Unboxing this Samsung S21 Ultra 5G smartphone was a moment of maximum drama and almost delirious suspense. After seeing its debut at the recent Galaxy Unpacked virtual launch event, I couldn’t wait to actually touch and feel the mesmerising, colour-sucking-into-infinity Phantom Black matte finish model that Samsung made such a big deal about.
Mmmmm. It’s so… black.
(You’re kind of creepy, Len. – Tarryn)
Booting it up for the first time, the phone’s adaptive 120Hz 6.8-inch Infinity-O display is immediately impressive, with subtle curves reducing the bezel into (close to) non-existence. Whether you’re browsing the internet, playing a game, or checking up on your ex’s Facebook relationship status, everything on the Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G looks fantastic.
From the get-go, this smartphone is very much about the cameras, five of them, including one 108MP wide-angle camera, one ultra-wide 12MP camera, and two 10MP telephoto cameras on the back, and one 40MP selfie cam on the front, with support for up to 100x (!) zoom.
The phone can also film 4K at 60fps, and 8K at 24fps on every camera, and includes some extra features that make this a versatile must-have for vloggers and content creators. With Single Take mode, for example, you can select a shooting time of between 5 and 15 seconds, capture your shot, and get an auto-generated selection of stylised images and videos extracted from your shot to choose from and share instantly or edit as you prefer. Very cool.
Night mode is on par with high-end DSLR cameras, and uses an extended, stabilised exposure and AI frame processing to deliver a beautiful image with minimum noise in even the darkest environments I tested.
One other feature I want to talk about is Portrait mode, which we’ve seen on previous models, but with significant improvements in the Galaxy S21 Ultra. Using Portrait mode, you can take photos of people or cats or whatever, and customise the focal points and bokeh effects for studio quality images.
The 5000mAh battery should keep going for 15-20 hours of screen time for most users, unless you’re pushing the device at a constant 120Hz – by default, the phone adjusts the refresh rate between 10 and 120Hz, according to user activities and app requirements, so results can vary from one application to the next.
The S21 is available in South Africa with up to 256GB storage, but doesn’t have a microSD card slot for extra space. This could be a problem if you’re not using a cloud service like Google Drive, but it’s 2021, why wouldn’t you be using a cloud service like Google Drive?
If you already have an S Pen stylus or maybe you’re waiting on the new S Pen release later this year, the S21 Ultra is the first device outside of Samsung’s Note series to support it, but with limited use – you can only scroll, draw and write with it. No gesture control or other features that require Bluetooth are enabled, which means no wireless control or shortcuts for the camera or other apps. Fun to have, but not necessary.
Depending on where you purchase your S21 in South Africa, the deal can also include Galaxy SmartTags and/or Galaxy Buds, and even options for the Galaxy Buds Pro, so shop smart.