Samsung s21 - Well everyone, it's time for us to go ahead and take a look at the Samsung Galaxy S21 and see if this phone is still worth it in 2023. Now spoiler alert. I will definitely tell you this phone is still completely worth it. It may not be like the first phone I would recommend people buying in this day and age, but I still think it's a very good phone with a lot of capability and a lot of power.
But there was also a lot of weird things Samsung did at this moment that I was not a fan of at all. So if you want to pick this phone up or some other phones I would recommend this year. Links will be down in the description, you can get them from there and you can help support the channel at the same time.
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Samsung s21 Review & Specs 2023
Now starting off with the outside of the specific device, we actually did have a pretty decent display. It was 6.2 inches and it was a dynamic AMOLED display. Now it's 120 Hertz, which is nice 1300 nits of peak brightness which is beautiful. But the weirdest thing Samsung did, which I'm kind of okay with more so now than that was back then was when this phone came on in 2021.
The year right before that. in 2020, Samsung arguably made one of the best panels they've ever made. on the Galaxy S20 that was a 1440 P 120 Hertz panel, and with the S21, they ended up decreasing that resolution down to 1080P and they made it a flat display. Now, I don't know if that's like the craziest bad thing in the world, but you know it was a very, very annoying thing at that moment and I remember being super upset about that. I feel like you know Samsung could have done a better job. Since then, they've kind of done a little bit of a better job, but I was really upset about it back then now.
Another thing that really kind of made me upset was you know this thing had a Usb C Port which was great, but they removed that micro Sd card slot here as well. It's like they did so many different things at the same time and it never really works out well like that. and I feel like the legacy of this phone is kind of stained because of that. I look at the Galaxy S6. that phone ended up kind of doing the same thing. brought a better display, but it removed the headphone jack and it also removed the micro Sd card slot.
You can't do too many things at one time because the legacy of that phone will be staying. Although this isn't as much of a flop as the S6, the lack of the micro Sd card slot, and the removal of that 1440p display, it just didn't really sit well with me to be honest. But the weirdest thing, and this is the thing that threw me off the most was the back of this phone. Samsung ended up removing the glass back from the previous phone to this frosted plastic back. So this was the weirdest thing I've ever seen Samsung do.
the fact that they did the plastic bag no micro Sd card slot and basically downscaled the display all at the same time. It just was the weirdest thing I've ever seen Samsung do. Since then, They've actually kind of reversed some areas like they brought the frosty glass back, they still no micro Sd card slot still tend to be displayed, which those things is okay in my opinion, but the plastic bag made things look even worse when they'd remove the other things like you should really only be doing like one thing at a time.
The fact they did like all three of those things at the same time was crazy to me, and I do think that is kind of what the legacy of this phone is at the end of the day Now, Luckily, they didn't remove any of the flagship features, so this phone still had a triple camera setup. It still had a wireless charging, reverse wireless charging Ip certification, and you know, even with plastic bag, it didn't feel like a cheap phone, but it just felt very, very weird. I was used to the S20 Fe having a plastic back, but this one was just something else. I don't know what they were thinking here, but in terms of that, I think that kind of covers it up with the outside.
Now we do add this camera setup as well. So that triple camera setup. We have a 12 megapixel wide angle lens, 64 megapixel telephoto lens, and then a 12 megapixel ultrawide camera. Must have a 10 megapixel wide angle camera on the front. Now when compared to the other phones and the successors of these devices, I'll still say this camera holds up very, very well.
and it probably was better than the S20. When I bought this phone, I compared it heavily against all the other phones that came out during that time. the iPhone 12s, the 13s, so many other phones too, and even all the other Samsung devices like yes, 20. And you know after that the S22 and this camera is still pretty much good. You know it's not a bad camera. If you gave me this camera and you told me it was like the new S23, I would probably believe it like it's a very good camera for sure. You have 8K capability on the back which is amazing and you have 4K 60 on the front.
