Home >samsung >Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G, analysis and opinion

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Time: globisoftware

On: Feb/15/2022

Category: Huawei iphone samsung Digital life

Tags: Do all samsung galaxy phones have touchwiz software?

And it is that, in 2020 it was easy for the user to confuse phones. Beyond those that had different camera modules such as the iPhone 12 (and for the apple, of course) or the Mate 40 Pro, the truth is that they all ended up looking too similar.

Samsung sought to change the trend with the Note 20 -Ultra analysis-, but that is accentuated with the arrival of the S21, especially with the Galaxy 21 Ultra that we are analyzing. Let's start with that rear and the imposing camera module.

It is evident that it attracts attention both for the number of cameras (four plus a flash and a laser sensor that, at first glance, looks like another camera) and for the module in which the sensors are integrated. It is a gigantic rectangular module that is separated from the rest of the rear, but attached to both the right side and the upper frame.

It is as if a piece of the side had been inserted into the rear part and, to be honest, although it clashes at first because it protrudes two millimeters from the rear part and because of the design itself, it is something that I have ended up liking a lot.

It also has a practical function, because by allowing more internal space for the cameras, the lenses are somewhat sunken (practically negligible, but they are), so they should not be easily scratched when placing the terminal on a table.

For the rest, our terminal is the black one and, although the palette this year is more accurate, I think it is the best color that Samsung has launched, a matte black that, in addition, has a touch similar to the aluminum of the phones from a few generations ago, but still glass.

It is the only glass S21 and it shows both in weight and in touch. Yes, it is the most premium of the three both for specifications and for that glass finish and, in addition, it has a treatment so that fingerprints are not easily printed.

oh! And the best thing is that we have a 100x Space Zoom, but Samsung has left the marketing aside and we don't have the '100X SPACE ZOOM' logo that we saw on the S20 Ultra, thankfully.

It is a mobile that is not small at all. Its 165.1 mm height and 75.6 width are necessary to house the tremendous 6.8" screen that we have in hand. In the hand it is very comfortable because the sides are curved and we do not have the pointed ones corners of the Note 20 Ultra (which you ended up getting used to).

That yes, prepare the pocket, literally, because they are 227 grams of weight and the thickness goes from the general 8.9 mm to 11 millimeters in the part of the camera module. It weighs, yes, but the user who bets on a terminal with a screen of these dimensions knows what he is facing.

The back has 2.5D sides that join a metal frame that runs around the perimeter of the terminal and is elegant. It has a glossy finish, but since the color is black, the truth is that the fingerprints are not too noticeable.

On the right side we find the function button and the volume button. At the bottom we have one of the two speakers, a microphone, the USB Type-C and the DualSIM slot. Yes, nothing to expand via microSD.

At the top we have two other microphones and the left side is completely clean. On the front we have the hole for the front camera and, just above, the call receiver that works as a speaker.

And, as protagonist as the cameras in this S21 Ultra, we have a screen at the height of the price of the terminal.

Samsung displays its power in a practically perfect screen

We have reached a key section in the analysis of the S21 Ultra and almost any terminal in this range, really. The screen is the element of the mobile with which we spend the most time, either physically interacting or consuming content.

Samsung is one of the companies that has demonstrated its power over several generations (since the mythical i9000) when it comes to creating panels and, after a period in which it lost its way looking for highly saturated colors and maximum curvatures, It has focused on the latest generations, offering phones that make it a pleasure to play games, watch series or simply scroll on Twitter.

Unlike the S21 and S21+, the S21 Ultra's screen has a slight curve on the sides. It's nothing over the top and doesn't affect the experience as there are no inadvertent touches. It's just there to reinforce that feeling of an 'all-screen' front end.

It is something that it achieves with a ratio of 89.8% of the front being a screen thanks to both those sides and the upper part and the chin, of 3 mm and almost 4 mm respectively.

The hole for the camera is tiny, just 3mm in diameter, and it's something that Samsung does very well. They have the smallest front-facing camera holes on the market, helping to improve immersion.

The panel looks really good thanks to some vivid colors that we can customize to our liking in the display settings options, but I have decided to leave it on 'Vivid', as it comes by default, to enjoy the colors that the DynamicAMOLED 2x panel is able to offer.

