Samsung Galaxy S21 Review: A Smartphone for All Things Considered

The Samsung Galaxy S20 FE was a proof of concept that actually succeeded. It brought enough flagship elements to deserve the title but then experimented with dropping a few non-essentials in order to drive the price down at a time when the market needed it. Think about it. Do you really need your display to be curved? Can you really tell if it's QHD+? Does the back really need to be made out of glass and even most important would you be willing to trade all of these secondary elements for a less expensive price tag?

The result was a massive hit. Even if we still debate the name I feel that fans will drift more to features than the price, but it really helped pave the way for what the company had next. The Galaxy S21 is what Samsung calls the everyday epic and what we are going to call a true phone for the fans. Instead of a smaller and expensive flagship or a watered-down offering, what we have here is a new approach that is seriously out to compete.

If you look at the Samsung S21 lineup I think this is the sleeper hit. In many ways this is almost the same phone as its bigger brothers but with a couple of minor tweaks to bring a dramatic drop in the price tag. Also consider the aggressive pre-order deals that Samsung is offering making Samsung Galaxy S21 is seriously the best offering in this price range. Take the hardware for example, like its expensive brothers this is the best looking galaxy S launch I've ever seen. With a more cohesive and fashion-centric design that can clearly be seen in the color options. The camera hump no longer seems like this necessary evil in a corner and is now better protected by a contour cut design.

It has the same aluminum build, the strongest gorilla glass evict is at the front and really what changes is that it's a polycarbonate back instead of glass. The internals are pretty much the same story, you get the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 with the same ram and storage options as the plus model matched with all flavors of 5G, reverse wireless charging, water resistance, a large battery and really all you're missing is the ultrawide band feature that enables tricks like the digital car key.

One of my favorite changes with the Galaxy S21 is that by popular demand the display finally got flat. Like its larger siblings this is a 6.2 inch dynamic AMOLED 2x at FHD+ resolution. This means the display adjusts between 48 and 120 hertz based on your usage and reduces eye fatigue with an auto adjustable blue light filter. The colors are vibrant but under Samsung's new approach to not over saturate. There's also a larger and faster ultrasonic fingerprint scanner under the display which proved to be a joy to use during this pandemic. At this price few phones support HDR 10+ or go as high as 1,300 NITS and then the built-in dual speakers are pretty loud.

Now what I wasn't expecting to praise is One UI 3.1 but this is another reason why I consider this to be a fan edition. It's as if they've been listening to complaints because they've got a lot of things right here. The average consumer might care about the changes in aesthetics which we consider barely noticeable. What is a good thing is that this is all based on Android 11 because now that means notifications won't be this convoluted mess with conversations now being stacked at the top. What I care about most is choice and to finally get the option to choose the Google feed from the left of the launcher. Then there are subtle changes like having Google Pay set by default even if you can easily switch to Samsung pay and Google home devices as an option over SmartThings are also fantastic.

Using this phone in day to day has been actually quite pleasant and even if I was expecting issues with battery performance. I've been ending the days for the past week just fine and the pleasantries also extend to phone calls. They've been pretty good and the phone does an amazing job at retaining connection as well. Now at this price point what usually breaks any device that's not a Pixel or an iPhone is the camera and this is where things actually get interesting.

In a weird move Samsung has chosen to keep the same specifications as last year. Though we know the chip now brings a new ISP to assist. Also, even if I have no scientific confirmation on this but if you were to compare the specifications of the primary camera with that of the iPhone 12 Pro Max it even seems like if this is the exact same sensor or at least just this capable. Samsung continues to tone down its saturation without affecting dynamic range or detail so long as you stick to what the cameras can do optically and forget about 30x you'll be fine.

I even get the impression that this primary sensor is large enough to produce some really nice natural bokeh at night. The results are also fairly good if you stick to the primary sensor. Samsung does offer night mode on all cameras, but the results are not at all something I'd blindly trust. What is impressive is selfies during the day or after applying night mode. Once you disable beautifying modes you'll see lots of detail and fantastic dynamic range even in very brightly lit scenarios and the separation provided by portraits is also pretty good for this being software. There are some dramatic improvements in video. There is less warping as you walk less over sharpening and an overall very balanced shot if you have enough light. This even applies to selfie video.