The Samsung Galaxy S21 Review

A phone with Power, Beauty and Elegance, all packed into one

Introduction

Over the years, Samsung has been following its tradition of releasing a new Galaxy S series. Each year comes with a few new feature and upgraded hardware that matches its competition. Lets look at the new Samsung Galaxy S21 and lets all find out what it can do in this review.

So as a start, this year’s Galaxy S series comes in 3 models, the Galaxy S21, S21+ and S21 Ultra, all of the mentioned models does come with the same SOC, the Exynos 2100 5nm (The world 1st 5nm mobile processor), the notable difference are the screen sizes and memory configurations. So no matter with model variant that you choose, you will still get the same Exynos processor, unless if you are living in United States, the processor variant is from Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 series SOC.

Design

The Galaxy S21 is built solid from front to back. The back part of the phone is plastic, but the material feel is smooth, giving an elegant feel to it. On the camera side, Samsung gave it a fresh design known as Contour Cut with a different color but blend well. I personally love the Phantom Violet combined with the Gold on the camera portion, it just matches right at the same time, not too strikingly bright.

Continuing on the gold color on the camera design, the same color applies to the side of the phone and the bottom/top part as well. The bottom of the phone you will spot the speaker, one USB C port and the dual SIM tray with the microphone, while on the top there is 2 more unit of microphone. This ensures good call quality and loud speaker enjoyment. No headphone jack but its a pretty normal thing for not having one.

Display

Over the display department, the Galaxy S21 is powered by a 6.2 Inch FHD+ 120Hz screen with Gorilla Glass Victus that supports HDR10+. Display is vibrant, clear, colors were display at a fairly accurate level. It has adaptive refresh rate display which means when the screen is sitting idle, it will run at 60FPS, once you start your browsing and work, it will automatically adjust up to 120FPS. Such performance does take a toll on the battery life, but not by much, depending on your daily usage and just a handful of games does support 120FPS gameplay.

Camera

The Galaxy Series has never fail to impress when it comes to the camera performance. The selfie images are well bright and good, and night shots works ok with its 10MP dual pixel sensors. Over the rear camera you have one 64MP lens, one 12MP wide lens and another 12MP ultra wide lens accompanied with a flash. A few shots were taken as above and the results is truly works well. A sample of 10x zoom, normal, 64MP and automatic shots taken were balance, with little noise. On video recording you get support up to 8K 24FPS, while 8K video recording is a bit jittery, the video taken is really clear with little to no compromises. FHD video is awesome with stabilization features.

Performance

Under the hood, the Samsung Galaxy S21 is powered by the Exynos 2100, 256GB of internal storage and 8GB RAM. Call quality is excellent whether its a 3G call or even via VOLTE, WoWIFI option is available as well when enabled, delivering crystal clear voice quality. 5G connectivity will be the highlight of this phone, when any of the local telco launches 5G, the Galaxy S21 will get it as well, ensuring blazing fast speed for multimedia and streaming. Over to WiFi, the S21 has WiFi 6 built-in, test at my home AC based router gave me a blazing 1GBPS local speed, if you have a WiFi 6 router, you will be able to take all the advantages without issues.

Over to the gaming side, this phone is a solid performer, PUBG is one of games that runs on 120FPS maximum, during the test there it takes it quite smooth with very little drop on frame. Other games such as Shadowguns supports it as well. 60FPS games such as Mobile Legends and Genshin Impact runs OK, specifically on Genshin Impact, it is still a very graphically intensive game, but the S21 takes it up with occasional frame drops, just set all to medium settings and its a good to go on your Tevyat adventures.

Benchmark performance exceeds most expectations, delivering impressive numbers as shown above. Such score is very comparable with the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 888. While it is just a synthetic score, if you are currently using an older Snapdragon or coming from a Samsung Galaxy S9 or 10 series, this is a worthy upgrade.

Battery performance wise, you will get around 11 hours of it, a mix of calls, surfing, email, streaming, and a few Mobile Legends matches. Turn on the battery saving mode under 20% will get you around extra 2 hours of conservative usage. While it is known that the Galaxy S21 does not come with a charger, you can always get any third party compatible PD charger. An 18w charger will charge up the phone in slightly less than 3 hours from empty to 100%.

Specifications

Conclusion 

The Samsung Galaxy S21 5G is definitely a great device for those who look for a fresh new device in 2021, or for those who wanted to upgrade from the previous device. This year 5G is definitely a major topic too among tech lovers waiting for every local Telco to launch the services and this is the phone that you might want to get. Other than that this phone comes with Samsung DeX which acts as a desktop on your larger display, or just mirror it on your existing PC/Laptop/Mac and continue the work and productivity at your office or home. At RM3699, its mid higher tier pricing is reasonable given the fact alone that you are actually paying for a premium SOC that also ensures at least 1 version of Android upgrade.

Pros

• 120Hz Refresh Rate Display
• Has reverse charging
• Excellent performance

Cons

• No MicroSD Card Slot
• Plastic back/rear