For playing native games, viewing HDR content, or simply browsing apps and viewing photos, it's one of the best screens I've had the pleasure of testing. The response is also perfect to the touch.

If we talk about numbers, let's start with the resolution and the refresh rate. We have QHD + resolution that translates into 3,200 x 1,440 pixels. This is not new because we have already seen it in other company mobiles and, in its 6.8", this means that we have a maximum of 515 pixels per inch.

The refresh rate is up to 120 Hz and the good news is that, contrary to what happened in 2020, we can choose the maximum resolution together with the maximum refresh rate. Samsung said that it did not allow it in the S20 and in the Note 20 Ultra for autonomy issues and to take care of the battery, but in the end, that should be the user's choice, and more so seeing that other companies did have mobiles with the highest resolution and maximum refreshment.

You are not going to distinguish pixels and, in my case, I have had the QHD+ configuration plus 120 Hz adaptive at all times... except when I did the autonomy test at 60 Hz and the FHD+ test at 120 Hz. The experience is fantastic both watching content as in games.

Something that needs to be clarified is that Samsung uses the adaptive frequency that it already used in the Note 20 Ultra (and that, inexplicably, it left aside in the S20 FE -analysis-. It is a technology that adapts the frequency of the panel from 10 Hz to 120 Hz depending on the content being displayed.

The screen adapts to the frequency that the app needs. If we are watching a video at 24 Hz, the screen lowers the refresh rate to that amount. In Always-on Display mode it goes to the minimum and in an app that is programmed at 60 Hz, the refresh is 60 Hz. If we put a game that goes to 90 or 120 Hz, the frequency increases to show those 90 or 120 images per second.

It is something invisible to the user, but it helps to increase the life of a battery that we will talk about later and that is not enough despite its 5,000 mAh.

On the other hand, we must talk about brightness. According to Samsung, the S21 Ultra has a peak of 1,500 nits, a frightening figure, but one that we wanted to measure ourselves, as we do with all top-of-the-range mobiles.

In this sense, it does not disappoint and the terminal gives us a brightness of about 1,000 lux on average with a brightness of more than 1,900 lux on average in high brightness mode. You will not have any problem to see content in full sunlight and, in addition, the automatic brightness system is precise and reliable.

I have also not seen the panel cast a shadow either around the front camera or on the sides. In short: it is a screen that is difficult to put a 'but' and is powered by a very good processor.

And ending with the protection, as Samsung has accustomed us, it is sealed with the IP68 certification. The screen is also protected by a Gorilla Glass Victus glass, a layer that was already used in the Note 20 Ultra and that gave spectacular results in the resistance tests.

The Exynos 2100 is finally up to the most powerful chips of the year

And it is that, nourishing the panel is the new Exynos 2100. Samsung had been pointing out ways for a few years in its particular fight against Apple and Qualcomm, but its processors, in the end, lost steam in the GPU or in consumption, which was very high.

The Exynos 2100 finally seems to enter the category of the best processors of the generation both for performance and efficiency. We are talking about a SoC built on a 5 nanometer lithography that has 8 CPU cores and a 14-core Mali-G78 GPU.

The processor is composed of a high-performance core Cotex X1 at 2.9 GHz, three Cortex A78 at 2.8 GHz and four Cortex A55 at 2.2 GHz and yes, it is not the Snapdragon 888 that you have in China and the United States , but it is a processor that can take what you throw at it.

Performance is not a problem in this terminal that, in addition, is accompanied by 12 or 16 GB depending on the storage version (ours is the 12 GB with 256 GB of storage) and, as I say, no type of problem or in day to day with dozens of apps in the background or with the most demanding games.

Before commenting on the experience, we leave you the cold numbers in the performance tests:

Galaxy S21 Ultra Galaxy S21+ note 20 ultra Galaxy S20 Ultra Mate 40 Pro P40 Pro+ iPhone 12 ProMax Zenfone 7 Pro
SoC Exynos 2100 Exynos 2100 Exynos 990 Exynos 990 Kirin 9000 Kirin 990 A14 SD865+
3D Mark Sling Shot Extreme 7,765 8,094 6,490 6,875 6,353 6,057 5,679 7,885
GeekBench 4 single-core 4,910 4,835 2,913 5,024 3,917 3,917 - 4,626
GeekBench 4 multi-core 14,224 13,938 12,045 11,966 13,863 12,723 - 12,742
GeekBench 5 single-core 1,050 1,060 582 926 948 779 - 1,005
GeekBench 5 multi-core 3,347 3,316 2,729 2,818 3,329 3,199 - 3,201
PC Mark 15,730 14,834 10,601 10,772 9,093 11,605 - 15,428
AnTuTu 642,161 634,434 504,150 519,317 614,789 532,550 644,137 639,139
3D Mark Wild Life 5,463 5,595 - - 6,117 - 9,119 -
3D Mark Wild Life fps 32.7 33.5 - - 36 - 54 -

