Galaxy S21 and S21 Ultra unboxing and hands-on impressions By CNET

I just got the galaxy s21. Let's take a look all right: here's the galaxy s21 and here is the galaxy s21 ultra, and what's this little guy, it is a Samsung Galaxy, smart tag, let's unbox, let's unbox guys. So let's start with the galaxy s21. If you haven't heard these are the follow-up to the galaxy s20 series that came out last year. So, let's see here, you know there we go put that right there and the first thing I got is kind of like a little plastic index card, there's a little qr code on it all right, put that there and then oh wow, okay, here's the phone- let's put this here for now all right, lets uh a little envelope thing here, and we got this guy here so on the back is a sim card tool. All right.

Let's see, we got here open that up all right, Samsung quick start guide, and I have a cable, it's an USB, cable and nothing else. Yes, so yeah not a lot of things in the box if you haven't realized quite yet, what's going on last year, starting with the Galaxy Note 20 launch, they stopped, including wired headphones of the box. So that's why I don't see those and this year, starting with the launch of this phone, they stopped, including wall chargers in the box. So now you just get the cable, which I guess is better than nothing right, yeah so far, this is what you get. You got the phone some documentation and an USB cable, I'm laughing, because it's not a lot.

I realized all right, but let's get to good stuff, let's get to the phone, so I'm going to clean this up all right. So, let's get to the nitty-gritty here, which is the phone, oh wow, and immediately uh. We know it's a little different. It's got a different look to it. Two-Tone wing tips um those cars with like the different color stripes down it.

I mean name your comparisons very, like um, art deco. Maybe I don't know I mean the camera bump alone is us. Is uh reminds me of Lego for some reason, I don't know why I mean I know why, but I know it's not supposed to cool. So here we have in its birthday suit the galaxy s21, the brand-new galaxy s21, the sides of it kind of copper look to it and that copper look goes around the sides and continues up to the camera bump. The only one the back of this phone is the word Samsung and I happen to have a galaxy s20, so here they are side by side.

So I have the galaxy s20 on the left, the galaxy s 21 on the right. This cost a thousand dollars. This cost eight hundred dollars two hundred dollars less now. How did they get from a thousand to 800 um? Well, they made some compromises and sometimes the word compromise is a bad word and I don't think it is here. For example, on the back of last year's phone was gorilla, glass 5, but on the back of this phone, it's its plastic, it's plastic reinforced, but it doesn't feel like those like hollowed out phones from like you know, 2012 2014, where you can kind of feel the hollowness of the plastic.

It feels good and the finish on it looks fabulous. So let's talk about a few things they have in common one. They have the exact same cameras, hardware, at least now some of that has been improved on the software in which you're excited to take a look at. They both have an USB port, but they do not have a headphone jack. I think the biggest thing um I've noticed with the phones is, it seems to me, like the s20 and the s20 plus that Samsung was really pushing them to be very, very premium phones and they just kind of dialed it back a bit.

So it's a little more of that kind of going from a mid-range into a premium phone where it's still a very nice phone, but it's not going to break. The bank still has a lot of nice features, but it's kind of been pulled off the top shelf and brought back down to the table level. So let's take a look at the s21 ultra, that's 21 ultra time. So this is the big boy um, just like the s21. This is also 200 less in the United States than it was last year.

So, as opposed to being fourteen hundred dollars is twelve hundred dollars. Let's open it up, so again we have the lovely black box again like the s21. It's just kind of this little plastic, uh divider thing it's a Samsung on it, and here it is oh man this yeah. This is like a small weapon awesome, and then we got our little paper box insert here again the box completely empty. So, let's see what we got in here, get a guess similar to what we had in the other box all right, so we have a little quick start guide.

Also, we have an USB cable and an empty box again, just like the s21, no wired headphones, no wall charger. Let's put this back in here. Let's get back to the phone all right, oh yes, x, oh man very excited about this one. Clearly I have the phantom black color of the phone literally on the back is just Samsung and again, who has a fingerprint problem, not Samsung? Maybe they did before, but not this year. I like the aesthetic of the s21 the way it looks the way it doesn't gather fingerprints, the camera bump um, if you didn't think the galaxy s20 ultra camera, but was big enough well meet the galaxy s21 because it is actually larger.

Let's talk about the screen, there's a lot going on. First, we have a 1.77 times larger optical fingerprint reader, which can bode well for people with big hands. The screen is brighter Samsung's, claiming it's 25 brighter um. It also has a higher contrast, so I think of the galaxy s20 ultra think of the iPhone 12 Pro max. Their screens have a two million to one contrast ratio.

This screen has a three million to one contrast right here. What does that mean? Well, I don't know, I think the color should look better. The shading should look better, so I'm very excited to try this out um and see what that does along with the 120 hertz refresh rate along with the brighter screen, should be exciting, but another exciting feature they added to the screen. Is s pen support it doesn't support the Bluetooth and some functionality the s pens have, but as far as the stylus can do that, so, if I want, I can use it right on the screen here. Okay, so the spin support is actually pretty exciting that it comes to this phone um a couple of things with the s-pen.

Again it doesn't come with one um. You can either use an old one or you can buy a new one at least forty dollars also, since there's no place to store it in s. Pen, um, Samsung's, actually going to sell a case with s pen storage. So that's pretty exciting. So this is the new galaxy s21 ultra.

This is the brand-new galaxy s21 and oh wait. What's this? What's this off to the side here, it's a galaxy, smart tag, so um maybe hear a little about these. Maybe you don't um, I would just compare it to something like a tile tracker, so what I can do is I can attach this to a bag or my keys and uh. If I dislocate that object, this will communicate with my phone and there'll be two versions of this one. The one which I believe works on Bluetooth and there could be a plus model that works with the ultra-wide band on the s 21 plus and the s21 ultra all right.

So unbox, oh wow, it's almost it's like it's like the size of like a key fob. Almost so it's not it's not the smallest thing, but it's not huge either. So that is my unboxing of the galaxy s21, the galaxy s21 ultra the galaxy smart tag, and this is just an old stylus. I had from like a note phone so but make sure you check out cnet. com, I'm going to have more as I review.

Each of these phones photos videos from the phones, my experience, testing them battery life. Oh, look at that. Smart tag. Add this device to SmartThings, I'm going to hit, add now, and it says, sign in to Samsung account, so I have some account stuff to set up, but I'm going to leave you with these guys. I'm really excited by these phones uh, especially the galaxy s21 ultra, looks amazing in person.

Thank you. It interrupts me, but it looks amazing in person but check out cnet. com for more on both these phones, especially in the coming weeks as I get to test and try them out for real all right. Let's get back to doodling.

Source : CNET