Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G powers up for the power user

I invariably review an S series top-ender with keen interest because I’ve long come to associate Samsung with being very willing to push the envelope. Of course, we can’t have a revolutionary phone every year — and we don’t. This year’s Ultra is clearly a relative of last year’s Ultra. But the impressive refinements and upgrades make the S21 Ultra 5G a great, complete power users’ superphone. Specially so for photographers and videographers.

For the signature look of the S21 series, Samsung has done quite a few things this time. They have a double-tone look for the S21 and S21 Plus which is very elegant and attractive. The S21 Ultra though doesn’t come with that look in India — for now. It’s most famously in a shade the company calls Phantom Black and they describe a complex process by which they arrived at this matte extra-black shade. It’s stealthy and gun-metal-like and oh-so-premium. There’s also a Phantom Silver but that’s less feted.

Design twist

The Ultra has the look of a thoroughbred stallion about it. It looks like a mean little machine, like it means business, something to be reckoned with. The build is solid and strong but the interesting thing is a twist to the design on this series: they have the contour-cut camera kit wrapping into the edge of the phone. It looks distinctive and also protects the camera lenses a bit more when the phone is laid down flat on a surface. However, I wasted no time acquiring a case for the phone as I’m very not-keen on damaging this expensive review unit while it’s with me, Gorilla Glass Victus or not. No case is provided in the box as Samsung follows the example of Apple and does away with the charging adaptor and earphones as well — and that’s after making fun of Apple for doing so. I’m sure more companies will take up the trend and it’s going to be the chief annoyance of 2021.

Before we leave off talking about this phone’s design, I must point out that it isn’t particularly light or slim. It’s a little computer and it happens to have a 5,000mAh battery, so it can’t be feather-light. But Samsung has done a remarkable job of still making it easy to hold and use. The addition of the slimmest case inevitably seems to add bulk and make a device feel more chunky than it is, so keep that in mind if you’re looking for something light, but the Ultra is meant to be just that: ultra.

Rapid refresh

The Ultra’s curved display cannot be anything but gorgeous. And it isn’t, which is to say it’s beautiful, crisp and vivid. It’s a 6.8-inch Dynamic AMOLED 1440x3220 with a pixel density of 515 ppi. Of course, there’s HDR10 support. The big deal about the screen this time isn’t just that it looks amazing in true Samsung fashion but that it switches 10Hz and 120Hz refresh rates depending on the task being performed. You end up experiencing this as smoothness and fluidity and the phone ends up by conserving battery and resources. Samsung has said, in fact, that the panel used for the OLED display is made of a new material with a new ‘luminous efficiency’ of a type that helps conserve power.

Also read: Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra: This has some serious camera chops

The Ultra has plenty of battery and plenty of resources, of course. That battery is lasting a good amount of time, even taking me across one and half days — as it should. There should be no light users of this device, so they’ll need all that battery life. The Ultra runs on Samsung’s new 5nm eight core Exynos 2100 SoC and is faster many times over in many departments, from sheer speed to graphics to handling 5G connectivity and AI. There may still be a disparity between it and the Snapdragon 888 version in the US but because the Exynos has crossed a certain threshold, complaints should be less on that front. It has 12GB or 16GB of RAM and 256 or 512GB of storage in India. No micro-SD slot. But it does have an amazingly improved in-display ultrasonic fingerprint sensor.

Performance on the Ultra is all smooth and fast. Gamers say there’s some warming up on gaming, but I didn’t encounter it. Everything else that uses the processor intensively doesn’t cause any lag or stress to the phone. All things told, it’s an experience of plenty of power. Samsung’s OneUI 3.1 with new tweaks along with Android 11 run the show pretty well. Despite OneUI not being as light as say, the OxygenOS interface used by OnePlus, it is still very intuitive and feature-rich. In fact, just lately it seems more like OxygenOS has borrowed a little from OneUI. The one thing that’s a big drawback though is that this device and series won’t get the seamless Android upgrades that many others will.

Notes and scribbles

The S21 Ultra supports the signature feature of the Note. You can actually use the S-Pen on the phone’s screen, though you’ll have to buy it separately or borrow it from another device, which is what I did. I have an S-Pen that belongs to my old Tab S3 and grabbed it to try on the Ultra. It worked immediately and with no fuss at all. There’s no slot on the phone to accommodate the S-Pen but there are cases that have made space for it so if you shell out a little more money for both S-Pen and a case, you can take notes and mark up things and sketch any time you like. Not every feature from the Note-S-Pen pair works on the Ultra, but the most important ones do and a menu pops up as soon as you click the button of the S-Pen close to the Ultra’s screen. It’s a sort of bonus feature, but a big one. The Note line, apparently, has not been discontinued.

Camera collection

You truly have to be a prolific photographer to opt for this phone because the whole collection of cameras is its crowning glory and highlight. With all it’s got now, the Ultra’s camera set-up takes it to the top of the back, going up against the iPhone 12 Pro Max.

There are four rear cameras with a 108MP wide lens leading the pack. It comes with a new sensor and has done away with the focusing problems of the previous S20 Ultra. It locks on fast and works with pixel binning to give 12MP images as well as letting you save RAW images. There’s a focus enhancer tool as well. In good light the images are excellent and detailed, with good dynamic range and accurate colours. The Scene Optimiser helps enormously, keeping the noise down.

There’s a 12MP ultra wide lens which doubles as a good macro lens, but more excitingly there are two telephoto lenses, one working at 3x optical and the other at 10x to shoot very impressive close ups. You can go right up to 100x Space Zoom and although things get grainy by then, there are many points in between when you can take interesting shots. There’s aid with the use of a zoom lock feature that appears on-screen at higher magnifications from 30x onwards. This time around, Samsung has put in what is the best zoom set-up on a smartphone.

The cameras are aided by more features than I’ve seen on most phones yet. A number of these, like portrait effects and studio lighting, we’ve seen before. Single Take, a very good night mode and many others are also familiar. But this time there’s been an attempt to enhance the videography for vloggers as well with special features like the Directors View which lets you see a feed of three different angles from different lenses and switch between them. There’s a separate Vlogger’s View as well where you can put yourself in the picture in different creative ways. As seen before, on the Note 20 you can voice-focus when shooting a video — useful for interviews, for example. You can also shoot 8K video at 60fps and even take photos while that’s happening, capturing the action. The front camera is a 40MP one and also has a whole lot of features and effects to use.

The S21 Ultra is quite obviously ready for 2021 and beyond. It has more than earned its Ultra tag.

Price : ₹1,16,999 for 16GB RAM + 512GB and ₹1,05,999 for 12GB RAM + 256GB.

Pros : Power specs, versatile feature-rich camera system, stellar screen, excellent battery life, digital pen support, widely appreciated design

Cons : No charging brick and extras, micro-SD slot gone, somewhat heavy, expensive, not a must-upgrade over previous year equivalents

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