Save Money And Get The Samsung Galaxy S21 Instead? – Full Review

In this review, I will be giving you my full review of the Samsung Galaxy S21 5G. Yeap, the “youngest” of the S21 line-up!

 

Specifications

First, let’s dive into the specs.

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

The variant that I have is the 8 gigs of RAM with 256 gigs of storage.

It comes shipped with Android 11 with the latest One UI version 3.1 skin.

 

Colors & Types / Variants

As for the colour options, here in Malaysia, there are 4 colours for you guys to choose from, the unit that I have is the Phantom Violet, then there is the Phantom Grey, Phantom White and Phantom Pink.

 

Build Quality

Looking at the design and build, it did feel great using this phone daily and since there is a smaller footprint compared to the S21 Ultra, I felt that the size was just nice, not too big or not too small.

At the back of the phone, it is made out of plastic, which I have to say that it didn’t feel like it was plastic, especially with its unique matte finish on the phone. The camera bump though, it is made of metal and what’s also great is the fact that the Corning Glass Victus protection is also present at the screen.

The ultrasonic in-display fingerprint sensor is quite snappy, very similar to how was the S21 Ultra was and good news for you flatscreen lovers out there, as the phone comes with a totally flat display.

Looking at the ports and buttons, down below, there is the USB C Port with one of the two stereo speakers and a dual SIM card slot. Then on the right, there is the volume rockers and the power button as well.

 

Display

As for the screen, since the S21 is the youngest of the S21 line-up, it comes with a 6.2-inch 1080 by 2400 pixels Dynamic AMOLED 2x Display, with a peak brightness of 1300 compared to 1500 on the Ultra. While there is difference in numbers, I still felt that the phone was quite visible during a very harsh daylight situation.

And there is the 120-hertz refresh rate, which was great to know that it is available across all of the line-ups, however, instead of going all the way to 10 hertz when the phone is not in use, like how it is on the S21 Ultra, it goes down to 48 hertz instead.

Then watching videos on YouTube and on Netflix was amazing as usual, which is no surprise since it is a Dynamic AMOLED 2x display panel. And if you are wondering whether is there a noticeable difference in terms of the screen resolution? Well, NO, while some may argue about why the display resolution is lower, I personally didn’t really notice a HUGE difference. Yes it would be nice to have a WQHD+ plus display but that would mean that the price and the battery life will be affected, so I rather go with this FHD+ display for this case, since I prefer the high refresh rate than WQHD+ and save some money and not be worried about battery life even more.

 

Camera Specs

Looking at the phone’s cameras, it’s a different set of cameras where there are 3 cameras in total, where:

  • the main lens is a 64 MP, f/2.0, 29mm (telephoto lens),
  • a 12 MP, f/1.8, 26mm (wide lens) and also,
  • a 12 MP, f/2.2, 13mm (ultrawide lens)

So here is the thing, my expectations for the phone’s cameras was REALLY, REALLY low, because I thought, all right, it’s the youngest flagship for the S21 series so I thought it would be just OK, but I was seriously blown away by its pictures.

Every single picture looked like it was taken on the Ultra as Samsung’s new image processing is surely the best that they have thus far, with such great dynamic range and details.

There is the dedicated 64-megapixel mode which I would be vary of using this often to save space but if you really need it, it’s nice that it’s there.

The Portrait Mode was amazing, and you wouldn’t even guess that the picture was taken on a phone within this price factor.

What I found quite interesting is that although the ultrawide lens has the same 13mm focal length, it gives a wider 0.5x ultrawide focal length compared to 0.6x on the Ultra, so you will get a wider coverage.

There is no periscope lens, but you can zoom up to 30 times, where the results were decent and usable if you really want, the brand-new Zoom Lock feature makes it possible again to zoom in that high amount without making the footage look very jittery or shaky, when taking a shot.

And when it comes to taking photos under low light, Samsung Bright Night mode again performed exceptionally well as well.

 

Front Camera

As for the front camera, it has a 10 megapixel with an f 2.2 aperture.

And here is another great surprise as the S21 Ultra comes with a higher 40-megapixel camera and this phone still performed really nice on the selfie photos, both for the regular and the portrait mode as well, with amazing subject to background blur and dynamic range as well.

 

Video Specs

As for the phone’s video-taking capabilities, like their recent flagships, it records up to a massive 8K 7680 x 4320 at 24 frames per second where the video footage looked super nice and crispy!

Then on the 4k video mode, again, the videos look super high quality with gimbal-like stabilization, where I feel like I don’t even need the Super Steady Mode at all.

Then other features like the Director’s View and Single Take are also available here like the S21 Ultra as well.

Then as for the front, it records also up to 4k 2160p up to 60 frames per second also with very also amazing image stabilization.

 

Sound Quality

As for the phone’s sound quality, it has stereo speakers, one down below and the other at the earpiece area. Like all of their flagships there is the Dolby Audio system, so the sound quality was amazing as expected. Do check out my video review for the sound test!

 

Software

In terms of the software, it is shipped with Android 11, with One UI version 3.1, which I have mentioned before on how this new One UI version 3.1 is my new favourite Android skin, especially with the latest tweaks like where if you swipe left from the home screen, by default, it goes to the Google Feed. Also, the brand-new font, and many more incremental upgrades which made the phone really great using it daily.

So yes, overall this phone was a great performer whether its heavy multitasking or even regular daily usage.

 

Battery Life

Now on to the phone’s battery, the phone comes with 4,000 milliamps of battery and here is where I felt like the overall battery life was just OK since it comes with a 1,000 milliamps battery smaller than the Ultra. So, expect a lower screen on time when using the phone daily.

What I still found interesting is the fact that it has wireless charging even though it’s a plastic back, like the S20 FE, where this has 15 watts of fast wireless charging, 25 watts of fast charging and 4.5 watts of 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 HD and frame rate set to High, I did push to a higher HDR Graphics with just very minor warmth on the phone even hours of gameplay.

 

Conclusion

So my conclusion is this, first of all, I wasn’t really planning on doing a review of this phone as I thought that just covering the best S21 Ultra was already very amazing and I also thought that the S21’s gap between the Ultra would be really huge.

But, to my surprise, the cameras on the phone are really amazing, the screen is really high in quality and it comes with a great price at only RM3,699 and I will leave a link down below for you guys to get yourself one.

And with this, the question is, should you even get the S21+ or the S21 Ultra just for the sake of getting a bigger screen or bigger battery or an S Pen Support? Do let me know down at the comments section below!

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