SAMSUNG Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G - Smartphone 128GB, 12GB RAM, Dual Sim, Silver

Product Information

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. Samsung has fully embraced 5G for the S21 line too, as all variants of the Galaxy S21 are 5G-compatible. Even if you’re not in a 5G-ready area, it essentially means you’re futureproofed, ready for when 5G connectivity is more widely available. Samsung Galaxy S21: battery life 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. Camera improvements include enhanced noise reduction in low-light conditions, as well as the ability to slow down multiple instances in a single slow-mo video. You can also grab a still image directly from 8K footage, and add virtual lighting in portrait pictures.

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. Let’s move to the numbers-heavy portion of this review, then. In the Geekbench 5 CPU test, the Galaxy S21 Ultra’s Exynos 2100 matched the single-core performance of its predecessor, the Exynos 990, found inside the S20 Ultra. Where it differs, however, is in multi-core performance. The S21 Ultra is roughly 24% faster here, which is a huge boost. 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 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. To choose what SIMs and phone plans are used by default for data, voice and messages go to Settings> Connections> SIM card manager.

The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is full to the brim with features, but you might not like how much it costs

Or if you want a newer model there's now the Samsung Galaxy S22 line - but those phones will cost you more.

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.In the S21 both chips are paired with 8GB of RAM – if you want more than that on an S21 series device, you’ll want to opt for the Galaxy S21 Ultra, which comes with either 12GB or 16GB.

We’ve yet to test the Samsung Galaxy S21 with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chipset inside, but the Galaxy S21 Ultra performed well with this chipset inside so we’d expect similar results from the S21. Overall, though, the S21 Ultra lags slightly behind the Snapdragon 888 (tested in the Xiaomi Mi 11) and is no match for the as-yet-unbeatable processing speeds of the iPhone 12 Pro Max. 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.

5. Select default SIM for mobile data

Hope someone can help (that includes Samsung programmers/engineers) – I have two SIM cards in my phone, personal and work. If I’m talking to someone on SIM1 (personal) and someone calls me on SIM2 or I have a missed call, I receive a missed call notification (so far so good!!). When I go to return the ‘SIM2 missed call’, my phone dials out using SIM1 – frustrating. This can be changed in options where if an outgoing call is placed it asks which SIM you want to use for the call – pointless. My OnePlus 7 Pro would intelligently select the SIM – so a missed call on SIM2 would be dialled out via SIM2 automatically, a missed call on SIM1 would be dialled out via SIM1 and you also have the option of changing which SIM dials out should you choose to do so. To choose what lines/numbers are used for calls, go to Settings> Mobile Data> Default Voice Line / Mobile Data. We generally found that the phone would comfortably last a full day, but on one occasion, when we were making more use of the phone’s GPS signal and other power-hungry features we found the device ran out of steam by around 10pm.