Review: Samsung Galaxy S21

Price: £769 (inc VAT) from fave.co/3aH8rL3

The Galaxy S21 might be the smartest phone Samsung has ever made. Like the iPhone 12, it doesn’t have the best specs or the biggest screen. But it delivers where it counts, at a price that’s very attainable for a phone with a full complement of 5G, a high-end camera, and the latest Exynos 2100 processor. At £769, £30 less than the iPhone 12, and £170 more than the Google Pixel 5 and Galaxy S20 FE, the S21 is already a strong contender for smartphone of the year.

Android and Galaxy enthusiasts will moan and wail over the things that are missing, which is admittedly a pretty lengthy list: 12GB of RAM, QuadHD+ resolution, expandable microSD storage, MST payment support, earbuds, a glass back and a charger. But if you aren’t the kind of person who dives deep into spec sheets, the S21 will give you everything

you need in a 2021 smartphone at a price that won’t make your eyes water.

DESIGN

Samsung’s smartphone design has become somewhat predictable in recent years, as bezels shrank and camera arrays grew. But the S21 is something truly different with an Apple-like level of attention to design.

The pictures here don’t really do it justice. Samsung incorporated the camera array into the metal band that connects the screen to the back, which serves both to minimize the bump and make it flow better into the overall design of the phone. It’s one of the only camera modules I’ve seen that doesn’t feel like it was tacked on, and it makes the phone truly feel like a cohesive unibody enclosure.

The camera design isn’t just about looks. Where the S20 was extremely topheavy and somewhat clunky to hold, the S21 feels much lighter despite actually weighing more than its predecessor (171g versus 163g). The new camera array adds a bit of balance to the S21 and makes it much more pleasant to hold for longer periods of time.

Also helping the weight distribution is the choice of materials. You probably wouldn’t know it to look at it, but the S21 is made of ‘reinforced polycarbonate’ to keep costs down. It still feels more premium than the Pixel 4a due to its weight, and the texture feels closer to aluminium or frosted glass than the plastic material it is.

DISPLAY

Around the front, the S21 has the same 6.2in display as the S20, surrounded by very skinny bezels. The screen is flat here rather than curved, but the visual difference is minor. The phone

is slightly narrower (151.7x69.1x7.9mm versus 151.7x71.2x7.9mm) as a result, making it easier to hold and a bit less prone to accidental touches.

Also less accident-prone is the fingerprint sensor. Samsung is still using an ultrasonic scanner built into the display, but it’s bigger and faster than the previous sensor in the S20. The difference is noticeable and cut down dramatically on my errant scans. It’s not quite as consistently accurate as the physical sensor in the Pixel 5, and I’d much prefer a 3D facial scanner, but when it works, it feels closer to a premium biometric.

Like the S10e and S20 FE, the S21’s screen tops out at Full HD (2,400x1,080), the lowest for a standard S21 in some time. Much like the plastic back, however, you’ll need very discerning eyes to see the deficit of pixels. Otherwise, it’s just as bright, vibrant, and speedy as before, and it’s a bit more efficient too. The S21 has the same speedy 120Hz refresh rate as the S20, but a new ‘Adaptive’ setting dials it back to 48Hz when not in use. You can also still set it to 60Hz, but I’m much more comfortable with recommending it stay on 120Hz now.

Also new to the S21 display is an adaptive blue light filter that automatically adjusts the screen’s colours based on the time of day. It’s similar to Apple’s Night Shift and an upgraded version of Samsung’s own blue light filter that has shipped for years. If you’ve already been using it, it won’t make all that much of a difference except now it’s called ‘Eye Comfort Shield’.

Even with a somewhat gimmicky new feature and lower resolution, the

S21 is still one of the best smartphone screens I’ve ever used. If you compare them side by side as I did, you can tell that the Ultra is a bit superior, but the compromises Samsung made with the S21 are acceptable and unnoticeable even if you spend many hours looking at your screen each day.

PERFORMANCE

The S21 uses an Exynos 2100 processor, so performance is as you would expect: excellent. Even with ‘just’ 8GB of RAM (4GB fewer than the S20), apps, animations and transitions fly around the screen.

That has mostly to do with the super-speedy 5nm system-on-chip. Benchmarks posted a modest increase

S20 (UFS 3.0)

over the S20’s processor, but there are plenty of improvements that won’t show up in the standard tests. Most notably, the chip now has an integrated 5G modem to deliver greater power efficiency. Samsung is also using UFS 3.1 storage for noticeable faster read/write speeds:

Sequential read: 1,592.46MB/s

Sequential write: 662.75MB/s

Random read: 45,172.27 IOPS

Random write: 33,764.08 IOPS

S21 (UFS 3.1)

Sequential read: 1,861MB/s

Sequential write: 782.63MB/s

Random read: 75,319.69 IOPS

Random write: 67,353.96 IOPS

These are the kind of year-overyear improvements you expect from a Samsung flagship. They matter less if you’re coming from an S20 or even an S10, but upgrading from an S8 will be a noticeable improvement. Smartphones have been fast enough for many years

now, but small things can make a big difference in how fast they feel, like Wi-Fi 6 and 5G, both of which are on board.

