The S21 runs Android 11 out of the box with Samsung’s One UI 3.0 skin, which is among our favorite software interfaces. The phone has since been updated to Android 12, and it will be getting Android 13 when that's available too. Another new feature for the Galaxy S21 is a Director’s View mode, which enables you to shoot with the front and rear cameras at the same time. The idea here is vloggers and other content creators can capture reaction shots of themselves, which they can splice in alongside their main footage.

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In testing, the Galaxy S21’s sRGB colour accuracy impressed, with an average Delta E of 2.08 and coverage of 95.8% in the phone’s “Natural” setting. Peak brightness reached 652cd/m2 with the auto-brightness setting engaged and I measured a maximum luminance of 1,100cd/m2 when viewing HDR content. There’s no doubt about it, whatever you decide to watch, read or browse, the Galaxy S21’s screen is absolutely superb. Samsung Galaxy S21 review: Performance and battery life One negative for some is the switch to a completely flat screen on the Galaxy S21. Samsung has used screens that curve attractively into the body at the left and right edges for a number of generations now, but this has been dropped for the Galaxy S21.The Google Pixel 6 has top cameras, clean software and an interesting design, all for a price that's slightly lower than the S21. As for the Galaxy S21’s telephoto capabilities, the results here are a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, I was impressed with the pictures taken on or below 10x zoom, with zero evidence of shaky hands and very little visual noise. On the other hand, pictures captured at 20x and 30x zoom proved pretty much useless. The Galaxy S21 camera hardware hasn’t changed from the previous year’s phone, as Samsung’s big sensor upgrade happened between the Galaxy S10 and S20 generation. With the S21 it’s all about the software, and Samsung finding a way to slim down the camera module. That’s only a marginal 2.5% increase on last year’s model but it is significantly better than the iPhone 12, which the Samsung Galaxy S21 outlasted by roughly two hours under identical conditions. Samsung Galaxy S21 review: Cameras We found the feature to work well, and it’s similar to the option we’ve seen on HMD Global’s Nokia phones in recent years. We’re not sure how many people other than vloggers will actually use this feature, but it’s another fun upgrade that encourages you to experiment.

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The Samsung Galaxy S21 release date was Friday, January 29, 2021 for most of the world, including the US, UK and Australia. That means you can readily buy the smartphone now from a variety of retailers, carriers and networks in all three of those countries. One thing missing is compatibility with Samsung’s 45W chargers that worked with the S20 series. Samsung told TechRadar that it’s made optimizations to the 25W charging capabilities of its new phones, so 45W charging wasn’t that significant a benefit.The design is where Samsung has made the most obviously noticeable changes over the S20 (which we crowned 2020’s best smartphone), overhauling the materials used, the colors, and the overall look of the device. What’s more, it’s made from Gorilla® Glass Victus® for a tough display that’ll shrug off drops and scrapes like they’re nothing. Love to dabble in photography? Then you’ll be over the moon with the 64MP triple lens rear camera, which snaps superb shots you’ll be proud to show off. Or, if you fancy filming, you can capture footage in absolutely stunning 8K quality. You’ll be on the red carpet in no time. Glasstic is the company’s own name for the material, which as the name suggests is somewhere between plastic and glass. It doesn’t feel as premium as a glass rear, but the matte finish also means it doesn’t feel like cheap plastic either. The chipset – we’ve tested the Exynos 2100 version of the phone – is also powerful, delivering some fantastic results in real-world use as well as in benchmarking software. It’s also worth noting that all of Samsung’s S21 phones are 5G-compatible, so you won’t be able to buy a 4G-only variant. Instead, Samsung had made its 5G-compatible smartphones more competitively priced, so you’ll be getting a future-proofed option even if you don’t intend to use next-gen connectivity in the near future.

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There’s a 6.2-inch Full HD+ AMOLED display on this handset, which we’ll dive into more in the display section below. This phone is the smallest member of the Galaxy S21 family, and while it may not be as trim as the iPhone 13 mini, those with smaller hands shouldn’t have too much trouble using it.

We’ve only had the chance to test the Exynos 2100 version of the S21, and it seems like a major improvement over previous generations of Samsung’s chipset. In the past, the Exynos variant tended to lag behind the Qualcomm-powered phones in some areas but here the gap seems to have narrowed. Samsung used the same material on the Galaxy Note 20, but the matte finish feels more suitable here and it’s much less shiny than the glass rear on the Galaxy S20, which means it’s less of a fingerprint magnet. The metal edges around the outside of the device add a touch of premium polish. The company is instead just offering internal storage, and again this seems to be a cost-saving measure from Samsung, but it’s likely to disappoint anyone who wants the most affordable handset but needs a lot of storage.

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If you already own a Samsung Galaxy S20, or if you can find that handset for a significant discount, you won’t want to opt for the Galaxy S21 – while the newer phone gains in some areas it loses in others, and overall there’s not much between the two phones – certainly not enough to justify paying a couple of hundred dollars or pounds more. Along with that 8GB of RAM you’ve got the choice of either 128GB or 256GB of storage. The big news here is that Samsung has dropped microSD support from the S21, so you can’t expand on the built-in storage. The software available on this phone works well, and you've got access to a whole host of extra Samsung services on top of the normal Android apps you expect from a modern smartphone. It’s a similar story with the Galaxy S21’s ultrawide camera. Take a look at the centre of the frame and the detail capture isn’t bad at all but as soon as your eyes drift towards the edge you begin to spot the telltale signs of a softening as well as the odd bit of chromatic aberration. Eagle-eyed readers might have spotted that the Galaxy S21’s camera hardware is pretty much identical to the phone that came before it, not that this is necessarily a bad thing.

As mentioned, Samsung has done this to help keep the price of the new phone down, and unless you’ve used a phone with a QHD resolution we don’t believe you’ll be able to easily tell the difference– we found that all the videos we watched on the S21 looked suitably high-quality on the Full HD+ panel. In an obvious attempt to get a headstart on the competition, Samsung’s fresh trio of Galaxy S21 flagships have arrived a month ahead of schedule. Merely four weeks into the new year and we already have our first look at what to expect from 2021’s top-shelf handsets, with promising news from the starting line. Indeed, if the Samsung Galaxy S21 offers any indication of what’s to come, then the future is looking very bright.