Samsung - Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G 512GB (Unlocked)

Got lucky and was able to find this as an open box and on sale. Had the phone for a couple of weeks and here's my initial thoughts and I'm only going to focus on a few things: CAMERA One of the main driving factors in getting this phone was the dual optical lenses and coming off the last few LG V series phones I'm not afraid to use the Manual/Pro modes. It is challenging but I was able to get some social media worthy shots using the 100x zoom as you can see in the pictures attached where I progressively went from 1x to 100x (1x, 3x, 10x, 30x, 100x). All of the pictures were used holding the phone in my hand: no sticks or tripods or anything like that. I'm not crazy about the layout in the Pro mode but it will take some getting used to. Played around with the slo-mo video with a roller coaster and it was excellent. My biggest gripe with the camera is for whatever reason flames from tiki torches had a strong blue/purplish hue as you can see in the picture. SCREEN The screen is absolutely gorgeous. Great for watching videos. I never understood the hype about 120hz refresh rates until now, but it is still not enough to be a must have for me. I am not a fan of hole punch cameras but there are some great wallpapers out there that hide it. That being said I cannot get the underscreen fingerprint reader to work for me. Maybe I'm used to the nuances of the LG V60 or maybe the Zagg screen I have is throwing it off. BATTERY So far so good. Get through the day with no real problems. Only once was I low where I had to top off but that was a very intense day at an amusement park but even then I think I could have gotten through the day without topping off. SPEED Overall the phone is fast for my needs. The 512GB storage is great for longer videos and quickly storing them. I don't go by artificial bench scores but I have seen real world tests that push the processor where the 865 was faster. But again, for the typical user the speed is very fast. OVERALL For what I paid for the phone and with some incentives I got on top of it yes, it is a great purchase for the money. It takes great pictures overall and the lenses are extremely flexible. The battery is great for the typical user. If you are looking for a phone for point, shoot, post, there are better options out there if I'm just looking at an MSRP comparison. If you are not afraid to use the phone's pro modes or other features then yes this phone is a good option. I do wish there was a headphone jack (I know, it's dead with the major players) but I still prefer it to listening to audio and it's nice to have the capability to use better peripherals such as external mics. LONG STORY SHORT The phone is great but not worth the MSRP price. If you can get it during a promotion (eg, sale, open box, extra $ for your trade, other forms of store credit, etc.) then go for it. If you are a point-shoot-post photographer, you may be better off going elsewhere unless you are really looking to take advantage of the dual optical lenses

So about this phone after a few months, the cam is amazing on both video and taking photos. The AI driven edit mode is just out of this world. I love the speed, nothing ever hangs, I pick up the phone and it just works. Physical: What I like most about it is the slim form factor, the feel of it is amazing and I love what Samsung has done with the hardware buttons with the customizations. The screen just glides without error. The type-C connection works with any hub like adapter. Software: So it runs Android 11 and to be honest the phone feels like stock android with a little Samsung Flair, you can remove most of the little pre installed apps but you honestly may find use for them so just try them. The OS does not take up much space and I recommend the 16gb version. Battery life is about 1.5 days for my use and I game on mine, it keeps really cool at all times. The ultra charge is neat if you really need it but really just keep normal charging and turn off fast and ultra charge unless you need that 10 min 80 percent battery. The OS is slicky smooth, I do like my own launcher, I use Nova Launcher and with the S21 it is simply amazing. The Samsung Dex is like a perfect linux desktop to work on. It does not have an SD card slot which is fine because it has lots of space as is and a simple SSD will work with it for extra storage. The price is really the only con, but you do get an amazing phone with all the features you could ever want. Now with the S Pen, the S pen works flawless on this phone, I love taking quick notes and when I am done just send it off, or in a meeting taking notes with this thing is amazing. I love the option to handwrite in combination with or without a keyboard and it transcribes my messy handwriting perfectly. It also learns a bit from you every time you use it so amazing. I recommend the Spigen Liquid Air Armor Designed for Galaxy S21 Ultra Case (2021) case they have on Amazon or the Black Case Logic: Caseology Vault Compatible with Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra. I use both on my two s21 ultra 512gb. This is my daily driver and hopefully Samsung will improve on this winning design. This pairs really well with the Samsung Tab S7+

My largest issue with the S20 Ultra was the Camera. The S21 has an awesome camera. The focus is on and the pictures are excellent. The video at 4K 60fps is excellent. The focus on the video side is working very well. The phone has a laser that enables the S21 to take great pictures. The micro has a dual pixel focus that gives an entire new ability to call phones. The colors on the screen on vivid mode are beautiful. The adaptive 120htz is giving great battery life. The blue tooth is connecting to everything and sounds great. I have gone outside and ran, walk and went about 50 feet away. NO drop outs. I do miss the micro SD card but having such a quick phone make up for it. I played games: no lag and get excellent frame rates. I played MP4 movies an the blue tooth does not lag. The multiple speakers on the S21 are shocking. I don't know how they sound so good on such a small device. I have never had 5 bars of 5G. This phone connects much better than the S20. Phone quality is excellent. I highly recommend this phone to anyone who is on the fence.