By numbers, we already see that there is a clear advance. Last year's Exynos 990 was quite far, especially in GPU, from the Snapdragon 865 and this year we can verify that the Exynos 2100, although it is still far from the A14 in GPU, is more powerful in both graphics and processor.

It was a jump that Samsung did not need both for performance and for image, since they were still top phones that did not measure up in raw power if we compared them with the Kirin, Apple AX or Snapdragon on duty.

We're excited to see where the Snapdragon 888 leaves the bar, but at least we've seen a generational leap within Samsung itself. If we compare the 2100 with the 990, there is no color: they are more powerful both in tasks that squeeze one core and the eight cores and, above all, at the level of the Mali GPU.

Needless to say, all the apps are going to go smoothly, but it is also noticeable that the Mali GPU 'suffers' as soon as we ask for 'chicha'. In demanding games and recording at 8K, we noticed a slight heating in the upper back of the phone and we feel that the GPU would be much better... if it were not Mali. That may be why Samsung is looking for other partners, such as AMD.

Even so, as we say, TOP performance in a premium mobile. If we go at the speed of memory, we have "worse" news. It is curious how Samsung, manufacturer of both RAM and ROM, never manages to stand out in the speed of the memory that integrates its devices.

In this case, we have a jump, again, compared to the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra or the S20 Ultra, but it is far in all the measurements of Huawei's Mate 40 Pro, for example. In fact, it highlights the difference between reading and writing.

Galaxy S21 Ultra Galaxy S21+ Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra Mate 40 Pro Sony Xperia 1II Huawei P40 Pro+ Huawei P40 Pro Xiaomi Mi 10 Pro
memory type UFS 3.1 + LPDDR5 UFS 3.1 + LPDDR5 UFS 3.1 + LPDDR5 UFS 3.0 + LPDDR5 UFS 3.1 + LPDDR5 UFS 3.0 UFS 3.0 + LPDDR4X UFS 3.0 + LPDDR4X UFS 3.0 + LPDDR5
sequential write 377.17MB/s 377.20MB/s 276.02MB/s 197.37MB/s 640MB/s 298.39MB/s 621.16MB/s 349.10MB/s 488.26MB/s
sequential read 1.09GB/s 930.71MB/s 756.83MB/s 710MB/s 1.6GB/s 1.16GB/s 1.61GB/s 1.70GB/s 1.02GB/s
random write 38.34MB/s 37.42MB/s 21.25MB/s 19.72MB/s 89.37MB/s 33.36MB/s 42.31MB/s 45.34MB/s 32.15MB/s
random read 23.87MB/s 16.68MB/s 14.28MB/s 15.31MB/s 45.41MB/s 19.34MB/s 26.20MB/s 23.06MB/s 20.20MB/s
memory copy speed 10.21GB/s 8.92GB/s 6.78GB/s 10.83GB/s 13.07GB/s 10.30GB/s 6.09GB/s 6.14GB/s 10.39GB/s

In any case, it is not a slow mobile at all and with its 12 GB you are going to have plenty of everything. In fact, in the video that you have just below these lines you can see that it handles perfectly both with multitasking and with the cold start of applications and data export.

Android 11 gets along with OneUI 3.1, but freshness is still lacking

Samsung works with Android, but from the beginning of the Galaxy, the company showed that it wanted to bet on its own customization layer that would really eat up everything that was supporting the system.

Touchwiz was that layer and, although at first it was fine because it brought freshness, it didn't take long until it was so heavy that the performance was no longer what was expected in a terminal of this range.

They wanted to rethink the strategy and, therefore, opted for OneUI, a lighter interface that also differed from the Android Stock style, but added interesting functions and features.

