Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G Vs Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G, Save Your Money Get Last Year FlagShip By TK Bay

I've had the s21 ultra for almost two weeks now, and I have to say that the experience of using the s21 ultra is definitely showing us. What Samsung has to offer us in 2021, but I'm actually coming from the s20 ultra from 2020, and I'm not going to lie. There are certain things that I'm still missing from the s21 ultra and I really wish that Samsung would have either included them or provided us an option for us to actually still get the same benefits as again. This is supposed to be an upgrade for at least what we got from previous generations of Samsung devices, specifically the s line. So in today's video we're going to do a comparison between the s20 ultra and the s21 ultra, in the sense of which one do you want to actually spend your money on realistically, which one actually is the better deal. So Baha everybody welcome back to the channel.

This is TK and, of course, let's go ahead and check out my comparison of the s21 ultra and to the s20 ultra from last year like and subscribe, and make sure you hit that bell icon so that you're always notified whenever we have new videos on the channel to be able to start this comparison, we need to start at the box because that's the first impression you get out of the experience of buying a s20 or a s21 from Samsung, and the reason behind that is. The s21 box is literally half of what you used to be back in 2020. So what we're essentially we're getting here is less material or fewer items in the box, and you need to purchase additional items to be able to still fill in that experience that you get here with the s21 line of devices in the new system we have or the new design uh we get the phone. We get the materials for the instruction manual as well as the warranty information and then, of course, an USB-C to USB-C cable to be able to charge up our device, but no chargers included in the box. The s20 line of devices did include a charger in the box, and they included the 25 watt charger.

It's a US style, obviously, but depending on the market that you're in it was an USB charger that provided us, the ability of charging uh all the s20 line devices and again this is the actual charger that's still compatible with the s21. The big difference is it's not included, and you need to pay extra for it when you decide to pick that up directly from Samsung. So when buying a new phone, unless you're coming from a s20 line or a note 20 line, your charger is probably not going to be compatible, and you need to buy a separate charger. It's not included in the box. The one thing that wasn't included in the box last year was the fast charger the 45 watt charger compatible with the s20 ultra only so this was actually something that is unique to the s20 last year.

Even the note, 20 didn't get this uh Samsung, provided us the opportunity of using faster charging, a 45 watt charger that is capable of charging the same size battery as the ultra. So we have a 5 000 milliampere here, a 5 000 milliampere here, and that was a difference in performance. That's something that you need to keep in mind. Yes, this was an extra purchase. You didn't have to buy it, but if you did, you definitely benefited from the speed, and it is noticeable.

If you don't, you still have the 25 watt charger here. I find that it's something interesting that even though they lowered the price you're still having to shell more money to get somewhat of a similar experience to what you got last year, you're still buying a separate box, you're still having to buy the charger. So ecologically it's not really benefiting anybody for us to have to buy two separate boxes and have them shipped separately as opposed to basically having to just be included in the box or at least providing us an option of buying the phone with a charger inside it like the way Xiaomi is doing this year, at least in the global market. They're still offering a charger, and in the Chinese market you have the opportunity to choose one without and one with a charger and both of them cost the exact same amount. Now, when we talk about differences between those two devices, the first thing obviously will stand out to us that they're both large displays.

We did lose a slight difference in display here. So we went from a 6.9 inch, HD 120 hertz, supporting resolution display to a 6.8 inch, dynamic, AMOLED, display again HD resolution and, of course, still supporting 120 hertz. The difference between the s20 and the s21 ultra is that the s20 ultra did not support 120 hertz at the HD resolution. You only have that at 1080p on the s21 ultra, you still have the s20 uh the 1080p 120, but now we actually have the same thing as far as HD 120 hertz, although at a variable refresh rate, which means it actually adjusts the refresh rate. It's not consistent.