Now know when compared to pretty much the main Flagship devices that we have nowadays like from you know iPhone from Google Pixel. this phone I would say arguably is probably still a really good camera that still competes very well against the Pixel 7 Pro and the Iphone 14 Pro Max.
The amount of features that we have inside of the Galaxy S21 camera is amazing and although sometimes the Ui can be a little clunky and it can be a little weird here and there, this is still arguably one of my favorite devices for sure just from the camera Ui. Now, the S22 is probably better, but the S21's camera is still very good and it still gets a thumbs up for me from that perspective.
So if you're wanting to get a decent camera from a phone, especially with it being a few years old now, this is a very good camera. Videos are going to look great, photos are going to look great. There's a lot of capability built in Snapchat and Tick Tock may look a little off, but I would still say this is a very good camera for sure. So in terms of that, it kind of covers it out there.
Samsung s21 price in USA
Now when the software and the longevity portion of these devices, this is another interesting area. So with the Samsung Galaxy S21, this phone is still going to be supported with software. It started off with Android 11, where on Android 13 right now I got the One Ui5 update. Finally, I feel like this phone is going to be getting another version of one Ui and then maybe even another version of one Ui on top of that.
So like, we just got one Ui5, this phone's going to be lasting another year and then it's going to be lasting another year. On top of that, so I could see this phone ending off in around 2025. It's probably the last update this thing's going to be getting, or it's going to be the last security update or something like that. So this phone is still going to be around for a while.
Like, if you're worried about this phone being unsupported with software like today or this year, it's not really going to happen. Like you're still going to have a lot of software support with this device. So I think that's probably one thing to kind of keep in mind at the end of the day that if you wanted a phone that's going to last you quite a bit of time.
Although Samsungs aren't notorious of this or like they used to be, they are starting to change their reputation a little bit and I think that's a really cool thing. Samsung is kind of done so in terms of that, that kind of covers it up there.
Now hitting on the performance of this phone. This device had that Qualcomm Snapdragon 88 chipset inside of it with eight gigabytes of RAM. Now I had told you at that moment and I'll tell you again, I think the performance of this phone is very, very good. It is a very good performing phone even nowadays. This was right before they did that Snapdragon 8 Gen. like the new series of their chipsets and those ones were really, really powerful. Maybe not the best performance per battery life, but these were really good. and the 888 was also really really good for the most part. So I will say for basic tasks, basic things, it's gonna be perfectly fine.
You all know this, but even stepping it up a notch and going into heavy gaming and heavy application support like if you're doing video editing and whatnot, this phone is going to be able to handle it. The eight gigabytes of Ram is also, in my opinion, more than enough to actually get the job done. And you know, for the most part, I still use some phones sometimes that have six gigs of Ram like my Galaxy S10 you know, my base model or whatever the case is, so I still feel like the S21 is more than enough powerful.
I played tons of games on this thing. I've always done a lot of emulation and this phone isn't necessarily the best in terms of the emulation speeds, but it's gotten better with the Improvement of these applications so I think that's another thing to keep in mind. And I'll definitely tell you you know I think this specific phone. it gets a thumbs up for me for sure in the performance side.
Now when you get off with the battery life 4 000 million power battery inside this thing which is a pretty good sized battery, you know I definitely would say if you are looking for a better battery life you may want to go for the Ultras. Or the pluses put 4 000 milliamp hours is a massive size battery which is awesome.
So if you were somebody who wants to have like better battery life at the end of the day, well this is probably going to be one of those phones that you want to keep your eye on because it can probably give you probably way better battery life than you would even expect. So you know, unless you're somebody who's like just blasting through their battery all day, this is a really decent option in my opinion.
So to kind of sum up this whole entire post, what I'll tell you is I think the Samsung Galaxy S21 is still completely worth it. I think it was a great phone when it first came out and I still think it's a pretty good phone as well. You know, I think the S22 is a better phone in some areas, but I think the S21 for its price tag. Now with it being like less than 300 in a lot of places, it'll say a very sought option for sure. So in terms of that that kind of covers it up.