Little by little, Samsung has been adding more and more features and here we stand with Android 11 with OneUI 3.1 on top, so we have the latest security patches and the latest technology from both Google and Samsung.

I don't think Samsung will make the mistake of making a layer as heavy as Touchwiz in the future because, in addition to the fact that the software has advanced a lot, the processors are more and more capable, but when you face a mobile with OneUI 3.1, the truth is that you discover new features almost daily.

It's a layer far removed from the Android style, both because of the complexity of the menus and because of the location of some options and, of course, because of the visual style, and the truth is that it works very smoothly.

No issues with multitasking, I really like the Edge Bar, there are now more icon customization options, and also there are more options when you rest your finger on an app icon, all to give us more control without having to navigate around. the menus.

And the truth is that, without finding anything really innovative, we have the evolution of some typical Samsung elements. The Always on Display screen is better and allows us a greater margin of control over both music and notifications without unlocking the terminal (although this raises questions about privacy, but good).

We have a way to share music that we have seen on other smartphones and that basically allows us to send the audio of the music to a portable speaker while the rest of the audio (a voice message on WhatsApp, for example) is played on the terminal and, in addition, it has a game mode and very interesting functions to work on.

Samsung and Microsoft have an agreement that allows us to replicate the mobile screen on a Windows 10 computer, something very useful on some occasions and, in addition, we have DeX.

It is that kind of Samsung desktop mode that turns the mobile into a kind of Android laptop. It is functional, fluid and we can use it both wired and wireless. This year, in addition, DeX takes a leap because it allows us to use a Windows 10 computer wirelessly as a screen.

I like the system, but if it is your first Samsung, the truth is that you will have to get used to the options, the location of some things and the particularities of the system. oh! One thing I really like is that we have Google Discover, not UpDay.

And finally, let's talk about biometric unlocking. We do not have an IR sensor to unlock the mobile with the face, but we do have the photo system that uses the data from the front camera. It works well and is accurate, but it is not the fastest system and, although it allows us to register two variants, neither is with a mask.

Fortunately, we have the fingerprint system on the screen. It is an ultrasonic sensor, so it does not illuminate the screen leaving us blind if we unlock the mobile in bed. Samsung has increased the detection area and it is a fast system that is appreciated in these times when the mask is mandatory on the street.

By the way, many data on the phone, such as the photo of our face for unlocking, is protected by Knox.

Four cameras that share the spotlight

In recent months I have reviewed several phones with configurations of three and four cameras that, to put it in some way, was more marketing than anything else. In the mid-range and entry-level, many manufacturers introduce two sensors that really do not contribute much like a macro and the depth sensor that, neither for quality, utility or megapixels, are we going to use on a day-to-day basis.

The S21 Ultra 5G has four cameras, but all four have practically the same importance and, therefore, it is one of the most versatile phones at the photographic level that I have tested in recent times, such as the Mi 10 Pro -analysis-.

Samsung has gone to the extreme in its 21 Ultra by betting on a 3x (equivalent to a 70mm in 35mm universal pitch) and a 10x (which amounts to a 240mm). They are two lenses with that native magnification, nothing digital or hybrid, but due to the combination of the 108 megapixels of the main sensor and the zoom itself, they allow us to get up to 100x digitally.

That yes, that 100x is not very useful, but a 30x that is quite 'fixed'.

,

In addition, we have a wide angle that complements a versatile photographic section, of quality and with a processing that has taken a leap in this generation (although with some failures in complex situations that we will talk about later.

Normally I like to talk about each camera separately, but this time I am going to divide it into exterior, interior/night and video, indicating to which objective each of the photographs belongs.

goals megapixels Opening and stabilization Focal Focus Pixel and sensor size
Major 108 f/1.8 | OIS 24mm PDAF | To be 0.8µm | 1/1.33"
wide angle 12 f/2.2 | EIS 13mm PDAF 1.4µm | 1/2.55"
3x telephoto 10 f/2.4 | OIS 70mm PDAF | dual-pixel 1.22µm | 1/3.24"
telephoto 10x 10 f/4.9 | OIS 240mm PDAF | dual-pixel 1.22µm | 1/3.24"
Frontal 40 f/2.2 | EIS 26mm PDAF 0.7 µm | 1/2.8"

I remind you that you can download the photos in original quality and without compression through this link to see them in higher quality, since when you upload them to the web they are compressed.