The way we had it with the s20 ultra the processor on both of these is the snapdragon 865 compared to the 888. That's present on the s21 ultra, we had a combination of basically 12 gigs, all the way up to 16, gigs of ram and 128 of storage, all the way to 512 gigs of storage, the difference between the s20 ultra and the s21 ultra is that we still had the ability of using basically a SD card to expand the storage. So the ultra kept the SD card, and now we no longer have SD card options on any of the s21 line of devices. Both of them didn't have headphone jacks, supporting stereo speakers in the same manner, 4k 60 and 8k video recording on both the 865 and the 888. We have obviously s pen support now on the s21 ultra and only the s21 ultra, the Samsung pay supporting on the s21 ultra only supports NFC, where, with the s20 ultra, you supported, NFC and MST.

Now both of them will support decks in both wired and wireless mode and since both of them are running one UI 3.0, although 3.1 present here on the s21 ultra, they both support those features as well uh. We have obviously uh similar sensors on both 108, a 12 ultra-wide and two 10 megapixel telephoto lenses on the s21 ultra, where in the s20 we have 108 same focal length at 12, megapixel wide at f, 3.2 again the same one, and of course we only had one 48 megapixels at f, 3.5, telephoto, uh, capable of providing us up to four times zoom and, of course, all that space zoom that we saw last year now they kept a similar size sensor, a 40 megapixel sensor at f, 2.2 they, but they added auto, focusing to the s21 ultra. As I mentioned to you guys as far as connectivity, we have 5g on both of them. Y56 all the Wi-Fi 6e now on the s21 ultra ultra-wide band, depending on the model that you're purchasing. Now what does all of those numbers mean? It means that essentially, the difference between the s20 ultra and the s21 ultra is actually a very minimal increase.

There, obviously is a year-over-year spec bump, which essentially is the 888 over the 865, and there are going to be some performance improvements that come with that generational upgrade. So that's something to keep in mind. Both of them have the Enos variant as well, the 990 on the s20 ultra and, of course, the 2100 on the s21 ultra and the depending on the market that you're in they're going to be obviously a generational upgrade from there. But when we talk about the truly day-to-day experience, usability of what these devices provide us at the end of the day, they're a lot closer than what the specs on paper seem to indicate and what I mean by this essentially is they're. Both supporting large displays, although slightly smaller they're, both supporting large displays both providing us a very similar experience.

Again. The 120 hertz refresh rate that we're getting here if we set both of these devices to 1080p 120 hertz we're going to get very, very much a similar experience. There's not really a big difference visually that you're going to notice. That says the s21 ultra is definitely a lot better, even if you're coming in from, let's say a s9 or a s10, we need to understand the differences that we're talking about. Here are big differences.

When we talk about a charging connectivity as well as the technology that we're looking at here, the lack of a SD card for somebody, that's upgrading from a s9 or a s10, is going to be a big issue, because now you have to pay an additional 50 to Samsung to get the higher level storage. So, even though this started at 1200, it's actually 250. When you consider the fact that to actually get external extra storage, the 256 gig model, you have to pay an extra 50 bucks where here with the s21 or the s20 line of devices from last year, you didn't actually have to spend that extra dollars, because all you have to do is put in your SD card that maybe you had from an earlier device. Again. Storage was not a big concern, but now it's something that you have to factor in, because you can no longer expand it.

So you have to find external options or additional options to customize that now one UI 3.1 compared to one UI 3.0. The difference between the two is literally very minimal. We have 360 audio supported here and once we have 3.1 present here on the s21 or the s20 line of devices we'll be in the same boat, and we're not going to have a big issue as far as the comparison, um camera performance and everything we'll jump into that in just a second. There are definitely some improvements here. What we get is essentially a different system when it comes down to telephoto.

We have two sensors here for telephoto, both 10 megapixels but again giving us a basically an optical three times zoom, and an optical 10 time zoom we're here. We only had an optical four times, zoom, with up to go into a space zoom, which essentially was just there um cropping in into the larger sensor, but didn't really provide us a very uh usable image. So the reality of the matter is the three times zoom here in 10 times, obviously a little of a step-up and four times, it's definitely very nice. So you definitely are able to use Zoom lens technology on both of them. But when it comes down to do it make it more worth it to go up to this level? Or should you maybe pick up a s20 from last year and save yourself some dollars and of course, you're still getting pretty much like 99 percent of the experience of the s21 ultra? I don't want to discount the fact that we have a lot of updates or a lot of improvements done here.

