Samsung Galaxy S21 Plus
A powerful, stylish 2-in-1 that can go the distance.
Why buy a Galaxy S21 Plus when you could go for the cheaper Galaxy S21, or the all-singing, all-dancing, Galaxy S21 Ultra? It’s a fair question, and it’s one that has a simple answer: buy the S21 Plus if you’re after a phone with a larger screen and battery than the Galaxy S21, but don’t need all the bells and whistles – mostly photographic – of the Ultra.
Samsung has now established the Ultra versions of its Galaxy S flagships as the devices to buy if you want all the latest and greatest tech that the Korean electronics giant can offer, which leaves the Galaxy S21 Plus in a slightly awkward position, with the extra money you’re paying over the ‘standard’ S21 getting you little more than a larger screen and a more powerful battery.
Is the S21 Plus worth the extra $300 compared to the S21? Maybe, but it depends on what you need.
Design
The design of the Samsung Galaxy S21 Plus is where we see the most obvious differences compared to last year’s S20 Plus; the S21 Plus, along with the standard S21 and the S21 Ultra, has been given a radically new design language.
In our opinion the phone pictured throughout this review, in purple with a camera module in a gold finish, is the best color to show it off. The phone is also available in black, white, gray, pink and red.
The screen is a 6.7-inch AMOLED display, and it’s completely flat, so you’re not getting curved edges at the left and right of the display, as on previous models. Some may miss from a design perspective, but we’re not sure that many people will notice or mind – and doing away with curved edges on screens can mean fewer accidental presses.
The back of the handset is clad in glass, something that gives the Plus model a slightly more premium feel than the standard S21, the back of which is clad in a glass/plastic hybrid that Samsung imaginatively calls ‘Glasstic’. As on that phone, though, it’s a matte finish, which gives the phone a sober, sophisticated look and feel.
This is a phone that, despite its size and weight, still feels comfortable in the hand. Most users will find it easy enough to reach the on/off and volume buttons, although if you have smaller hands, or if you prefer smaller handsets in general, you’ll be happier with the S21.
On the bottom edge of the handset are the SIM card slot, USB-C port and speaker grille, and on the right side are the power button and volume controls. If you hold down the power button, the phone does not switch off (that
feature is instead hidden in the drop down menu), but instead launches Samsung’s Bixby smart assistant.
Display
How important is the screen resolution on a smartphone? We raise the question because, somewhat controversially, Samsung has dropped the resolution of the S21 to Full HD+, down from the QHD+ resolution from last year’s S20 Plus.
However, on a phone screen – even a Plus-sized one – the difference isn’t going to be noticeable to most people most of the time, and the lower resolution saves on battery life as well as helping to keep the price down.
The pixel density is enough for the screen to look razor sharp, and while you might notice a difference if you’re coming to this phone from the S20 Plus – perhaps when watching a HD movie – this is still a very good screen.
In particular we’re fans of the dynamic display refresh rate of up to 120Hz, with the phone intelligently adjusting the refresh rate depending on what you’re doing. If you’re playing a game, for example, the refresh rate maxes out at 120Hz for supersmooth graphics and gameplay, while if you’re just checking a web page or listening to a podcast, the refresh rate is reduced so as not to drain the battery unnecessarily.
Unlike with the aforementioned differences in resolution, if you haven’t used a phone with a 120Hz screen before you’ll certainly notice the difference, and you’ll be impressed. Animations and scrolling are so smooth that it can feel as though you’re scanning the pages of a book or magazine rather than looking at a smartphone screen.
The camera setup on the Samsung Galaxy S21 Plus is essentially the same as on last year’s S20 Plus. That’s just fine with us, as the cameras on the S20 Plus are excellent, and this year Samsung has made improvements on the software side.
Specs and performance
The Galaxy S21 phones are among the first phones to launch with the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 (in the US market) and they’re the very first to sport the Exynos 2100 (Samsung’s own chipset, which powers the phones sold in markets outside the US).
We’ve only tested the Exynos 2100 version of the S21 Plus so far, and it seems to bring a significant jump in performance compared to previous generations of Samsung chips.
In the past, Exynos processors have tended to be a step or two behind the Qualcomm tech, but that gap seems to have narrowed this year. In Geekbench 5, our Galaxy S21 Plus returned a multi-core score of 3170, and a single-core result of 1035. That’s basically on par with the Exynos-powered standard Galaxy S21, which isn’t surprising, as the two phones share most of their components and features.
Benchmark tests don’t always tell the full story of course, but like the S21, the S21 Plus feels faster in everyday use than its predecessors, handling demanding jobs such as multitasking and running multiple apps in split-screen mode effortlessly.
The Galaxy S21 Plus is a superb phone on its own merits, but it offers little that you don’t get with the regular, and cheaper, Galaxy S21, apart from its larger screen. But if screen size is a deal-breaker for you, and you’re happy to pay a bit more for the extra real estate, then you’ll be plenty satisfied with the middle sibling in the S21 family.
Mats Karlsson
In the past, Exynos processors have tended to be a step or two behind the Qualcomm tech, but that gap seems to have narrowed this year.