Exterior

When there are good light conditions, any mobile takes good photos and what makes the difference is the processing and the quality of the sensor. The main one of the Galaxy S21 Ultra is the second generation of the 108-megapixel sensor from Samsung. Last year it already gave very good results and it is a sensor that allows us to take huge pictures to zoom in at a given moment.

I think it is not the most appropriate to shoot at 108 megapixels since, although the dynamic range is better than what we had last year, having a 3x optical that extreme cropping function in a 108 megapixel photograph loses a bit of meaning.

Of course, to shoot at that resolution, you have to select it in the options menu, since by default we are going to shoot in a 3:4 ratio and 27 megapixels. Thanks to the pixel binning technique, the pixels are joined four by four to create a larger pixel that allows more information to be obtained in the shadows, for example.

With good light conditions, as I say, the results are fantastic. The stabilization, sharpness and texture of what is photographed is spectacular and, in addition, it controls both highlights and shadows very well (almost always).

We see those same qualities in both the 3x and 10x lenses. Interestingly, the 3x is the one I have used the least, but not because I don't like it, but because I preferred looking for lenses than photographing with the 10x.

That 3x has an image quality very similar to that of the main objective, but it is clear that the most spectacular is the 10x.

This is a lens that impresses with its stabilization and shines in optimal light conditions. Its f/4.9 aperture means that, as soon as the conditions are not optimal, the performance drops and the noise appears, but when we shoot during the day it is quite a spectacle.

Digitally, we can go to 30x or 100x magnification. As was the case last year, 30x is the most 'usable' as 100x gives images that look like they have a watercolor filter. The stabilization at that 100x is impressive, but it's not really something we're going to be using... beyond the first few days.

The wide angle puts the icing on the optical configuration of the S21 Ultra, although the truth is that it is the least impressive lens of the four. It is very similar to what we saw the previous generation and although it corrects the distortion well, it lacks sharpness and there are scenes in which some textures are interpolated.

Its equivalence of 13 mm is interesting for creative uses, but as I say, it is the least surprising.

Of course, there are times when the HDR goes overboard and does strange things, but these days taking photos is not a problem that we have seen too many times.

If we go to the front sensor, we have a 40-megapixel camera that does not shine either due to aperture or sensor/pixel size. It is logical considering the size of the camera, but in the end that makes selfies good, but no more than that.

It takes a very good light condition to take a good portrait with the front camera, but I like the treatment of colors and skin texture.

indoor/night

In more complicated conditions, all mobiles suffer from the appearance of noise due to the size of both the sensor and the pixel. In the case of the S21 Ultra it is a bit more pronounced because the processing is exaggerated in the most complex situations and some colors appear washed out, but in general, I am happy with the performance.

The main sensor defends itself well in both conditions and I like that it generates a nice background blur without resorting to portrait mode.

Something interesting is that it has a kind of macro mode that uses the main sensor and the wide angle. In this example it looks pretty good.

If we focus with the main one, we have a very good blur on practically everything that is not what we are focusing on. However, if we activate the 'all in focus' mode, we have more depth of field and can focus from quite close. There is more noise, but it is curious.

At night we have a good performance, but, again, an exaggerated processing. The night mode behaves well, but the automatic one is also capable of saving the situation. This night mode can be used on all sensors, although 10x is much more complicated.

The stabilization is good, but it is still a sensor with a small aperture and taking photos of 2/3 seconds will make them blurry.

The good thing is that the app allows us to save a JPG file and a kind of processed RAW that allows us to easily recover the shadows or highlights without losing too much detail in the rest of the scene.

Video

Samsung and Apple are the two companies that shine the most in this regard thanks to a very good approach and spectacular stabilization.

ttps://www.dailymotion.com/video/k63QdDgSyrJQjhwCELV

4K60 video with the main lens

4K60 video with the main lens

4K60 video with the main lens

With the main sensor at 4K60, we have very well stabilized and focused shots, with a very good focus thanks to the laser system.

There is a 'super stabilized' mode that limits recording to 1080p60 and that performs well too, but honestly I prefer to shoot at 4K because the optical stabilization works great.

Super stabilized video with the main lens

And speaking of stabilization, it's impressive how well the 10x lens stabilizer performs. That is to say, we are talking about a very, very long TV that practically does not move in our hands, something that is worth mentioning.

