[Music] hey guys hope you're doing well this is the samsung galaxy s21 ultra it's the absolute highest end phone samsung makes right now but is it worth your money watch this video to find out let's begin with design i think this is a great looking phone from any angle compared to last year's s20 ultra the s21 looks much more refined and grown up i like that samsung embraced the camera bump and made it part of the aesthetic the giant camera bump will annoy some people and i also wasn't a fan at first but after a few weeks of living with it it doesn't bother me as much as i thought it would the argument about it rocking on a table is valid but in practice i haven't found it to be an issue what is a bit more annoying is that i can feel the camera bump in my pocket and depending on how tight your jeans are you may even see it too let's talk about phantom black is it special sort of see the color is nice but i wouldn't make a big deal about it at the end of the day it's black but the matte finish is a nice touch not only does it look great but it's almost fingerprint proof i made a poll asking you guys how many of you use phone cases and almost 90 percent of you said you do so the color and finish probably isn't all that important plus the phone still is a bit slippery without a case and you definitely don't want to drop this thing the s21 ultra is big and heavy i've always thought that bigger is better when it comes to phones but i think we're reaching the limit now if you try to hold this phone with one hand for a long time you do feel that extra weight but hey if you want an ultra experience i guess this is part of the game the screen is a masterpiece but that's really to be expected from samsung it's big bright vivid and the 120hz refresh rate makes interacting with the phone feels so smooth and natural it's also less curved around the edges than samsung's previous phones and overall i think it's a good move i haven't had a single issue with my palm touching the screen i have the exynos version and performance is great i'm not a fan of running benchmarks on phones and to be honest i'm not huge into mobile gaming either but i did download a few games in order to test performance and thanks to this review i'm now addicted to heyday thanks samsung i also tried call of duty mobile and on both the phone never misses a beat for general usage apps open and close instantly in fact you can have a crazy amount of apps open and it doesn't seem to bother the phone at all but then again this particular phone has 16 gigabytes of ram so i guess i shouldn't be surprised samsung's android ui keeps improving and feels less bloated each time i get one of their new phones so that's great to see but for me the beauty of android is that you can make it your own and for the first time ever that's exactly what i did if you'd like a video on how i set this ui up just let me know let's talk cameras for a minute because behind that giant camera bump lies some impressive hardware you still get your standard three lenses that's an ultra wide a main camera and a telephoto camera but now you get an additional 10 times telephoto camera as well and it's a big deal i've never cared about the telephoto lens before because usually the primary camera is a much better camera and the difference in zoom was never that big but now you can get shots with this lens that you just can't do without it i did a camera comparison between the s21 ultra and my older s10 plus and the s21 ultra won across the board it's also worth noting that samsung have been hard at work releasing numerous updates to the s21 ultra and each time camera performance has been improved this phone takes nice pictures it feels more natural than before and i haven't seen any crazy over saturation like from previous samsung phones but then again it's winter and everything is gray so maybe i'll see something different come spring i still have some complaints about the video on this phone even after the updates don't get me wrong it's great at some things for example it can focus super fast it can adjust exposure very quickly and slow motion video works great but my main issue comes with stabilization i don't think it's good enough even if you try to hold the phone as steady as possible you will inevitably still get some stutters which makes the video look less smooth i presume this is part of the electronic image stabilization in the phone and it may be a bigger issue on the exynos version but i can't say for sure since i don't have a snapdragon version to test with either way i hope samsung improves on this some more because it lets down what is otherwise a great camera system the front-facing camera takes great selfies and video it doesn't seem to have the same stabilization issues as the rear-facing cameras i also want to point out that samsung have done some magic with the audio because it's very effective at getting rid of background noises like wind so yeah back to the studio battery life is not something you need to worry about the combination of a huge battery with the adaptive refresh rate that can switch from just 10 hertz up to hertz depending on what you're looking at makes this a great battery life phone i would say if you're a very heavy user expect a comfortable full day if you're an average user easily a day and a half and if you're careful it can do two days i've done it now if you're into gaming you need to lower your expectations running intense games for hours on end will still kill this phone pretty quickly the phone also gets hot not so much that it's uncomfortable to the touch but enough that you'd prefer holding it with a case when it's under stress now when samsung gives it also tends to take away and they have taken away a few things of course there's no audio jack but that whole thing has kind of happened already and to samsung's credit they had a very nice pre-order deal where you could get their new galaxy buzz pro for just 10 there's also no charger in the box and that's annoying but they have made the phones cheaper this year so if you need a charger you can just order it separately and you won't be paying more there's also no expandable storage and that's even more annoying i used an sd card on my s10 plus but look there is a price to pay for innovation and for stuffing as much tech as possible into a small device things like the audio jack the sd card slot and eventually even the charging port are going to disappear because they can make better use of this space yes these things are annoying for consumers especially during this transitional time but in five years we won't be talking about any of this anymore and at some point you'll have no choice but to say goodbye to some of these older conveniences a few more interesting notes before i wrap this video up the fingerprint scanner has been improved from previous generations the sensor is now much bigger than before and i have noticed a difference i don't need to be as accurate with where i place my finger for it to unlock i don't think the speed of the unlock has been improved much but it's already fast enough for me with the s21 ultra having such a large battery i would recommend you get a fast charger if you don't have one already otherwise it does take a very long time for it to get a full charge if you only charge during the night that's not an issue but if you need some extra juice during the day it is the speaker on the phone has been much improved at least from the s10 plus it's louder cleaner and even a bit punchier in the low end still not great but it feels much more usable than before the s21 ultra truly has a fitting name and besides the video performance it's really hard for me to come up with things to complain about i will say that despite samsung's price cuts this year the s21 ultra is still a very expensive phone however for me my phone is the most important device in my life and i personally am willing to spend more to get more there's surely things i've missed in this review so if you guys have any questions drop them below in the comments and i'll make sure to get back to you thank you guys for watching as always if you enjoyed this video please support the channel by dropping a like and subscribing if you haven't already and i'll see you guys next time [Music] you