Uh, the fingerprint sensor that we have here definitely works a lot better on the s21 ultra, although it wasn't bad on the s20 ultra, they both support. Basically a fingerprint sensor, although we now have a bigger fingerprint sensor present here or the reader is definitely bigger, which makes it easier to unlock your device and, of course, face unlock. All the same features are here. The main difference, of course, when it comes down to cameras, is obviously the performance that we're getting here. The UI elements are a little different.

You are going to be getting uh similar videos when it comes down to video experience. We have 4k 60 frames per second 8k 24 frames per second present on the back sensors, as well as telephoto capabilities, again three times and 10 times here on the s21 and up to four times optical on the s20. But it came to the front facing camera. We also got 4k 60 frames per second, that's something to keep in mind as well. It's just that because of the front-facing auto, focusing function that we have here.

It definitely looks a little better, and we're going to jump into a quick sample right now: front-facing camera back-facing camera using the built-in microphones on the s21 ultra, while the s20 ultra and the s21 ultra. When comparing both cameras uh, we definitely appreciate having 4k 60 frames per second on the front-facing sensor. I'm recording them with the native microphones, no external audio, so that we have a good comparison between the two uh. The difference between the s21 and the s20 and 20 from last year is that now we actually have autofocusing which should provide us a little better front-facing video as opposed to what we saw last year, but as far as resolution, and actually the exact same video you're looking at both of them, the audio switching between both of them. So you can definitely get the appreciated microphone setup or the array that we get with both cameras.

But I think at this point with autofocusing, it's an improvement, but not necessarily something that you know makes the old one look like as if it just doesn't work anymore. Now, when we switch it over to the back facing sensors uh, both of them are using 108 megapixel sensors. So that's the primary shooter. The setup is a little different, where we actually still have a same 12, megapixel wide angle lens on both of them. The telephoto lens went over from a single sensor to a dual sensor, giving us two different focal lengths, a 3x and a 10 and a 10x.

But as far as the actual audio and video, when you're recording on the back same thing, 4k 60 is really nice. We still have stabilized video as well as the fact that we can go to 8k 24 frames per second now. Those are things that are again characteristics of the 865 and the 850 or the 888. So those are things that you definitely appreciate. As far as the improvements again one UI 3.0 to one UI 3.1, we still are able to use a Bluetooth with audio on this, of course, while only shooting in the back facing sensors using the pro mode and that's something that is nice, but we've had that for some time. So I'm hoping that the experience here with the audio switching between the shooter again 4k60 here on the s21 ultra as well as the s2 I actually take the back- that's the s21 ultra and that's the s21 uh s20 from last year.

So just keep in mind again a good example of the audio and video you're getting from the s20 ultra is still very good. Now, there's no question that both of them provide us great video and great audio from both of them. The experience is pretty much the same. We have a very similar mode present on both of them, so we have basically the single take option. That's available here we have photo video and then more.

We have a few options in here again, both categorized, but we have basically AR doodles pro panorama: food night mode, portrait, portrait, video and, of course, pro video, slow motion, super slo-mo's, regular slo-mo, hyperlapse and, of course, director view which is new gives us. This gives us the ability of using uh the true power of the three sensors that we have on the back. You notice the three cameras sitting here on the back that enable us to actually switch between them, and then you have the ability of seeing the preview and that's one thing to keep in mind, because you can also use the front-facing camera as to add yourself into it and that's present right there. So you can see the front-facing camera and, of course, switching between the three different cameras. The s21 seems to be missing the AR doodle, as well as the director view, uh, keep in mind that again in the director view mode that I just showed with you guys.

It actually uses a cropped version of the sensor when it's previewing it, and it actually switches over to the sensor that you're trying to do in posts. So in theory we should be able to get that feature on the s20 line as well, but again the overall performance as we're going to start. Taking a look at a few images here, um, it again depends on the field of view and performance. It really doesn't really provide us a big difference between the two. Both cameras are capable of providing us great images when it comes to portrait photography from the front from the back or even when we're trying to take images of like just regular things around and if you're trying to take pictures, the zoom or the focus level definitely is a lot better on the s21 ultra, although the s20 ultra, if you tap, to focus on the subject that you're trying to use or cover in video you're going to get the same experience, it's just the autofocusing was having issues, and unfortunately this is something that they've tried to fix, even with software updates.