Videos with the 10x lens at 4K60

On the other hand, we have an 8K mode at 24fps. In still scenes it is impressive, but it is not really useful because as soon as there is some movement those 24 images per second are noticeable.

8K24 video with the main lens

About the camera app, there is nothing that we have not said at this point because OneUI 3.1 is quite continuous in this regard. We have an application that has the basic options in the carousel and that continues to bet on that 'Single Capture' mode that takes several photos and videos at the same time, with different effects and sensors to create a very interesting collage.

In the 'More' section, we have options such as night mode or a portrait mode that, finally, is called portrait mode and not 'Double exposure'. It is a simple, functional, fast app that allows you to edit the portrait mode after taking the photo in a very interesting and complete way, with many actions that simulate not only the depth of field, but also the different lenses and their 'bokeh'.

It is true that, as Rubén commented in his analysis of the S21+, indoors and when night falls, the noise appears immediately and the processing can do its thing.

And the wide angle is not something spectacular either, but a continuation of last year, but the main sensor is at a high level, the 3x is very useful on all occasions and the 10x, when the light is right, is really incredible, with some textures, some colors and a spectacular sharpness.

Samsung has assembled the best of the best in its flagship and it is a terminal that opens, in style, the top-of-the-range camera competition in 2021.

5,000 mAh of which we expected something more and a charger that must be purchased separately

And we come to the controversial point of the analysis of the Galaxy S21 Ultra, the autonomy. When we talk about large batteries, such as the 5,000 mAh one that integrates this S21 Ultra or the 4,800 mAh one of its brother, the S21 +, we usually think that the autonomy will be a day and a half / two days. However, reality shows us that autonomy does not depend on the size of the 'stack', or not exclusively, at least.

Samsung has done a good job of optimizing its manufacturing process to reduce the size of the SoC to 5 nanometers and yes, 5,000 mAh is a good amount, but its terminals are still far from other phones with a similar capacity.

This autonomy will depend on several aspects, such as use (although whoever buys this mobile will use both the cameras and the processor conscientiously) or the screen configuration. In my case, I have used the screen with automatic brightness, with the highest resolution (QHD +) and with the rate up to 120 Hz. Bluetooth and NFC were connected at all times.

There is an option to activate a kind of 'turbo mode', but honestly, neither in the day to day nor in the synthetic tests have I noticed a difference, so it has been turned off. The result is between 6:30/7 hours of screen time.

It is something that is not little, of course, but the day you spend taking photos or that you play demanding titles more than usual, you notice that you arrive in a hurry, but of course it is an improvement (two hours on average more) compared to what that they launched last year, since with the S20 and S20+ I was very, very rushed at the end of the day with my use.

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Of course, it can be customized and by lowering the resolution and the refresh rate, we reach 7:30 hours of screen time, a more respectable figure and that we can activate in a hurry when we see that we are running out of battery, but we still have a while to get home.

Now, we come to charging because we are facing one of those mobile phones that you have to charge in the morning without hurry when we are studying/working... or at night. The maximum supported power is 25 W and no, it is not the fastest charge available or the most suitable for an 'Ultra' mobile.

Apple and Samsung continue to bet on fast-slow charging and, in addition, do not include a charger in the box. It is true that the Galaxy are compatible with other USB Type-C chargers, but not all users will have a 25W one at home. oh! To activate fast charging we have to select the option in the battery options.

In any case, we have charged it with a PD compatible charger of more than 25 W and the result has been a 50% charge in 49 minutes with 100% in one hour and 38 minutes.

I miss an effort by the South Koreans in this regard with a load that I do not ask to be 65 W, but at least more than 30 W, as many manufacturers are including in their mid-range devices.

On the other hand, the S21 Ultra (and the rest of the family) supports 15 W Qi wireless charging and 4.5 W reverse charging. It is a reverse charge, which is what we expect in such a terminal and that will allow us load what we want, but above all it is ideal for watches or headphones.

And, at the software level, we have a power saving mode, the typical limitation of use in the background and settings such as the adaptive battery to, through a series of algorithms, see which apps are the ones we use the least and adapt the consumption on the fly.

It is a correct section that, of course, does not stand out for autonomy or for charging on a mobile that does everything else "in a big way".

