Samsung Galaxy S21 Review: Give & Take! By Thao Huynh

This video is sponsored by ESR alright, so this is the galaxy s21. The smallest phone in Samsung's galaxy s lineup this year with the new normal we're currently living in they've, made a few trade-offs and slashed the price by about 200 bucks. The question, as always, is, are these the right trade-offs? Hi everyone tells here the phone rocks a polycarbonate bag instead of glass and, if I'm being real, it's not that big of a deal you're still getting that really nice frosted matte finish. I really like it. This new camera design that wraps right into the frame looks super modern and really grows on you. It's also metal instead of a big slab of glass.

So that's one less thing to worry about breaking some are going to be turned off by the plastic backing, which is fair, but at the end of the day, it's probably going into a case anyways right. A couple of my go-to cases are actually from today's video sponsor ESR. Their metal. Kickstand is a must-have for me with a display. This nice you're likely going to be watching a lot of content having the ability to prop your phone up whenever, wherever comes in so clutch, do a lot of video calls like I've been no worries.

You can stand it upright too. Their hero clear case, on the other hand, is thin lightweight, offers protection against drops and is a great way to show off your brand-new phone. Now that you've got the back covered, you can't forget about the screen. ESR's three pack, liquid screen protector, works great with a fingerprint scanner and actually self-heals from minor scratches. Everything is already really affordable, but use my codes below for even more savings.

The screen is 6.2 inches. It's completely flat features an adaptive, 120hz refresh rate and has a max resolution of full HD plus. Yes, you heard right. This is a drop in resolution from previous years. Some will be disappointed, but here's the thing, though I have been using my note- 20 ultra a much larger display at 1080p, and I think it looks amazing.

I feel the same way about the display on the s21.120Hz makes the phone feel super smooth and responsive. The refresh rate is also adaptive, meaning it can automatically adjust based on what's on the screen, instead of running at a constant 120 hertz wasting battery. If you're looking at something like a picture, it can drop to 48 hertz. You can also run the display at a constant 60 hertz. If you want the extra battery, but I don't think it's necessary.120 hertz is the way to go. The stereo speakers are still tuned by AKG and sound great, no complaints there.

The biggest improvement for me by far is the in-screen ultrasonic fingerprint scanner. It's definitely faster, and the larger scanner makes a huge difference. Just look at how responsive it is, and I don't have to worry about finding that perfect spot with mass likely to be here for the next. While this upgraded fingerprint scanner seriously couldn't have come sooner, a 2d face unlock is still offered set it to skip the lock screen, and it's probably the fastest way to unlock your phone. It's really convenient, but just remember that it's nowhere near as secure as the fingerprint scanner battery life has been really solid.

It was a little all over the place for the first few days, but after I settled in and learned my usage, I was ending the day with like 20 to 25 at around 9 p. m. That's with an average of like 5 hours of screen on time. So, if you've watched any unboxing of this phone, you'll know that a charging brick is no longer included similar to apple Samsung is citing environmental reasons. It looks like this is going to be the trend moving forward plugged in the phone takes just over an hour to fully charge with a 25 watt charging brake sold separately.

Of course, handy features like wireless charging, reverse wireless charging, ip68 water resistance and Samsung decks are all still here. But what isn't is the micro SD card slot, just like the removal of the headphone jack pushes all towards Bluetooth earbuds? This really feels like a nudge towards the use of cloud storage. The phone starts at a reasonable, 128 gigabytes of internal storage. So, unless you're filming a ton of video, I think you'll be okay. As expected, the s21 has the latest processor paired with eight gigs of ram and is running one UI 3.1. I like the refinements that Samsung has made.

Everything is just a little more polished the amount of options they give you to customize. The device is really cool. For example, you can adjust the transparency of widgets and even use. The Google discover feed now split screen. Multitasking pop-up windows edge panels, the phone powers through everything I've wanted to throw at it, I'm not the biggest gamer, but my husband ran a couple of hour-long Call of Duty mobile sessions.

He mentioned that everything loaded, quicker and gameplay was smooth, but the phone did get a little warm an hour of gaming drained just under 20 battery all right when it comes to the cameras. Although the hardware is similar to last year, there's definitely been changes to the processing. Selfies, look perfect and come out way. Less processed. I've always found Samsung selfies to be flattering, and this one is no different.

The skin smoothing has been toned down a lot. So you're going to get more detail if you're expecting a drastic change in picture quality. That's not the case here. The three cameras on the back produce images that are very similar to what we saw last year. That's not to say they aren't impressive, because I've been very impressed at some of the picks I've taken the triple lens setup lets you punch in and out for different perspectives.

It's super versatile and gives you a little more freedom to frame pictures. You can still zoom up to 30 times and with good lighting. The photos are actually very usable, of course, they'll be grainy, so stick to three times or 10 times to get sharper images. I really like improvements to portrait mode edge detection and just the overall image look more natural, especially once you turn down the blur with indoor lighting its better, but I still find the shutter to be a little on the slow side, the software prioritizes brightness. So with moving subjects like dogs or young kids, you'll likely run into some motions blur in those scenarios, I'd probably recommend Samsung's improved single, take mode, it shoots a 5 to 15.

Second, video and then creates a bunch of pictures and videos for you. It's actually a really fun feature, and I've captured some hilarious moments with it. Alright, so director's view is another new feature that lets you record with both the front and back camera. At the same time, it also gives you a live feed, so you can seamlessly switch between the different lenses kind of like this. So you got the telephoto here, of course, the main lens and ultra-wide.

The video quality is capped off at 1080p, but it's still a really cool feature, especially for vloggers. So let's summarize, we've got a plastic back a screen with a slightly lower resolution. It comes with eight instead of 12 gigs of ram, there's no micro, SD card slot, and you don't get a charging brick. I get it though no one likes features being taken away from them. So it's easy to focus on just that, but there are some notable upgrades in the s21, for example, a much better fingerprint scanner, the latest processor, arguably a more durable back of the phone and an adaptive refresh rate which improves the battery life.

So, circling back to my original question for the lower price, the Samsung make the right trade-offs. Personally, expandable storage is probably the only miss for me and that's coming from someone who hasn't used the SD card slot in years. I still like to have it, though, for day-to-day use. The other trade-offs have not impacted my overall experience at all an experience that has been really positive. This is a great phone with the new norm.

We're currently living in offering a more affordable flagship is okay by me as usual. Thank you all so much for watching until the next one, I'm out of here.

Source : Thao Huynh