It’s that time of the year again, when we have a new Samsung phone to talk about and obsess over. Whether or not Samsung has an up or down year, they still manage to sell tons of units, and we’re guessing the Galaxy S21 will keep that trend going.
But you’re looking for Galaxy S21 reviews, so you’re interested in the finer points and whether or not this phone is actually worth your cash. We’re taking a dive into Samsung’s latest from all angles to find out if this is their best yet, or if you should be looking elsewhere for your upgrade this year.
Design
- Sleek design
- Glasstic material doesn’t compromise quality
- Ditches the curved screen from previous phones
We’re a few years past the trend of manufacturers trying to make a phone as thin as possible, for better or worse. There’s a bigger focus on making a sleek design without trying to cram everything into something the size of a credit card, sacrificing the battery and durability in the process.
The Galaxy S21 isn’t some razor thin phone. It doesn’t have a curved display to hide its thickness, either. But with all of that in mind, this might just be one of the best feeling Samsung phones I’ve handled in years.
The weight is almost perfect and manages to house a 4000mAh battery under its 6.2-inch display. The back is made with what Samsung calls “Glasstic,” which sits somewhere in between glass and plastic. While pricey glass materials are typically what we associate with a premium, high-end phone, Samsung’s compromise here is actually very nice. It’s got a matte finish that looks just fantastic in white, and the edges of the phone wrap around and contour around the camera in an extremely bold and striking design choice.
The phone looks and feels really good, even with all of those cost-cutting decisions. After years of heavy and easily breakable glass, I don’t hate the move back to this plastic material. It resists fingerprints, it helps make the phone more affordable, and all of Samsung’s finer details keep it looking like the flagship phone that it is.
On the hardware side of thing, the phone mirrors this simple design philosophy. There’s only a USB-C port on the bottom beside a SIM tray (no SD card slot this time) and some speakers. The power/Bixby button sits on the right side underneath the volume rocker.
Display and audio
- Excellent display and speakers
- Only 1080p resolution
- No headphone jack
Samsung screens always score top marks, and the Galaxy S21 shouldn’t disappoint anyone used to Samsung’s high quality. It’s not a super high-resolution screen anymore, offering just a 1080p full HD resolution, but the colors are bright and crisp just like you’d expect. Movies and TV shows look fantastic, and the screen gets plenty bright enough to handle HDR content.
Additionally, the intelligent display supports a 120Hz refresh rate. Samsung struggled to make this work without sacrificing the battery on previous phones, but this time around you can crank those settings up to the full 120Hz without chopping off 8 hours of battery life. As we mentioned, it’s an “intelligent” display that’s able to scale down the refresh rate while it’s not needed for animations, and only ratchets up to higher rates when you’re playing games or scrolling and it makes a difference. In practice, you’re getting a better experience with a small tradeoff in time away from your wall charger.
The audio experience is still classic Samsung, too, at least ever since their AKG buyout helped up the quality of their built-in speakers. Unfortunately there’s no headphone jack on the phone, and no headphones included in the box, so you’ll have to supply your own headphones or splurge for some Galaxy Buds.
Dolby Atmos is present in the settings to help optimize your audio experience, and Samsung has a few apps and tweaks to still make this a stellar MP3 player and portable home theater. Is it perfect? Probably not, but it’s still one of the better sounding devices on the market.
Gaming and performance
- Snapdragon 888 (as reviewed) is a beast
- Software doesn’t slow down the speedy hardware
- 128GB starting storage, but no microSD card
If you’re looking at a phone like the Galaxy S21, you want the best performance you can get. With a Snapdragon 888 and 8GB of RAM, you shouldn’t have a problem competing with anything else on the market.
Despite only having 8GB of RAM, the phone handles multitasking very well. Tons of Chrome tabs open with music or a floating YouTube video playing isn’t going to interrupt your digital party.
Gaming is also an exceptional experience here. Samsung offers some of their own gaming tools and enhancements so you can drive some games up to 120Hz for a smoother experience in exchange for battery life, or keep the resolution and frame rate capped to keep your phone going longer if it’s a casual game you just like to play during your commute.
And if you want to go a step further, the Galaxy S21 actually makes a pretty serious competitor to a Nintendo Switch or any other console. Samsung and Microsoft have a very good working relationship, so you can expect Game Pass streaming to work very well on the S21, especially with a dedicated controller. Something like the Razer Kishi, for example, turns your phone into a totally portable Xbox. Other phones can still do this, of course, but things are optimized pretty well for Galaxy phones that you don’t always get with other devices.
Battery and charging
- All-day battery life, even at 4000mAh
- Only 25W fast charging
- Wireless charging supports 15W
As we mentioned earlier, allowing the phones to gain a little weight has paid dividends in the battery department. Thanks to the highly efficient Snapdragon 888 CPU and Samsung’s intelligent display, you’ll easily pull an entire day’s worth of usage out of the Galaxy S21.
While we don’t have any complaints about the Galaxy S21’s battery, especially compared to its size, the charging situation could be a bit better. Samsung hasn’t tried to compete in the fast charging race like other companies. They’re still only offering 25W fast charging via USB-C cable, and they’ve ditched the charger in the box. You’re on your own if you don’t already have a USB-C compatible wall brick.
