Along with the Galaxy S21 and Galaxy S21 +, Samsung also announced the Galaxy S21 Ultra, replacing the Galaxy S20 Ultra that was announced last year. The Galaxy S21 Ultra is a special phone as it is the first Galaxy S smartphone to support the S Pen.
Galaxy S21 Ultra design
It is not just a larger model, but also a more functional phone. It also has an Infinity-O display with a centered punch hole and the same Contour Cut Camera body, which is larger due to more cameras. The phone comes in the colors Phantom Black, Phanom Silver, Phantom Titanium, Phantom Navy and Phantom Brown. The last three colors are exclusive to Samsung.com.
Technical specifications
The Galaxy S21 Ultra features a curved 6,8-inch Quad HD + Dynamic AMOLED 2X display covered with Victus Gorilla Glass. It also has an adaptive refresh rate of 120Hz (10Hz to 120Hz), and users also have the option to select the highest resolution and highest refresh rate at the same time.
Samsung claims the display has a maximum brightness of 1500 nits, which is the highest brightness in a Galaxy smartphone. The contrast ratio has also improved by 50%, and the display offers 25% brighter images than the Galaxy S20.
Like its siblings, the phone comes in Exynos 2100 and Snapdragon 888 variants. However, the Galaxy S21 Ultra has more RAM than other models. The base model has 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and is available in 128GB and 256GB variants. There is also a variant of the phone with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage.
The Galaxy S21 Ultra is the first Galaxy S phone to feature S Pen support, so you get S Pen features in the operating system. It's a nice addition, but we think Samsung should have included the stylus for free, but since you don't even have a charger, it's no surprise that a stylus not natively built into the device won't be included in the box. The S Pen for the Galaxy S21 Ultra is different from the Galaxy Note 20. It doesn't have a battery, so these tricks and air gestures are not available.
If you don't want to buy the $ 40 S Pen (or $ 70 if you decide to get a case that has room to store your S Pen), you can get a Wacom stylus, since that will work too.
There's a 5000mAh battery inside the phone with support for 25W fast wired charging (seriously, Samsung?). This is slower than the 20W Galaxy S45 Ultra fast wired charging. You also get support for wireless charging and support for reverse wireless charging.
The Galaxy S21 Ultra features an integrated ultrasonic fingerprint scanner, IP68 rated, NFC rated and is the first smartphone to support Wi-Fi 6E. It runs One UI 3 based on Android 11 out of the box.
Galaxy S21 Ultra cameras
Aside from S Pen support, the camera department is another major difference between the Galaxy S21 Ultra and its siblings.
The phone has four rear cameras including an ultra-wide 12MP f / 2.2 Dual Pixel AF sensor with 120 degree field of view, 108MP f / 1.8 0,8μm camera with OIS and PDAF, 10MP f / 2.4 Dual Pixel camera with OIS and 3x optical zoom, as well as a 10MP Dual Pixel AF periscope zoom camera with OIS and 10x optical zoom. The selfie camera is a 40MP f / 2.2 sensor with PDAF function.
108MP is an upgraded version of the S20 Ultra. It uses 9-in-1 pixel binning up to 12MP. The phone also supports 4K video recording at 60fps with all five cameras. There is a laser focusing module, and telephoto lenses provide a 100x space zoom.
Price and availability
The Galaxy S21 Ultra has a starting price of $ 1199, and pre-orders include a free pair of new Galaxy Buds Pros and SmartTags. Like its siblings, there are no 4G versions. Pre-orders start today and it goes on sale on January 29th.