But to this day, uh. The laser autofocusing system that we have here does provide a little of a benefit over what we got with the s20 ultra, and I'm sure some of you guys are going to be interested into what are the raw performance benefits between the 865 and the 888. Keep in mind that both of the systems are actually clocked in at roughly about the same. So we have a quad-core set up here at 1.8 3 core at 2.2 for 2.42 and one running in which is your prime core. It's going to be a 2.84, so those are the performances that we have here. Um.

Both of them are running android 11. So if you've had this for some time, you probably received the update already and that's one of the main benefits. So what we're going to go ahead and do real quick? Is I'm going to share with you guys the results of the testing that I've done, but just to point of reference when I did run the testing the difference between them as far as overall? How long did it take for the benchmark to go through was not a very substantial amount and, as you can see here, the results are very clear: 1102 here at 30 uh with the 30 30 on the multi-core um 889 here as well as 29.38, now want to keep one thing in mind. I had to set both of them to 1080p at 120 hertz, so that we're running apples to apples when we run the benchmarks. If we ran this at a HD resolution, which means if I bumped it up to run at a higher performance, the performance isn't exactly running as much, so you'll notice.

Even on here. If I'm running at a HD with 120 hertz, it actually performs a little worse than what we get here now I don't have a way of comparing it, but I'm just saying the performance is dependent on the resolution and the refresh rate that you're running on your device to get this or get around this when you're able to run the performance ever you need to go into the settings tab, and you actually have to turn on a function called enhanced processing. Now enhanced processing allows the system to run the processor at normal speed, even though it's running at a higher refresh rate and a higher resolution. So that's something to keep in mind with the s21 ultra. Even though you're buying the best device out of the box, it's programmed to run at 1080p, 120 hertz, a verified refresh rate with the performance mode turned off, and you need to go in there to actually know how to turn those on in here.

If you run it at 120 hertz, it definitely does provide us a different experience, but the overall experience when I wanted to run a number between the two was very much the same, and the difference between the two of them realistically is about 14 seconds or so that's the biggest difference between both when we ran the benchmark on both of these systems. All in all, these are just benchmarks. Again. These are not truly experiencing daily activity daily usage of the device. All the things that you normally want to do with your device, you want to be able to use it open up.

Applications close take pictures edit videos do everything that you want, because the fact that both of these devices had similar specifications, meaning 12 gigs and 16 gigs of ram you're not going to get that much of a big difference when it comes down to. As far as the models that you're able to get again differences, you can expand the storage, but you couldn't really do that one here. That's something to keep that in mind. Up to this point, we've been comparing them to 1080p at 120 hertz, since that's the only reach uh resolution that we're able to compare between the two of them, but let's go ahead and push it up a little to HD resolution, so here on the s21 ultra you're able to jump into that without getting any error messages, but here on the s20 ultra. It tells me basically that smooth motion or the 120 hertz refresh rate gets dropped, and it goes back to normal or standard and standard mean essentially 60 frames per second.

So let's go ahead and switch over to YouTube and to make sure that we're using the best capable features here. Now this video is supported at 4k 60 frames per second with HDR. I went ahead and dimmed the light just so that we get the beautiful color vibrancy here comes in here, and nothing gets overblown so again for resolution running on. Both of them again is 1440p 60 frames per second at with HDR. For both that's because these displays are again some of the best ones that Samsung has to offer and, as you can see, with the colors and the representation for the most part, you almost cannot tell the difference between the two different panels.

At this point, uh both of them are connected to YouTube, obviously both of them on Wi-Fi. So we're not looking at any kind of compressed, and I did actually crop out the crop in a little. So you can definitely see the full image but to be able to fully fill up the entire display. The camera punch, hole. Cameras are pretty much the same size.

You should not have a big difference between the two, and you're going to enjoy. Both of these displays perfectly, let's go ahead and switch over to a speaker test just to see the big difference between the two. Do they sound the same or is one better than the other? Now for the speaker test again, both of these devices have stereo speakers in the exact same manner, top earpiece married to the bottom speaker. That gives us a stereo experience. Both supports Dolby Atmos.

