm chipset. This will probably happen this year as well, but in practice, it’s not a phone whose speed should worry you. It behaves like a flagship device: fast, not stuck, not visibly slowed down in any usage script I gave it, runs games without a problem.

The only point where Israel is in a clear position is WiFi 6E, the new generation of WiFi connectivity that is starting to be launched around the world. The first routers that support it will go on sale soon. The essential innovation in this generation is the use of a new frequency range (and almost completely free of interference), which is expected to lead to better connection quality and higher speed. In Israel, there is currently no permit to use these frequencies, and the entire S21 family will arrive with support for WiFi 6E at the software level. Samsung promises to run it when the Ministry of Communications allows them.

The main reason to prefer the Ultra model over the other models in the S21 series is the camera. And this, truth be told, is also the reason to prefer it over almost any other phone on the market. If a camera is at the top of your priorities, the real battle today is between this phone and IPhone 12 Pro Max. And there is no clear winner in this battle. Last year Samsung did a pretty terrible thing in marketing theS20 Ultra, Focusing on x100 zoom capabilities in his camera. The billboards showcasing the capability were light-years away from reality, where each x100 zoom image was a meaningless collection of obscure pixels. This year too there is an x100 zoom on the phone, and this year too it is an annoying gimmick (but a little less so), and it would have been better if Samsung had limited the zoom to x30 as inNote 20 Ultra. But combining two cameras with optical zoom (x10 and x3) does come with tangible benefits that no other phone has today.

Up to about x20, in good lighting, this phone does a great job, the kind that will not always allow you to understand that the image was taken using a zoom lens. This is very impressive, especially considering that the iPhone 12 Pro Max only comes up to x12 zoom and even there it does not exactly do an amazing job even in ideal conditions. Is it important? I have been zigzagging for years between phones with a good optical zoom and those that do not have it, and sometimes I definitely find myself sorry that I do not currently have a phone with a good zoom. But it does not happen much.

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