Blown away by this phone , was on edge about upgrading and not really messing with the phone at all in the store. And decided to make it happen and got to tell everyone what! Amazing phone, I know people look away because no SD card slot but mostly everyone doesn't need that amount of storage. I thought I needed more with my note 9 with 512gb + my SD card with 126gb to begin with.. and I looked at the amount of storage I used before upgrading and I didn't even budge 150gb with the phone and SD card combined and that's owning it for since it came out... and I heavy use it for my work for photos. So just take a second and evaluate your usage. And for the headphone jack.... you can buy an adapter for the charger port to make it work with wired headphones. Simple and easy. Most people now and days have Bluetooth headphones anyways though so I don't see the problem. And the phone already comes with a USB cord to better assist with transferring from your computer or charging it. Overall the phone has satisfied me to it's specs and convenience. I highly recommend!!!

This is my first foray into Samsung Android phones, being a stock Android advocate and Pixel user for the past few years. I'll say up front, this phone blew away my expectations. I upgraded from a Pixel 3XL, which served me well but suffers greatly from Google's ridiculous decision to only include 4gb of RAM. The S21 Ultra feels like an ALMOST universal upgrade: the screen is significantly better (both in resolution and in refresh rate, which makes this feel unbelievable smooth), the performance is better, and the extras that Samsung provides are a nice touch. I can't help but miss some of the pixel features I've come to rely on, though... You don't need me to tell you the areas where the phone excels, every review on the internet will focus on that. From my perspective, here are the areas where I wasn't as impressed as I expected... The cameras are very versatile, but being honest, the main shooter isn't much of an upgrade over the Pixel 3xl. In fact, the pictures seem objectively worse in some situations. This is a disappointment and probably speaks more to how amazing the Google Camera app is. The zoom functions are unmatched here, but the day to day shots feel like I've actually taken a step back which is very disappointing. Many shots are coming out blurry and generally not great. This is contrary to what all the reviews have said and was a surprise to me. Some of the software aspects of OneUI are lacking compared to vanilla Android (and Pixel in specific). The most glaring omission here is call screening. Anyone that's used this on a pixel knows how amazing it is. This can't be enabled on the S21. I've scoured xda and the like for a solution but I've found none. Another missing feature is a seemingly small one, but it's annoying to me. Android 11 added a feature to visual indicate which notification was the just recent to come in. This was a hugely useful feature for anyone that has a persistently large amount of notifications (like me). This isn't available on the S21 which is disappointing. At least notification history is there. Next, the split screen experience is objectively worse on the S21 than on vanilla Android. On vanilla Android, you can lock an app on the top half of the screen and then freely switch between apps for the lower half of the screen. On OneUI, you have to specify which two apps are split screen and if you hit the home button, both apps close. This is annoying for me since I like to keep Nest open on top and use the bottom for various other apps. I've gotten around the by using Nest in pop up mode (which works well) but it's not quite as good. Finally, the navigation on this phone frustrates me compared to the Pixel 3XL. On the pixel, there was a hybrid navigation option where you could have actual home and back buttons on the bottom while also having gestures for app switching, multitasking, etc. There is no equivalent on the S21: either you go all gesture or all button. The hybrid approach was far superior in my opinion. Overall, there's no doubt in my mind this is the best phone you can get overall right now. I just wish it didn't have the downsides outlined above.

This phone has been amazing however it's been stolen in the month of May 2022. Thankful i have a full geek squad protection plan I purchased with this phone. I am reporting this stolen through this feedback review because I have no phone to call best buy in anchorage to let them know. Facts: my phone was stolen in may 2022. Facts: my geek squad protection plan covers my phone being stolen until June 0f 2022. Please help me utilize my plan. Thank You.

What a device, Coming from S5 also threw Coeur d lane ID Best Buy. Good folks. Phone is a powerhouse 8 core Smooth! 512gb space 16gb ram 8 windows up an rolling threw email and docs like a champ. Graphics are unreal with the 120hz screen my eyes don't hurt. Picture video On par with professional cameras 4k/8k video capture is really cool can't wait to use it more. This is one the best life upgrades it gave me time to write this. No cheap plastic metal but no to heavy lighter then older S5 in case. Wrote this with Samsung Pen awesome for a big figures guy. Diffently flag ship well done.

I like android better then iOS personally. I think more apps are available , samsung phones did have scare slorts. This one they stopped that. But you can still get the 512 GB phone like this and just manage the pics on the device. This eliminates the need to encrypt the scard atleast. Overall the processor is faster and the apps are more responsive. The phones themselves are getting better and the 5G makes communications better. The camera also takes very good pictures … really good for google maps. Overall this is a better phone then the S20. 5 stars