The wireless fast charging caps out at 15W, which isn’t bad, but unlike wired chargers there are fewer available fast charging wireless stands that will work. Just about any fast wall brick will get you the advertised speeds, but wireless charging isn’t quite the same. Simply plugging your bedside wireless charger into a 30W brick isn’t going to speed things up past 10W in normal circumstances.
On the bright side, this is probably a better move for the longevity of battery health. Hyperfast charging speeds aren’t great for keeping batteries functional for longer periods of time, so Samsung might see that as a worthwhile tradeoff.
Samsung UX
- One UI 3.0 is as good as ever
- Superfluous apps and features moved to the Galaxy Store
- Consistent and cohesive design language
Perhaps the most divisive aspect of Samsung smartphones is the software. You’re just simply not going to have a stock Android experience on a Samsung phone these days, even with third-party launchers and basic tweaks. For the most part, though, that’s okay. Samsung offers a lot of really cool stuff in One UI.
The latest iteration of the software keeps building off of Samsung’s new user-friendly design language. Icons are big and bright (and customizable) and just about every app has been themed and redesigned to take advantage of the size and shape of modern smartphones. Most useful buttons and information has been moved down towards the bottom of the screen instead of anywhere close to the top where you have to stretch your hand to reach.
This thing is loaded with features and extras that will make even power users jealous, too. Right out of the box you’ll get things like Samsung’s Game Launcher, which tracks your game playtime and keeps you updated with news and community info for your favorite games, integrated data syncing with Microsoft OneDrive, easy controls for your smart home in the status bar, more augmented reality tools, and some very fancy looking visual wallpapers. If you want to dive into the Galaxy Store there are a slew of extra apps to play with that let you make your own custom visual wallpapers, fine-tune your audio experience, build and style your own keyboard, and more.
Bixby is present of course, and if you are tired of the power button activating Samsung’s virtual assistant instead of bringing up the Power Menu, check out the video above where we show you how to stop that annoying default function.
The Galaxy Store used to be a nuisance on Samsung phones, but now it exists to help Samsung ship the phone with features that the average person actually wants without bloating the phone down. The phone is excellent out of the box, but if you want or need the extra stuff, like Good Lock, it’s only a few taps away for enthusiasts. It’s hard to strike that balance, but Samsung has almost perfected it.
Camera
- Well-rounded camera performance
- Great in low-light
- Tons of extra software camera modes
Technically, the Galaxy S21 features the same camera hardware that was present in the Galaxy S20. You’re getting a triple camera setup including a 12MP main camera, a second 12MP ultrawide lens, and a 64MP telephoto lens with 3x hybrid zoom. But the pictures this phone takes are a bit better thanks to some software improvements this time around, however slight.
You’ll still get an absolutely stellar camera for outdoor and well-lit shots, although sometimes bright colors can end up a bit blown off if you’re not careful. But thanks to Samsung’s improved Single Take mode you’ll have an easier time trying to grab photos of fast moving pets or objects. It utilizes all three cameras at once and grabs a ton of data to try and get you a usable shot however it can.
Low-light photography is still excellent, and even dim rooms and sunset lighting won’t slow the phone down. Again, clever software can beef up how well a phone does in these scenarios.
That 3x hybrid zoom works pretty well, although the 30x digital zoom is still rarely useful. If you’ve got great lighting conditions and a tripod, you might be able to make it work, but digital zoom just isn’t quite there yet.
If you’re big into video, there’s a new Director’s Mode that actually allows you to simultaneously shoot video with both the front and rear cameras. Not sure how useful it’ll be in real life, but creative types can certainly find a use for it. One cool feature built into the image editor is ability to remove objects from a photo, which we tried in a couple scenarios. It can look okay, but it’s never perfect, and seems best suited for quick and dirty social media edits.
Overall, though, it’s a solid camera experience with some slight improvements from last year. Whether you’re a Facebook junkie or someone that actually takes professional shots with your phone, you’ll find a lot to like here.
Worth it?
- Incremental upgrades
- Much better pricing
- Highly versatile flagship
While there’s definitely an argument to be made that the Galaxy S21 isn’t a big enough upgrade over the previous Galaxy S20, there’s a big picture here to look at. Samsung managed to refine the design of the S20 and make an extremely attractive phone that’s considerably cheaper, and they kept the stellar performance with some really great software tweaks.
The camera still holds up as one of the best (although it’ll still get beat by its bigger brothers in the S21+ and S21 Ultra) and the Snapdragon 888 is second to none. Samsung has also been killing it on software updates as well.
But it still made of plastic, no matter how nice, and both the microSD card and headphone jack are absent this year. It’s only a 1080p display, and it’s priced a bit higher than competitors like the Google Pixel 5.
If you’re already invested in Samsung’s ecosystem, though, and you’re okay with the tradeoffs, this phone just blows it out of the water. There’s a lot to love and with Samsung’s track record you’re almost guaranteed to squeeze years and years out of this before you need another upgrade.
Galaxy S21 | $799 | Amazon, Samsung, Best Buy
