The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is now official as Samsung’s best offering at the moment. In our previous article, we talked about the Galaxy S21 & S21+ but compared to those two, the S21 Ultra is in a league of its own with features like 108 Megapixel ISOCELL HM3 sensor, Dual Telephoto cameras, 10Hz-120Hz WQHD+ panel, S-Pen support, up to 16GB RAM and more. But all of this comes at a price, and to no surprise, the Galaxy S21 Ultra comes with a pretty hefty starting price of $1,199.
One of the highlights of Galaxy S21 Ultra is the S-pen support, something that was previously limited to the Galaxy Note series smartphones. Unlike the Note series phones, you don’t get the S-Pen with the phone itself, and there is also no dedicated slot to keep the S-Pen. So this now raises the question of whether Samsung is planning to do away with the Note series or there are some other plans for the Note series.
Anyways, design-wise, the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra has the same Contour-cut camera housing as on the Galaxy S21 & S21+, but due to bigger camera sensors and more camera count, the camera module on the S21 Ultra is much bigger in size.
Speaking of the size, S21 Ultra has a 6.8-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel with WQHD+ resolution & an adaptive refresh-rate of 10Hz-120Hz. Unlike last year’s S21 Ultra, where you had to choose between 120Hz + 1080p vs. WQHD+, the Galaxy S21 Ultra supports 120Hz along with Quad-HD+ resolution. The display is protected with the Gorilla Glass Victus and features 1,500nits of peak brightness, which means it is the brightness screen ever on a Galaxy device.
Such a high-refresh-rate and high-resolution display on the phone means that the battery needs to be considerably large, and so the Galaxy S21 Ultra packs a 5,000mAh cell underneath that can be charged quickly, thanks to 25W Fast charging support. It is surprising that last year’s Galaxy S20 Ultra offered up to 45W fast charging support.
The cameras on Galaxy S21 Ultra are really interesting. There is a primary 108-megapixel camera on the rear with the new Samsung’s ISOCELL HM3 sensor that features 0.8-micron pixel size, f/1.8 aperture, and Optical Image Stabilization. This camera is capable of shooting12-bit HDR photos and 8K videos at up to 30fps. Then there is a 12 Megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera with Dual Pixel Autofocus paired with a 10 Megapixel telephoto lens with 3X Optical Zoom, Dual Pixel AF, and OIS. Finally, there is a 10 Megapixel Periscope camera with 10X Optical Zoom and up to 100X Space Zoom. So after ditching the 100X Zoom on Note 20 Ultra, Samsung has brought it back in the S21 Ultra.
All the four cameras on the rear are capable of shooting 4K videos at 60fps, which is also something first for any Samsung phone.
The front camera has a 40 Megapixel sensor for taking high-quality selfies. The front camera, too, can shoot 4K 60fps videos.
Finally, there is Exynos 2100 / Snapdragon 888 SOC paired with 12GB or 16GB LPDDR5 RAM and 128GB/256GB/512GB internal storage. The phone comes in two basic colors named Phantom Black and Phantom Silver. There are also Exclusive Samsung.com color options named Phantom Brown, Phantom Navy, and Phantom Titanium. Some other features include WiFi 6E, UWB, Android 11, IP68 rating, etc.
Speaking of the pricing, the starting price of the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is $1,199 /£1,149 / ₹1,05,999 for the US, UK, and Indian markets. Just like the Galaxy S21 & S21+, you can get your hands on the Galaxy S21 Ultra on the 29th of January.