- This is the Samsung Galaxy,

hold on.

Yeah, that's better.

This is the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra.

And I know what you're thinking.

Another year, another big Samsung phone, am I right?

Well, actually, no, this year's first big Samsung phone

is the Galaxy S21 Ultra.

And it's different because this is our third Ultra phone.

There was the S20 Ultra the Note 20 Ultra and now this.

And three iterations means that Samsung

has had time to work out all of the kinks.

Now in Samsung world Ultra

means that it should be the biggest and best version

that you can get.

And last year, the original S 20 Ultra

was not that much better than the regular S 20s.

The camera had issues,

and it was a lot more expensive.

This year the Galaxy S21 Ultra is much better.

The camera's improved,

and the price has dropped by 200 bucks.

So it starts at $1,200.

So I guess third time's a charm.

So we have to start with the obvious thing

about Ultra phones.

They are huge.

The screen on the Galaxy S21 Ultra is 6.8 inches diagonally.

And if you're keeping count

and you know that Samsung is keeping count,

that makes this phone 0.1 inches bigger

than the iPhone 12 Pro Max screen.

But the S21 is taller and narrower than the Max

and therefore to me, it's just much easier to hold.

See, Samsung has kept the curved edges on the screen

and actually don't mind it here, I think it works.

And it means that the bezels are that much smaller

and the phone can be that much narrower.

The iPhone 12 Pro Max just feels way bigger,

because it's wider.

As long as we're comparing the Samsung phone to the iPhone

let's just get it all out of the way right at the top.

Right now I think some of you are going to disagree with me

but I think the Galaxy looks better.

I do love the new squared off edges on the iPhone,

but you know what?

The camera bump here is one of those things

that we forgot looks weird,

because we got so used to camera bumps,

but it is it's weird.

And so Samsung's fix for the camera bump

is to make the metal rails on the side curve right into it.

And I actually think it looks slick as hell.

And it means that the camera glass here

is just a little bit recessed.

Although yes, there are just a lot of camera holes here

and that, that does look weird.

Speaking of the back it's Gorilla Glass Victus

also same on the front,

and it has this matte finish, which is pretty nice.

And yes, it is Phantom black,

and it does look very black in person.

It also resists fingerprints pretty well,

but it might be a little bit more delicate

than I would want it to be.

We just set this down a concrete to get a shot

and it's already got a little bit of scratch on it,

where you can see silver underneath.

Maybe that was a dumb idea, but, now you know.

Anyway, look you're only getting this phone

if you love big phones

and Samsung is just better at

making big phones than Apple is.

They've been doing it for way longer.

Samsung's version of Android

lets you size text how you want.

It can have a little side rail

on the side that you can swipe in for extra functions.

It makes it fairly simple to split screen apps,

lets you turn apps into little pop-up windows

that shrink down to floating bubbles.

You can just do a lot more with these phones.

Look, the size of these phones they're basically tablets

and Samsung is just better at putting tablet options

into its software.

So big phone, good, right?

Well sure but,

honestly it's not that hard to find a big Android phone.

The point of the S 21 Ultra

is to be the most powerful and capable Android phone,

price be damned

and right now, yeah, this is that.

Let's come back to the screen.

It's 3,200 by 1440 pixels

and you can set it to have an adaptive refresh rate

so it can dynamically change from 10 to 120 Hertz.

That makes scrolling and animation smooth

but it saves battery life

when there's nothing moving on the screen.

And on the S 21 Ultra for the first time,

you can have both maximum resolution,

and higher refresh rate at the same time.

You don't have to pick one or the other.

Actually a funny story about the screen,

usually when Samsung launches a big new phone,

it will talk for like an hour about it's screen tech

but with this one, they're just like, yep,

this is the best screen.

And yep, it is.

I mean hell sometimes I would even switch the color

from natural which I usually prefer to vivid

just to feel more alive.

I think the screen looks great.

This is also the first mass market phone

with a new Snapdragon 888 processor from Qualcomm.

So it has Wi-Fi 6E both kinds of 5G,

has better graphics,

and of course it's fast.

It benchmarks really well,

though of course the iPhone still beats it.

But to me, the important thing is that feels fast

and there's never any lag.

And for the first time in an S series phone,

there's support for Samsung styluses, the S pen

they're separate and I assume they'll work fine.

Samsung didn't send us one.

