The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra & S21 Review: The Near Perfect and The Different
by Andrei Frumusanu on February 22, 2021 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Samsung
- Mobile
- Galaxy S21
- Galaxy S21 Ultra
Battery Life - Actually Great
Battery life of the S21 series is interesting as there’s two opposing factors that come into play. We’ve seen that this generation of SoCs are actually less energy efficient than last year’s iterations during interactive workloads. This comes at the benefit of higher performance, but generally it’s accurate that the new chips use more power. On the other hand, we also have more efficient displays, and high-refresh-rate operating modes.
On the Galaxy S21 Ultra, both software and hardware adaptive frequency work on a frame basis, allowing it the maximum power efficiency benefits even during 120Hz operation. Together with the much more luminance efficient screen, we should be looking at outstanding battery efficiency.
The regular S21 is more interesting as we hadn’t had the opportunity to see Samsung’s adaptive refresh mode on a display which doesn’t support hardware LFD. Here, the mode switching between 120Hz and 60Hz is on a coarser software level – the display will switch to 60Hz on static screens, but only after around a second of inactivity. That’s actually still great for power efficiency compared to the constant 120Hz of the S20 series, which means that in general every-day scroll-and-read behaviour, the 120Hz mode of the S21 and S21+ should still be much more efficient than their predecessors.
In our web-browsing test, the results here are slightly different to our provisional test results we had published a few weeks ago- notably on the 120Hz runs.
Nevertheless, the results for the S21 Ultra are outstanding. Even though in theory the SoC is more power hungry, the new display is so much more efficient, that we’re seeing the S21 Ultra takes a large lead of 13% at 60Hz for the Snapdragon variant. The generational differences for the Exynos variants here is much smaller due to how more much responsive and aggressive the new SoC is, which mostly counteracts the new luminosity efficiency of the screen.
In 120Hz mode, the new Ultra devices both take massive leaps over their predecessors- showcasing the new adaptive frequency and LFD mechanisms and how they make 120Hz viable in every-day usage.
Even the smaller S21, the software based adaptive refresh helps a lot as the shift from 60Hz to 120Hz now only costs around 8% in battery life, whereas last year on the S20+ it had a +25% impact.
People will notice the Snapdragon S21 Ultra has a larger delta between its 60 and 120Hz modes, and I think that’s because for some reason the Snapdragon 888 behaves much less aggressive in its 60Hz setting, while the Exynos S21 is tuned to be equally responsive regardless of refresh rate, which is a software discrepancy between the two phones.
Overall Battery Life: Great
In general, the S21 Ultra’s battery life is just fantastic thanks to the new generation display and its heightened power efficiency. The advantages here will vary depending on how you use it – if you tend to use it in dim environments at lower brightness, you might not see the improvements as much as if you’re in a bright scenario and tend to use your phone at high brightness levels. The brighter it will be, the better the S21 Ultra will fare. In super bright scenarios, the phone will be unmatched.
For the S21, and likely applicable to the S21+ as well, battery life is also great. While not as powerful as the Ultra’s adaptive refresh mechanisms, the new software-based implementation on the S21 means that 120Hz is also a very viable option this generation.
While we’re seeing battery life this generation still favour the Snapdragon chips, the Exynos this year isn’t all that far behind, and given the general user experience equality between the two phones, it’s not a major point of contention anymore.
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Silver5urfer - Monday, February 22, 2021 - link
These phones are not Flagships.- Design, the back camera metal to glass camera island is hard to repair, how do you even do it, meaning once the battery is busted, you cannot do a DIY easily on these phones at all. It makes them harder than iPhones, which have Glass glued onto the back panel making them have official repair being expensive than a display.
- No 3.5mm jack, No SD card slot. More features removed and they are True Flagship ?
- No more charger shipped in the box copying Apple.
- Display resolutions reduced hard. $1000 for a 1080P grade display, it's pure rip off. Worse than Apple.
- S21 base edition has plastic back, really horrible.