A couple of notable things are missing. The MFT chip that let you use Samsung Pay at older credit card terminals is gone, and the ultra-wideband chip necessary for precisely locating Samsung’s SmartTags isn’t here either (you’ll get it on the S21+ and S21 Ultra, though). You also won’t be able to expand the 128GB of base storage with a microSD card like in Galaxies past – that slot is gone. But like the screen, those are acceptable sacrifices that few users are likely to notice.

The S21 has the same 4,000mAh battery as the S20, but the integrated modem as well as the adaptive, lowerresolution display help it last a little longer. In benchmarks, I approached 10 hours, and in regular use, I rarely had to worry about charging until the end of the day. I put it somewhere between the iPhone 12 and 12 mini, which is to say the battery life is very good. The Galaxy S21 ships with One UI 3.1 based on Android 11, making it the earliest phone Samsung has shipped with the latest version of Android. Samsung offers a dizzying array of customization and personalization options, but even

if you leave the stock settings as-is, it’s one of the better Android skins.

You’ll still have to deal with Bixby and occasional ads for Samsung apps and products, but you can make the same criticisms about the iPhone 12. Plus, you’re guaranteed to get three full generations of updates, so the S21 will get Android 14, the same promise Google makes with the Pixel 5. Hopefully, major updates will be delivered quicker by then, but either way, buying a premium Samsung phone is no longer a guessing game when it comes to Android support.

PHOTOGRAPHY

For the first time in a while, the Galaxy S21 has the exact same camera hardware as the Galaxy S20, with 12Mp wide and ultra-wide lenses and a 30X hybrid optical Space Zoom telephoto lens. Like Apple and Google, however, Samsung has done work behind the scenes to boost the quality, so the photos you snap with the S21 will be a bit better than they’d be from the S20.

With the exception of zoomed photos, however, the photos I took with the S21 still aren’t quite as good as the ones I took with the iPhone 12. The differences come down to small bits of detail here, white balance there. Samsung has definitely refined the S21’s photo-taking abilities, but there’s still room for improvement.

Most notably, the S21 tended to brighten photos excessively even when night mode wasn’t activated, which often led to blown-out details and

washed-out colours. As you can see in the image left, some of the details of the stamen and the petals are lost due to overexposure. You can also see some slight struggles with night mode above as compared to the iPhone 12 and Pixel 5. Again, these are extreme examples that are very nitpicky. Overall, the colour accuracy and focus is sharp, and it was very easy to snap quick photos with excellent results.

However, as you’ll see in my upcoming S21 Ultra review, the differences are quite noticeable. It’s frustrating that phone makers are reserving the best cameras for phones with the biggest screens, but if photography is important to you, then you should definitely consider the Ultra, even at a £180 premium.

VERDICT

When you boil it down, the Galaxy S21 isn’t all that different from the S20. It has the same size screen and the same camera, along with less RAM and a lower resolution. You’re also giving up a microSD card slot.

But those changes won’t be all that noticeable to most users, and it comes with a nice £200 price cut over the S20. At £769, the Galaxy S21 is one of the best premium smartphone bargains I’ve seen in years. You’re also unlikely to find a Exynos 2100 phone for less until the second half of 2021.

SPECIFICATIONS

• 6.2in (2,400x1,080; 421ppi) Dynamic AMOLED 2X, 120Hz, HDR10+ display

• Android 10, One UI 3.1

• Exynos 2100 (5nm) processor

• Octa-core (1x 2.9GHz Cortex-X1, 3x 2.8GHz Cortex-A78, 4x 2.2GHz Cortex-A55) CPU

• Mali-G78 MP14 GPU

• 8GB RAM

• 128GB storage

• Three rear-facing cameras: 12Mp, f/1.8, 26mm (wide), 1/1.76in, 1.8–m, Dual Pixel PDAF, OIS; 64Mp, f/2.0, 29mm (telephoto), 1/1.72in, 0.8–m, PDAF, OIS, 1.1x optical zoom, 3x hybrid zoom; 12Mp, f/2.2, 13mm, 120-degree (ultra-wide), 1/2.55in 1.4–m, Super Steady video

• Selfie camera: 10Mp, f/2.2, 26mm (wide), 1/3.24in, 1.22–m

• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot

• Bluetooth 5.0, A2DP, LE

• GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS, GALILEO

• NFC

• USB Type-C 3.2; USB On-The-Go

• Fingerprint scanner (under display)

• Non-removable 4,000mAh lithium-ion battery

• Fast charging 25 watts

• 151.7x71.2x7.9mm

• 169g

The edge of the S21 extends into the camera array.

The 120Hz refresh rate on the S21 is adaptive now to save battery.

The back of the S21 is plastic, but you won’t really notice that.

The ultrasonic fingerprint sensor on the S21 is faster than it’s ever been.

The contrast in colours between the camera array and the back is quite nice on the S21.

In this shot of a flower, the S21 (left) blew out the colours and detail a bit while the iPhone 12 (centre) and Pixel 5 (right) handled the bright surrounding light well.

In dark photos, the S21 tended to overly brighten photos so they lost some detail as seen here in this shot. All three phones did extremely well capturing a very dark scene but the S21 (left) missed a bit of the detail that the iPhone 12 (centre) and Pixel 5 (right) grabbed.