Hot take: Samsung Galaxy S21 lineup

14 January 2021
Some quick thoughts on Samsung's latest S-series phones.

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Anonymous, 14 Jan 2021How is pricing the winner if you get a worse display res an... moreAnd no SD card slot with the same base 128GB storage...

    Giftorious , 14 Jan 2021Minus the Ultra model the only difference between the S20 s... moreFair enough but Samsung have been shipping their devices set to 1080p for at least 3 years without anybody complaining.
    The S21 range is undoubtedly a cash grab and an attempt to push their fans in to only buying the Ultra which is inexcusable.

      Nah no real reason to "upgrade" my Note 10+ 5G.

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        • Anonymous
        • y$e
        • 15 Jan 2021

        Eco friendly does that mean we only get the charger when we buy it later? Or it comes with box from any materials? Which isn't in line with eco friendly

          I definitely don't mind the plastic back since I'm going to put a phone case anyway. I also don't mind FHD+ screen resolution since that is way more than enough for me on a smartphone. But what I really cannot forgive is the omission of microSD card slot. I never put all my documents and media files inside the internal storage. Heck, microSD card is so useful when I have to reformat the whole phone.

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            • Anonymouse
            • sXT
            • 15 Jan 2021

            Anonymous, 14 Jan 20214K@60 with lower bitrates samsung offer probably do not tak... moreYou could move the files on to the microSD card after recording. Anyway, the point is that it's better to have the expandable storage option especially since I keep music, pictures & other files on the SD card so I can just pop that into a whichever device I decide to use.

              Anonymous, 15 Jan 2021By your logic we should use plastic on the display as well...Very good straw man buddy

                I am glad they reduced the price after criticism Last year. I was reluctant to pay €1400 for the Ultra. 1250 Euros sounds a lot easier on my wallet, but I will wait for confirmed leaks of other flagship phones before buying the S21 Ultra.

                  IpsDisplay, 15 Jan 2021Plastic on the vanilla s21 is the best thing in the industr... moreEven the Pixel 5 has a plastic back, I did not see a single reviewer complain about it.

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                    • Anonymous
                    • pN4
                    • 15 Jan 2021

                    IpsDisplay, 15 Jan 2021Plastic on the vanilla s21 is the best thing in the industr... moreBy your logic we should use plastic on the display as well...

                      Plastic on the vanilla s21 is the best thing in the industry

                      Tired of the zombies wanting glass backs because reviewers tell them it's "premium"


                      Get out of here with that garbage , better we invest more money in making plastics less SCRATCHABLE than making glass UNBREAKABLE

                      Plastic can already be reinforced with glass fibre..


                      Why the hell do we continue with stupid heavy, delicate glass smh

                        Wow humanity has fallen

                        The day has come where a 1400$ smartphone is being commended as a "wining" price

                        Well done smartphone companies you have successfully manipulates your consumers

                        This is perfect brainwashing look how this article focuses on 50£ cheaper lol you must never talk about how much your savings when it comes to money that is a psychological TRAP


                        You must instead say your SPENDING $1400!!!!!!!! Don't be a slave to rationalization


                        Well done smartphone companies you have successfully manipulates your consumers

                          Anonymous, 14 Jan 20214K@60 with lower bitrates samsung offer probably do not tak... moreAgree on almost everything you said, but there are SD cards faster than class 10
                          UHS-I Class 1 (U1): minimum speed of 10 MB / s
                          UHS-I Class 3 (U3): minimum speed of 30 MB / s, class 3 also offer up to 312MB / s in transfer.
                          And theoretically class 1 can transfer 50 MB / s, and class 3 104 MB / s, but they still do not make them with that speed

                            Anonymous, 14 Jan 2021The problem of having 3, 5 and 10x, it is the fact sensors ... moreWell some brands can do it, and end results are already out. How shameful is not to lead but even hide behind tech that is already multiple years old.
                            8K videos and hi res stills is nothing new, time to accept reality. It's not about it being cool, point is to make it closer to reality.

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                              • DC
                              • vtx
                              • 14 Jan 2021

                              Shame that they decided to strip back a lot of features on the vanilla S21... not everyone wants a phablet in their pocket....

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                                • Anonymous
                                • pYQ
                                • 14 Jan 2021

                                So the phone grew yet again, meanwhile our hands, it appears, are the same they were 5 years ago.

                                  Thanks for this write-up! Very informative! Nice to know they decided to back off a little on pricing (seeing that sales dropped last year).

                                  Sadly, none of them are spectacular. Other than their prices, that is. I guess its S7 for one more year. Or maybe I'll be able to pick up S20FE at a reasonable price this time around. Oh, wait, no 3.5mm jack. Out.

                                  Maybe Sony will drop the price of Xperia 5 II or LG will release a smaller version of V60 (obviously at a lower price)? Xiaomi is tempting, but having experience with two of their flagship devices behaving weirdly every now and then after a software update I'm trying to avoid them. They have decent hardware but software is... unpredictable. Maybe I'll give them another try... if I find one device with a 3.5mm jack, that is.

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                                    • Anonymous
                                    • pN4
                                    • 14 Jan 2021

                                    Swordman, 14 Jan 2021Well the $600+ S20 FE has a 3x optical zoom camera, while t... moreThey must have figured out that dumb people tend to buy the expensive models and saved as much as possible.

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                                      • Anonymous
                                      • pN4
                                      • 14 Jan 2021

                                      Anonymous, 14 Jan 2021yes it does - do you need heat dissipation is actually a va... moreHeat gets trapped regardless and the glass back contributes a little to general cooling, because it makes contact with the midframe, which is often used to cool the SoC (if metal) alongside the display itself, which has also glass btw...

                                        I'll definitely buy Galaxy S21 since it has flagship specs, flat screen and relatively compact size but... in a half a year for no more than $500.

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