So I can't test it.

But looking at the demos,

if you've ever used a Note,

it's going to probably be about the same experience here,

minus support for Bluetooth.

Now the $1,200 base model has 128 gigs of storage

and 12 gigs of RAM.

For 50 bucks more, you can step up to 256 gigs of storage

and there's a 512 model that has 16 gigs of RAM

and it's 180 bucks more.

And really you should get one of those models

with more storage because

in order to cut the price on this phone

down from where it was last year,

Samsung had to take some stuff out.

So, you know,

we know they took the AC adapter out of the box,

because Apple did so of course Samsung is going to do it,

but they also cut the micro SD card slot.

And that move felt inevitable,

but it is kind of a bummer to not have expandable storage,

especially for a phone that can shoot 8K video

and let you take 108 megapixel photos if you want to.

But for me, none of the specs that I've just rattled off,

the positive or the negative

were as important to my experience of using this phone

as the next spec.

It has Qualcomm's newest, fastest and biggest

fingerprint sensor in the screen.

There's a much bigger area that you can tap to unlock.

And I do mean just tap.

It's just like boop, unlocked.

Boop, unlocked.

Boop.

It's great.

And also, you know, it works if you're wearing a mask.

And speaking of great, battery life.

On this phone for the review,

I turned on all the bells and whistles.

I had max resolution adaptive refresh rate,

always on screen, I had the brightness cranked

all the way up most of the time,

and then I spent days and days shooting tons of photos,

and testing out 4K and a little bit of 8K video

and I never killed the battery

until basically halfway through day two.

There's a 5,000 milliAmp battery in this thing,

and I think it's enough.

(upbeat music)

Really though the thing that Samsung wants to separate

the Ultra Galaxy phones from the other Galaxy phones

are the cameras.

The Ultras are the ones that get

Samsung's 108 megapixels sensor,

and they're also the ones that get longer telephoto lenses.

So, okay.

What do we got here?

Five cameras.

There's the main 108 megapixel sensor at F 1.8,

which kicks out 12 megapixel images by default,

there is a 12 megapixel ultra wide.

Then there are not one

but two 10 megapixel telephoto lenses,

one at a 3 X zoom in one at a 10 X zoom.

And the other hole here is for the laser auto focus sensor.

Then the fifth camera is the

40 megapixel selfie camera on the front,

which does 6.5 megapixels by default

but you can get the full 40 megapixels if you want.

So let's start with that 108 megapixel camera,

because it is the heart of this whole system.

It is a second generation Samsung sensor.

The first one was in the original Galaxy S 20 Ultra

and that 108 megapixel sensor was a whiff.

It had focus problems which Samsung later had to fix

on the Note 20 Ultra with a laser for autofocus,

which is also here but other than that though,

it just wasn't really worth the hype.

Samsung's regular cameras

on the regular S 20s were almost as good.

Now with the Galaxy S 21 ultra,

well now it's good.

I haven't had any shutter lag.

I haven't had any misfocus issues

and things like the narrowed plane of focus

seemed a little bit better too.

It is a noticeable step up from last year.

In fact, there's really only one other smartphone camera

that's even in the same league as his phone.

And it is not the Pixel 5 which I gotta say

has really fallen behind this year.

Now the other phone that's worth talking about here

is the iPhone 12 Pro Max

which also has a larger sensor compared to the other iPhone.

So, you know what?

Let's just look at some samples.

So I think this first photo

is a really good representative example

of what the S 21 Ultra can do.

I set the focus point through the fence and

I love that it grabs sharpness,

and detail of everything behind the fence,

whole lighting of the fence itself had a little bit of blur.

Plus the colors here are super accurate to what I was seeing

during that shoot.

Here's a night mode shot,

and let's just get into the S21 Ultra versus the 12 Pro Max.

I prefer how Samsung exposed the bike here,

but I think both are good.

And just look at the detail on the tire thread in the shot.

Mwah!

Here's another comparison photo,

and you can start to see how these cameras

have different opinions on how to expose things.

Samsung still wants to make things

just a little bit brighter than I like

while Apple has honestly learned its lesson

and is happy to leave contrast and shadows in.

Now here's comparing portrait mode,

and again, Samsung kind of just over does it

with the colors a little bit,

but I do think it has slightly better sharpness.

Comparing ultra wides, both seem fine.

I think it comes down to just choices and preferences