Samsung Galaxy S21 & S21 Ultra hands-on review

19 Jan 2021

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Anonymous
xDq
21 Jan 2021

Anonymous, 21 Jan 2021Only photo 3 is considered a true landscape shot where the ... moreAnyways, that's not my point at all (you can read the first comment in this thread, I wrote it, if you want to know what I think). The issue is not corner softness or not for me, even though I replied to you since your comment was incorrect, and still is, but corner softness doesn't bother me too much as long as it's not that bad. The issue is the not-at-all-realistic post processing. I can't blame them too much though, I still like Samsung phones, and most other companies are doing the same thing with bad noise reduction techniques, over-sharpness, and contrast being too high.

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rafaelinux
8xX
21 Jan 2021

Wow. The photos are pretty terrible. The corners are awful, no detail whatsoever.
There's a mix of noise and noise reduction that kills eyes in the 3x and 10x cameras.
Guessing they're meant to be seen in the phone screen only.

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Anonymous
nw}
21 Jan 2021

The worst image I see here is 10x optical zoom when you pixel peep it looks so grainy and the sky has horrid artifacts. What on earth is Samsung doing?? I just hope it's a bad unit and not true quality

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AnonD-973296
GYi
21 Jan 2021

Alex, 21 Jan 2021Here we go again with "everyone", "no one&qu... moremy family doesnt use phones for tv remotes unless yours does then thats cool too

and that was one time so please dont repeat that thing again, iw as trying to make a point

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Anonymous
847
21 Jan 2021

Leaks show that future mid-rangers will also lose features...

Have physical presence is valuable, but not all the updates comes to all series and are time limited. Maybe someone between Samsung shareholders should vote to let his CEO to go to the the prison stop bribery and start to return to the right way where the money is invested to have happier customers instead of fool them.

Mouth to mouth being millions of customers should work like in the past. Help your friends to not be scammed. Do it!!!

We all end winning if the next CEO has a healthier mind.

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Anonymous
uHZ
21 Jan 2021

Anonymous, 20 Jan 2021Lol no, that's not what's happening here, especia... moreOnly photo 3 is considered a true landscape shot where the focus is set to infinity. And the corners look fine. The rest of the photos taken by the main camera are as what I just said, but you don't seem to be able to see where the camera had focused.

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Alex
qC@
21 Jan 2021

AnonD-973296, 20 Jan 2021no 1 needs an IR sensor on a phone... it is the single most... moreHere we go again with "everyone", "no one" and telling people what to use, based on the guy's family experience.

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Anonymous
0xU
20 Jan 2021

AnonD-973296, 20 Jan 2021wouldnt a tv remote do the same thing?Well you would be right, but if there's few TV's at home, it is very useful to control it by smartphone, which is always by reach of hands.

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danwat1234
4$d
20 Jan 2021

Any throttling issues with long duration full utilization? IQOO 7 has this issue with the 888 despite 5nm

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AnonD-973296
GYi
20 Jan 2021

Anonymous, 20 Jan 2021Actually it is really useful, I do use remote rarely, its m... morewouldnt a tv remote do the same thing?

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Anonymous
0xU
20 Jan 2021

AnonD-973296, 20 Jan 2021no 1 needs an IR sensor on a phone... it is the single most... moreActually it is really useful, I do use remote rarely, its mosly gathering dust at the shelf. IR works great separately for a TV and external speaker setup. You can manage many devices.

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Anonymous
Y7J
20 Jan 2021

AnonD-973296, 20 Jan 2021no 1 needs an IR sensor on a phone... it is the single most... moreI still miss the IR blaster on older phones. I would love to have a full featured phone once more. Removable battery, IR blaster, 3.5mm jack, some bezels on top and bottom for an easier hold. It's a small module and there's no reason for them not to add it, but yes, a remote is better.

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Anonymous
Y7J
20 Jan 2021

Anonymous, 20 Jan 2021The large sensor results in shallow depth of field. The par... moreLol no, that's not what's happening here, especially for landscape shots! What type of comment was that?

The lens quality affects corners (cheaper lenses makes for worse corners), and the fact that they keep making main cameras too wide, and post processing).

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AnonD-973296
GYi
20 Jan 2021

mobileman, 20 Jan 2021come on,hope you test also s21+ phone. and,if possible c... moreno 1 needs an IR sensor on a phone... it is the single most useless feature and is a waste of money... if u want an IR sensor, get a TV remote

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Anonymous
0xU
20 Jan 2021

Alex, 20 Jan 2021I confirm, I own both S9 and S10 too and S10 main cam quali... moreSame thing with huawei P20 Pro.

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CheckYourFax
pp2
20 Jan 2021

Alex, 20 Jan 2021It's very easy as well as totally groundless to throug... moreI never said they're "not terrible"? There's considerable blur around the edges, and I said I hope it's not because of bad lens quality, but a software thing. And even then, you can still mitigate "fisheye" blur because it's rather predictable. It sucks, but everything else about the S21 Ultra is still pretty great, besides the SD card thing, that's kinda dumb. If they were to replace it with UFS cards, now that would be a bold "groundbreaking" move.

They re-added the "graphene vapor chamber" on the Exynos model, and it has graphite pads all over the internals, including thermal paste underneath the graphite pads and RAM+CPU. They actually gave a damn about thermal dissipation this time, which they didn't on the Note 20 Ultra Exynos-version.

The bloatware is a non-factor. My S10 only has Google and Microsoft apps, and its own apps that are actually quite useful (like Samsung Health). There aren't weird-ass random apps on it like a Chinese phone has. The other apps, like Facebook, and most Google apps, can be uninstalled. But if you have a carrier-locked phone, the carrier can add bloatware through the CSC(Consumer Software Customisation), which is where they can add pretty much any app a carrier wants to add.

If you really want a phone that has "pro-grade" camera, use a Google Pixel. The only reason Google has great quality is because their post-process/neural unit is amazing, even though it has a very average sensor. But Google knows what they're doing.

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Alex
qC@
20 Jan 2021

Anonymous, 20 Jan 2021I'm commenting as Samsung user past 10 years. And I s... moreI confirm, I own both S9 and S10 too and S10 main cam quality is worse than S9 while being the same on paper. Really pisses me off. And looking at other people complains on the web I also started to suspect that it's an intentional software downgrade of the cam quality on the older models to force people to buy new ones. (I was careful not to update my S9 but needed S10 update for the Night Mode.)
https://r2.community.samsung.com/t5/Galaxy-S/S10-camera-quality-degraded/td-p/3630151

And my experience with A8 just proves it: I can't use it anymore because cam quality is so terrible even during daylight. But when looking at A8 old camera samples (e.g. here on Arena) I can see an acceptable quality. And bad A8 camera was exactly the reason I was forced to buy S9, even though those two phones are very similar.

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Alex
qC@
20 Jan 2021

CheckYourFax, 20 Jan 2021Yeah right. Most people in the comments here are either fro... moreIt's very easy as well as totally groundless to through around statements like these. There are way more reasons to suspect you to be from Ss marketing team. Especially when you ignore obvious things, like S21 downgrade and terrible camera samples quality being quite objective.

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Alex
qC@
20 Jan 2021

CheckYourFax, 20 Jan 2021There isn't that much bloatware anymore. Google apps, ... moreSince when? I've got much more bloatware on my S10 compared to S9 that I can't remove, disable or even prevent from running in the background. And I'm afraid to think about S20 bloatware, let other people comment.

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Anonymous
8mp
20 Jan 2021

Anonymous, 20 Jan 2021Non-final software is lame excuse. Phone is already for s... moreNo,it is not on sale until 29th

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