The ultimate in connectivity with great stereo sound

Samsung is one of the companies that first made the leap to 5G terminals, but it did so with a logical "shyness" because the networks were not too widespread worldwide. Little by little, we have seen a more firm commitment to 5G connectivity, but last year they continued to launch both 4G and 5G models (the S20 FE is an example with a 5G model with a Qualcomm processor and another 4G with an Exynos processor).

That is over and the new family arrives with the latest in connectivity. We have, of course, 5G and, in addition, it is 5G connectivity both SA and NSA and the connectivity of UWB the ultra-wide band. The latter, unfortunately, is a kind of "unicorn", but at very specific points speeds of more than 2 Gbps can be reached.

Es algo que depende mucho de las antenas y de los teleoperadores y yo, aunque tengo 5G, es NSA de Movistar, por lo que la velocidad no es, ni de lejos, la óptima. Pero bueno, el móvil está preparado para ello.

Además, contamos con Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 y, cómo no, NFC tanto para pagos móviles como para conectar dispositivos de forma sencilla.

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SI nos vamos al apartado del sonido, contamos con un muy buen audio que permite tener una experiencia fantástica consumiendo contenido, pero también poniendo música mientras nos duchamos, por ejemplo, gracias a un sonido potente y que no distorsiona... hasta que llegamos al 80% del volumen.

A partir de ese punto, los agudos molestan un poco, pero si no nos pasamos con el volumen, tenemos una muy buena experiencia gracias a unos medios y agudos que responden bien ya unos graves que tienen pegada.

Tenemos Dolby Atmos, ecualizador y una función llamada Sonido adaptativo que realiza un test de audición al usuario para ajustar la frecuencia del sonido. Es interesante, pero no llego a apreciar una mejora respecto a la ecualización manual que, al final, me permite ajustar el sonido en función de mis gustos.

Es, como digo, un buen sonido estéreo, pero me habría gustado encontrar un apartado más potente en este S21 Ultra. El altavoz secundario (el del auricular de llamadas) tiene menos potencia que el principal y creo que en un móvil así, y de este precio, debería haber dos altavoces dedicados.

Es algo que otras compañías han hecho y que la propia Samsung ha puesto en práctica en sus tablets y, además, es algo que funciona realmente bien. Pese a esta "pega", vais a poder jugar a videojuegos y ver series disfrutando de un sonido claro y con pegada.

Opinión del Galaxy S21 Ultra: un móvil portentoso que quiere canibalizar a la gama Note

El S21 Ultra es el primer tope de gama de 2021 y se nota que Samsung ha echado el resto a la hora de crear unmóvil que recoge el testigo de la propuesta del año pasado, pero que pule todo aquello en lo que el S20 Ultra se quedó a medias.

Esto es algo que se nota en el diseño, mucho más elegante y premium que el del S20 Ultra gracias tanto a los materiales utilizados como, sobre todo, a que ya no somos un 'anuncio'. Ni rastro del marketing de los 108 megapíxeles ni del Space Zoom 100x, una muy buena noticia porque es de mejor gusto que la solucióndel año pasado.

Hablando de las cámaras, se trata de un conjunto realmente interesante, formando uno de los apartados fotográficos más imponentes y versátiles que podemos encontrar en cualquier teléfono gracias a un muy buen sensor principal, pero sobre todo gracias a un zoomde diez aumentos que quita el hipo en textura, nitidez y estabilización... cuando las condiciones de luz acompañan.

Cuando cae la noche o en interiores, el procesado es algo exagerado y el ruido aparece enseguida, pero aun así, sigue siendo un muy buen apartado fotográfico.

Del resto de elementos no tenemos más que buenas palabras empezando por una imponente pantalla y terminando por un procesador Exynos 2100 que brilla en todas las situaciones.

El punto flaco es un sonido que es de calidad, pero que debería ser algo mejor gracias a dos altavoces dedicados y una autonomía que sí, nos permite llegar al final del día sin problemas, pero la carga rápida de 25 W no es tan rápida y una compañía como Samsung no debería quedarse a la zaga en este aspecto.

Si queréis un móvil por la cámara y la pantalla, este S21 Ultra es de lo mejor que podéis comprar actualmente. Aunque, eso sí, de cara a una nueva generación nos gustaría ver una mejora en estos dos aspectos y, por pedir, una reducción de grosor, aunque eso es algo más complejo.

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