Is The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G Really “Ultra”? Full Review And All Your Questions Answered

Hey guys, Adam Lobo here from Adam Lobo TV and in this review, I will answer all the questions that you asked in my first impressions video and I will share with you everything that you need to know about the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G, especially using the brand new Exynos 2100 chipset to its limits.

(article continues after the video)

Now since I have already unboxed the phone in my first impressions video, let’s go into the specs.

 

Specs

The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G comes the Exynos 2100 5nm Chipset here in Malaysia, with the Mali G78 MP 14 GPU.

The variant that I have is massive 12 gigs of ram with 256 of storage, but there is a 16 gig ram and a 512 gig storage variant option as well. It comes shipped with Android 11 with the latest One UI version 3.1 skin, which I really loved and I will let you guys know why later.

 

Colours & Types / Variants

As for the colour options, here in Malaysia, specifically for this Ultra variant, there are 2 colours for you guys to choose from, there is the extremely sexy Phantom Black and there is Phantom Silver as well.

 

Built Quality

Looking from the Design and built during my usage, as mentioned in my first impressions video, it is hands down the best-looking rear smartphone that I have ever seen or felt.

Just holding the phone felt great and the matte finish also made the phone less slippery than a typical glossy phone.

The body does also feel very solid and with the Corning Glass Victus protecting, which is the toughest glass from Corning. I didn’t have any anxiety of dropping the phone to damage it, which by the way I didn’t, but that was a really nice feeling.

The ultrasonic in-display fingerprint sensor surely feels snappier, where instead of pressing and holding on the screen longer, a simple quick tap would unlock the phone.

And speaking of the screen’s build, I did mention in my first impressions that it has a flat-screen display, but what I meant was it has a FLATTER screen display compared to a typical flagship because although there is a slightly curved side, I honestly felt the phone was flat than a typical curved screen.

 

Display

As for the screen, the S21 Ultra has a massive 6.8-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display with a resolution of 1440 x 3200 pixels WQHD+, where the total pixel count is even more than the Note 20 Ultra.

And for those of you who complained about not having the option of having a high refresh rate of the adaptive 120 hertz up to the WQHD+ on the previous Samsung flagships, well it can now.

As this adaptive display refresh rate can go all the way down to 10 hertz when the phone is not being used to ensure it gets the best battery life when using the phone daily which is a huge plus on its screen on time.

And currently the Note 20 Ultra has the adaptive display where it can go up to a really high 120-hertz refresh rate at FHD+ but it will adapt accordingly to your usage to probably go lower depending on your use case, so you can’t adjust to keep the 120 hertz on at all times but that wasn’t any issues when using the phone daily.

Having the 1500 nits of brightness was also very useful where I intentionally waited when it was extremely sunny outside to see how visible the phone was during that time and the good news is that it was great and the low blue light emission or the Eye Comfort Shield for the screen was also an added bonus.

Then watching videos on YouTube and on Netflix was amazing as usual on this Dynamic AMOLED 2X display as it has the same display technology as the unfold Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2.

 

Camera 

Looking at the phone’s cameras, there are 4 cameras in total:

  • the main lens is a massive 2nd gen 108-megapixel f 1.8 aperture 26mm wide lens,
  • a 10-megapixel f 4.9 with a massive 240mm periscope telephoto lens that can give you up to 10 times Optical Zoom
  • a 10-megapixel f2.4, 70mm telephoto lens, and
  • a 12-megapixel f2.2 13mm ultrawide angle lens

and there is also a laser autofocus.

As for the front camera, it has a massive 40 megapixel with an f 2.2 aperture, which is more than the Note 20 Ultra.

Stay tuned for my full in depth camera review on my next blog post where I will be going into more details regarding the camera’s specifications and functionality.

 

Sound Quality

As for the phone’s sound quality, as we all know that Samsung has been adapting the Dolby Audio System on to their speakers for quite a long time and with this S21 Ultra on the stereo speakers, I really felt there was a significant difference in the audio frequencies to give a pleasing sound especially on the bass without any distortion even with the highest and great output volume.

 

Software

 

In terms of the software, it is shipped with Android 11, with One UI version 3.1 and this new UI has made me love the UI even more compared to the Oxygen OS as while the Oxygen OS was good at the time of its release, nothing much has been updated since then and I have seen the growth of the One UI since the first generation and I really love their latest tweaks like where if you swipe from the home screen, by default, it goes to the Google Feed, so no need to get another launcher to do so.

The new fonts also look nicer and more minimal looking, the highlighted home screen and the quick panel also look very clean too I also just love the new notification icons, where it looks great. The overall multitasking options with the apps also is great as well.

Also worth mentioning is the fact that the new WIFI 6E was significantly fast, where I did see a huge difference both for download and upload speeds.

And yes as mentioned, overall there weren’t any issues at all with the new Exynos Chipset when using the phone daily, so there is your answer, EVERYONE!

 

S Pen

Now let’s talk about the S Pen. Yeap, as you may or may not know, the S21 Ultra is the very first device outside of the Note series which supports the S Pen, now this means that you can either use the S Pen from your previous note devices, to use it as a stylus for easier navigation and note-taking, however, if you want to get to use those advanced S Pen Gestures, Samsung has now introduced a more rubberised S Pen with a better grip and more thickness to the pen as well, which I haven’t gotten my hands on it yet, so I am really looking forward to testing that out as well.

 

Battery Life

 

Now on to the phone’s battery, the phone comes with 5,000 milliamps of battery and I used the phone daily with the highest WQHD+ resolution with the Motion Smoothness at Adaptive up to 120 hertz, where I got an average of 3 hours plus of the screen on time with the adaptive brightness turned on with extremely heavy usage of recording 8k videos, shooting my Instagram stories videos, taking photos and watching videos.

And I got close to 4 hours plus of screen on time with a regular usage with that high resolution and the adaptive 120 hertz which was a great battery life!

So you will surely get more screen on time if you change the Motion Smoothness to Standard at 60-hertz refresh rate or even reducing to FHD+ but I would like to use the phone to its best resolution and refresh rate and don’t mind the slightly lower battery life as the phone has fast charging; up to 25 watts fast charging, 15-watt fast wireless charging and 4.5 watts reverse wireless charging.

 

Gaming

In terms of gaming, playing PUBG Mobile and Asphalt 9 was great.

On PUBG the game ran smoothly at graphics set to HDR and frame rate set to Ultra and with just very minor warmth on the phone even hours of gameplay.

 

Conclusion

So, in conclusion, all I have to say is this, usually, as a tech reviewer, I would recommend people to stick to only making a smartphone change only about 2 generations apart, but for this time around, with the overall amazing design and look of the phone, superb screen, great battery life and a very good processor, if you are thinking to upgrade from the S20 to this, I would say go for it!

And of course, if you are coming from any previous generations smartphones or even planning to change to a Samsung device, with the new One UI version 3.1 you will surely find the device to be extremely useful and appealing as well.

 

Price

As for the phone’s price, here in Malaysia, this S21 Ultra 5G is going for RM5,299 for the 12 gigs of ram and 256 gigs of storage variant and the 16 gigs ram with 512 gigs storage version is priced at RM5,999.

All right guys, with this, do let me know what you guys think of the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G down at the comments section below, would you get it?

 

 

Leave a Reply

Verified by MonsterInsights