Samsung’s camera app is one of the better ones available and now does more automatically, switching to macro or night modes depending on the scene. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian The Galaxy S21 series is faster for two reasons: it marks the debut of brand-new chipsets, and the software has been streamlined just a bit, with the ever-evolving OneUI 3.0 interface tied into Android 11. Let’s move to the numbers-heavy portion of this review, then. In the Geekbench 5 CPU test, the Galaxy S21 Ultra’s Exynos 2100 matched the single-core performance of its predecessor, the Exynos 990, found inside the S20 Ultra. Where it differs, however, is in multi-core performance. The S21 Ultra is roughly 24% faster here, which is a huge boost.

Going all the way from the ultra-wide camera at 0.6x to the digitally zoomed-in 30x with usable photos each step of the way is how Samsung stands apart from Apple and its cameras on the iPhone 12 Pro Max (capped at 2.5x optical / 12x digital), and Google’s Pixel 5 (no telephoto). No one (except Huawei) is doing zoom on a smartphone like this in 2021, and your Apple phone-owning friends will have telephoto envy. Wireless Charger Stand, Wireless Charger Duo Pad i innych urządzeń, które obsługują ładowanie bezprzewodowe prądem 10 W lub wyższym. The cameras also receive their fair share of upgrades this year. Indeed, the Ultra is the only S21 phone to come with a 108MP (f/1.8) main camera and it also comes with a pair of 10MP telephoto lenses.Szacowane działanie dla typowego użytkownika. Niezależnie oceniane przez Strategy Analytics w okresie 07.12 – 18.12.2020 r. w USA i Wielkiej Brytanii z przedpremierowymi All the usual top-quality elements are there. The screen is stunning, performance is good, battery life is excellent and the software is the latest available. But it is the much improved fingerprint scanner that makes the biggest difference to day-to-day usage – it’s fast, accurate and responsive in a way Samsung’s previous efforts just weren’t. The camera system can also smoothly zoom from 1x to 10x magnification using hybrid and optical zoom from a combination of the cameras with impressive results. That is longer than the 30-hour battery of the Note 20 Ultra, but slightly short of the S20 Ultra from last year and far behind the 48-hour battery of the iPhone 12 Pro Max. Changing the screen from the default dynamic 120Hz refresh rate and FHD+ resolution to the higher QHD+ resolution reduced the battery life by a couple of hours. Sustainability No matter the task, the powerful Exynos 2100 chip that comes with the S21 Ultra crushes it with ease. In addition, it is also more energy-efficient than the S20 Ultra's chip, so what you get with this 5,000 mAh capacity battery is nothing short of impressive. With approximately 5 hours of on-screen time, you get around 34 hours of battery life. This easily means nearly 2 days of use, which only a few smartphones on the market could claim to offer at this level of system performance. And finally, the phone supports 5G connectivity and expectedly still has the beloved USB-C port for fast charging and data transfers. S21 Ultra 5G: Price UK

The S21 Ultra supports Samsung’s S Pen stylus similar to the Note 20 Ultra which can be bought as an optional extra. Not that there’s much need to tweak the camera settings, though. Open up the camera app and you’ll be treated to wonderful, detail-rich images that are filled with vibrant colours and rich, intricate details. I was particularly impressed with the portrait mode, which you can see here side-by-side with the iPhone 12 Pro: The Galaxy S21 Ultra is Samsung’s latest big, heavy and expensive superphone that makes meaningful improvements to both the camera and general usability. Sitting at the top of Samsung’s new flagship trio, the Galaxy S21 Ultra has everything you could want from a top-end flagship phone, including a gigantic 6.8in screen, a smattering of rear and front-facing cameras, up to 512GB of internal storage and the option to upgrade to a – frankly bonkers – 16GB of RAM. It’s also the first Samsung phone to come with Android 11 pre-installed, and it can record 8K video, just like last year’s Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra review: Price and competitionIt is one of the most adaptable camera systems available, out zooming all but Huawei’s P40 Pro Plus from last year. The main camera shoots very good photos, with improved low light performance and better processing than last year’s S20 Ultra. The ultrawide camera is great in bright light, but can start to look a bit dark and overly sharpened compared with the main camera in lower light levels. The three preview thumbnails in directors view are simulated from the ultrawide camera, but the main view switches to the appropriate camera when selected. Focus enhancer occasionally triggered when just trying to shoot using the main camera, resulting in overly sharpened images. Where the Galaxy S21 Ultra has seen the biggest improvement is in the graphics rendering department. With an average frame rate of 93fps in the GFXBench Manhattan on-screen test (at native WQHD resolution), the S21 Ultra’s GPU performance is almost double that of last year’s S20 Ultra. Drop the screen resolution down to FHD+ and the frame rate jumps to 118fps. Both the 3x and 10x cameras produce really good, crisp images even in the relatively dim light of stormy weather. The 3x camera is ideal for zooming in on people and other objects a few metres away, while the 10x magnification enables you to meaningfully close the distance to subjects significantly further away.

The 40-megapixel selfie camera pokes through a small hole in the top of the screen, just below the hidden earpiece speaker. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian modelami przy ustawieniu domyślnym z wykorzystaniem sieci 5G Sub6 (NIE testowane w sieci 5G mmWave). Rzeczywista żywotność baterii zależy od środowiska A choice you don’t have to make, however, is whether or not to pay extra for a 5G model. All three phones come with 5G at no additional cost this year and the Galaxy S21 Ultra even supports Wi-Fi 6E connections (the first smartphone to do so), although the number of people likely to have a new 6GHz router at home is vanishingly small right now.The S21 Ultra is the first Samsung smartphone to feature a new quad-camera with a 12MP ultrawide, 108MP standard wide and not one but two 10MP telephoto cameras – one with 3x and one with 10x optical zoom. The S21 Ultra ships with Samsung’s just-released Exynos 2100 processor in Europe (as tested) or Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 in the US. Both variants come with 12GB or 16GB of RAM depending on model.