AT won't even mention anything, but all praise. Shame. This is what the computing looks like now, a disposable tech product which is useful nly for social media bs. What about the filesystem issues, never mentioned at all. Scoped Storage kills NAND performance HARD, it's a known fact and no acknowledgement of that all. Another year another new shiny product just spend more $1000 money because it looks amazing !! Just like all Youtubers out there.
People say it's for nature and environment, but nope it doesn't matter just buy new shiny product every year regardless of the drop in the features on HW and SW.
Psyside - Monday, February 22, 2021 - link
Hi Andrei, thanks for your brilliant review. However, please take note, that all of the first 10x zoom shot on the exynos are a total anomaly! the phone takes, much, much much better photos at 10x, it looks like the shot are not take by the 10x camera, check out the EXIF please, it does not state f/4.9.Please reconsider to redo the test shots, thanks.
Andrei Frumusanu - Monday, February 22, 2021 - link
All of the 10x S21U shots are great and are f/4.9 per EXIF, so I don't know what you're talking about.Psyside - Monday, February 22, 2021 - link
I talk about the exynos version. The S21U I didn't check because it looked good, but i noticed immediately that the 10x exynos are not even close to what they should be.Check this 10x AUB9 shot,
https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/camera-performa...
Andrei Frumusanu - Monday, February 22, 2021 - link
Yes.... the S21U (E) 10x shots are all are all looking great and are on the correct module...I don't know what you're seeing, maybe you're confusing it with the S21 (E) which is the regular non-Ultra phone.Psyside - Monday, February 22, 2021 - link
Damn, it could be! i will check from my desktop, really, really sorry if that's the case!s.yu - Wednesday, February 24, 2021 - link
Actually, the 3x shots all look cropped, that's what's strange.Andrei Frumusanu - Monday, February 22, 2021 - link
> Design, the back camera metal to glass camera island is hard to repair, how do you even do it, meaning once the battery is busted, you cannot do a DIY easily on these phones at all.You can remove and replace that part easily, along with the whole back cover, as well as a battery replacement, the same as any other phone we've had since removable batteries had been retired.
I've covered the SD card, 1080p, and the plastic (which is absolutely fine). The charger I didn't mention because I don't consider it very important. Scoped storage doesn't affect performance in everyday usage and I did not notice it at all.
Silver5urfer - Tuesday, February 23, 2021 - link
Okay I checked Teardown and yes you are correct. I was thinking Metal frame of camera island is a part of the phone frame.Absolutely fine ? not even Apple does it for $400 USD priced entry level iPhone SE, they have a glass back with AL frame. This is extreme cost cutting from Samsung and shameless. Since iPhone moved plastic backs a long time back. Why it is okay in the $800+ price tag territory, they will creak badly after time and with heated gaming sessions and all that expansion and contraction they will wear out.
Again for such price tag the charger needs to be packed in the box. A 100% unoriginal idea from Apple should not be excused but at-least should be covered from your publication when you called out 3.5mm jack for S20 reviews which no one even cared to mention.
Yeah it doesn't but that Scoped Storage has huge issues, the Issuetracker is filled with developer complaints and Commonsware blog listed out so many issues. And here's Dolphin Emulator developers saying the huge performance impact.
When you have a significant advantage on Journalism you should use that to show to the world on these, Camera comparisons are great but you know who read these ? only people who visit AT and they are too common, not saying should not do them but AT is a tech focus site and if you guys do it some other blogs might pick them up & most important of all, Google and Samsung might as well notice.
https://www.xda-developers.com/dolphin-emulator-li...
Yeah it doesn't even matter if you cover or not now, because it's been there since 2 Android iterations already and Google is decided to yank the Filesystem.
https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/128591846
https://commonsware.com/blog/2017/11/14/storage-si...
ksheltarna69 - Monday, September 27, 2021 - link
Yes, reviews on Anandtech have become a marketing place. And it seems Android is going the Apple way. We need a new system.Andrei should stop being so defensive and become more objective.