So there's not going to be a big difference as far as the configuration is in the sense of the settings that we're looking at, I made sure that both devices are 100, so we're going to go ahead and play the same song again and now that we have them both set at the same setting in exactly 53 seconds on both sides, we're going to start off with the s21 ultra and then, of course, compare how the s20 ultra compares to that. Honestly between the two, I couldn't tell the difference, which one was louder or maybe sounding better. Both of them provided us for the most part, the exact same experience, so you're not going to be disappointed going with the s20 ultra or the s21 ultra when it comes down to speaker, performance or even display performance when you're watching content, even if it's at 4k 60 frames per second with HDR support. Now we can't go too far without talking about. The fact is that one of the biggest changes that they did to the s line of devices, at least on the ultra side, is that now we actually have support for s-pen.

That's something that we don't have support for here it doesn't work. This s-pen is actually specifically made for the s21 ultra. It comes with the case that you're able to buy, and it actually provides you a place to put the s-pen. Since we can't house the s-pen inside the like the way we have it on the note line of devices. So that's something to see.

That's also, definitely very, very nice, and now this is compatible with the s-pen, the s-pen. From a note or any of the note devices, or even at the same s-pen, that you use on the tab at seven, seven plus devices my goal in these videos to allow the tech to speak for itself. And what I mean by this is providing you the latest and greatest information that we have around the hardware that we're looking at and, of course, helping you make the best decision with your hard-earned money, meaning if you're upgrading to the next device, or you're helping somebody else upgrade. The whole purpose of this video is to help. You know that the s21 ultra, although being the best latest and greatest from Samsung in 2021, may not necessarily be the best option you can get from Samsung and, of course, the s20 ultra from last year.

Selling for about 700 bucks is still a very good deal and providing you some in certain areas, at least a little more features than what you get with the s21 ultra Samsung will always try to give us whatever they feel like is the tailored experience that they should be providing us as the user, and at the end of the day, we should be deciding with our own pocket what we want and what we value as a feature. If you value the MSD technology for your Samsung pay, if you value a SD card, if you value faster charging on your device, that has a large 5000mah battery, I really feel like the s21 ultra, doesn't really deliver on that. Now. MST is available in certain markets, but it's not available with Qualcomm chipset here in the US, so that's something that we just don't have access to the s20 ultra still, in my opinion, even though had some issues with the video when it came down to basically autofocusing tap to focus on the subject fix the problem, you were able to use the cameras and, as you saw with the samples between the video, as well as the audio and, of course, also with the images. The differences between these two is very, very small.

Again we're talking about two fast cars from the same company. They just happen to be slightly different models, so, at the end of the day, both the 865 and the 888 will provide you. A great experience both provides you obviously access to 5g and, if you're looking for future proofing, I think both will give you the same experience if you're upgrading from a s8, a s9 or a s10, make a decision based on what you feel like you value the most. If you rely on MST and obviously SD cards, I think the s20 ultra will definitely be a much better upgrade for you and hold you over for the next two to three years. Uh till you're ready to see whatever the next version of the device will be.

Will we have SD cards again? I don't really think so, but if it's something that you want to wait on, I think the s20 ultra will provide you a much better bang for the buck at this point in 2021 and then the s21. Surprisingly again, it is down 200 bucks now, which is an interesting uh dilemma here for people that decided to pre-order or even buy them at launch, which was literally two weeks ago. So it's something to kind of consider. Should we now wait? Do we really even have to sign up early and try to do those pre-orders when in fact, Samsung's going to drop the price by 200 bucks just literally two weeks later, that's a decision as a consumer? You need to make with your hard-earned cash. So let me know in the comments below what do you guys think of this video? Did you find it helpful? In my opinion, I still think the s20 ultra is in my at least from what I've used and what I've seen as far as the features a better value than what the s21 ultra is providing us, at least at this point in 2021.

Thank you very much for the support like and subscribe as usual and, of course, I'll see you guys in the next video.

Source : TK Bay