Samsung Galaxy S21 5G Smartphone SIM Free Android Mobile Phone Phantom Violet 128GB, (UK Version)

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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 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. With the phone’s night mode switched on, I noticed the Galaxy S20 did a better job than the iPhone 12 Pro at capturing street lights without blowing them out, while simultaneously boosting the brightness of dark alleyways without adding an artificially warm hue. If you take a look at the portrait comparison with the iPhone 12 Pro below, you’ll certainly spot the difference, and you might also notice that the Galaxy S21 has more defined edges around my subject:

Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G Smartphone SIM Free Android Mobile Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G Smartphone SIM Free Android Mobile

The Galaxy S21 phones were the first devices to use either Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 (US) or Samsung’s own Exynos 2100 (just about everywhere else). Those were the latest generation of top-end chipsets when the S21 range launched, though they've since been superseded.The S21 runs Android 11 out of the box with Samsung’s One UI 3.0 skin, which is among our favorite software interfaces.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. Reverse wireless charging is also supported, so you can use your phone’s power to top up devices such as Qi-compatible wireless headphones, but we found that to be slow, and it’s a feature you’d likely only want to use in emergencies. 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 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

Samsung Galaxy S21 review: 2021 is off to a great start Samsung Galaxy S21 review: 2021 is off to a great start

The downgrade to the display is perhaps the most controversial change Samsung has made for the Galaxy S21, with the company switching to a lower-res Full HD+ screen than the Quad HD display available on 2020’s Galaxy S20. The one thing it doesn’t have is a microSD card slot, which means the 128GB or 256GB of onboard storage is all you get. That’s disappointing, although the supplied storage should be enough for most people. 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. 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. How does this translate in terms of performance? The good news is that the Samsung Galaxy S21 is the fastest Samsung smartphone to date, with 50% faster multi-core processing speeds when compared against last year’s Galaxy S20 in the Geekbench 5 benchmark. It lags slightly behind Apple’s A14 Bionic chip (I was unable to run our usual benchmarking tools with the Huawei Kirin 9000) but there’s no shame in that.Or if you want a newer model there's now the Samsung Galaxy S22 line - but those phones will cost you more. Battery life on the Samsung Galaxy S21 is solid, although it’s not a game-changing improvement over the S20, as the company may have led some to believe with its new Exynos 2100 chipset. Could all this raw power negatively affect battery life? So far, I haven’t noticed any issues. In our video rundown test, which plays a looped video at a standard screen brightness of 170cd/m2 with flight mode engaged, the Samsung Galaxy S21 lasted 18hrs 56mins before requiring a top-up. 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.