Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra: Your Questions Answered | Forbes By Forbes

The hype around Samsung's, new ultra expensive ultra large ultra phone for the first time, is actually justified. I've had the phone for two weeks now, and it's clear this is the ultra handset Samsung should have launched back in last February instead of the problematic s20 ultra. If you want my in-depth thoughts on the s21 ultra then check out my review on forbes. com in the link in the description, but today I wanted to answer all the questions I received from readers and friends about what does and doesn't work about this phone. If you've got any questions yourself, or you like this question and answer format then get in touch via my Facebook page or by the link in the description. So the first question is: does the phone have any display issues? That was my first worry about this phone too.

You may remember from my last video I looked into display problems on various 2020 smartphones, specifically a green tint issue or the touchscreen not registering touches that included the OnePlus 8 Motorola edge, plus galaxy s20 Fe and the iPhone 12 and more on your iPhone 12's display problems in another video. What unites almost all of those devices is the fact they use a Samsung display panel. When I spoke to a repair expert, Ricky Janissary, who is CEO of cortex dot, co UK, he explained to me what was going wrong with that specific panel. It's the race for the 120 hertz, refresh rate everyone's done it everyone's trying to do it to the top level, but it's causing issues in that OLED um green issues have been seen before on the Samsung range before with their sleds and when apple integrated them into the iPhone x. The x's were coming out with a strong green line issue and was super prominent.

The newer sleds that have in this issue are sort of a tint, and we think it's the refresh rate, that's causing this issue not confirmed, but a green tint issue can't be resolved by a software update everyone's throwing software at it to recalibrate, and we don't think it can be refreshed by it. The f21 ultra also has a 120 hertz refresh rate. Well, I haven't noticed any green issues myself and I haven't seen any other reviewers talk about that or phone. Not registering touches, there's a caveat in that I've only had the phone for just over two weeks and that might change as it lands in consumer hands. Is there a screen gap? Hundreds of pixel five users complained about a screen gap, which I reported on last year check out that video in that story.

I also discovered that screen gaps existed in the iPhone 12 and previous Samsung phones. The s21 ultra does have a gap around the display that you can slide the corner of a piece of paper into, but it shouldn't affect the phone's ip68 rating. This is common for flat, inset displays and Samsung tells me. The gap is for assembling modules and does not affect waterproof performance. Is there an Xbox game pass ultimate deal this year? Most of the Samsung 2020 lineup came with three months: free of Xbox game pass ultimate and the yoga xp5x controller, but Samsung tells me that there is no deal this year.

Is the phone compatible with those controller accessories? Yes, it works perfectly with my racer fish and the yoga xp5x. As you can see here, how serious is the bloat or non-deletable apps? So yeah bloat is still an issue, as are duplicate apps having two gallery messaging and browsers. Apps is obviously an annoyance, as are the releasable pre-installed apps like OneDrive and Samsung calendar pre-installed apps, like Facebook, LinkedIn office and outlook can be deleted, though what is the battery life like? This has been a common question from readers, with the adaptive 120hz display option on HD plus enabled and anti-malware software constantly running. In the background, Samsung's battery data tells me that a full charge lasts for about one day and one hour, which isn't great from a full charge to empty at max settings. I get an average of roughly five hours of screen time with moderate use on 60hz full HD.

I get about seven hours, which is better. Something has a bunch of battery optimization tricks to eke out a few extra minutes here and there, but ultimately it comes down to what display options you choose. What is one UI 3.1 like so the new user interface is definitely slicker than one UI 3.0. The quick settings white block has been replaced with a translucent background, with the quick access media and devices options. Much more prominent.

What I found interesting is the new slower, animation style, there's almost an intentional leisurely pace to the UI animations, as if Samsung is trying to emphasize the high refresh rate and show you how smooth every single transition is at first, I thought it was sluggishness, but that's not the case. Sluggish performance in simple transition, animations is Jacky, but this is smooth and weighty. Should I be worried about getting an Enos unit? Not this time round. Nose has a sketchy history when it comes to performance, but the new integrated 2100 chips has an arm core this time around. So that appears to have helped with battery efficiency.

Extended gaming sessions and prolonged screen usage on Mac display settings hasn't yielded any heat, distribution problems or Jacky performance. I've only had the phone for two weeks like I said so, things may appear in the future, but right now it seems to be fine. Can the s21 ultra capture natural depth of field in a way? Yes, the longer periscope lens with a 10x optical zoom creates a natural background blur when focused on a small object. You need a steady hand and some space between the object in the foreground and the background, but it produces a natural effect. That's similar to what you might get from a DSLR is the zoom actually good.

The ten times optical zoom is frankly incredible to use, particularly in clear daylight, produces a perfect crisp, magnified image. The comparatively higher aperture on the zoom lens means you'll need a decent amount of light to get the best results out of it. So I shared this side by side with two of my most eloquent friends and their exact responses were cough and can help probably to bleep that out, there's also the 100 times space zoom technology, which combines the 10 times optical and 10 times, digital zooms, to arrive at 100 times, magnified image, it's improved, but it's still largely a gimmick. The optical image stabilization combines with Samsung's AI stabilization software called zoom lock to get a more steady image when you're taking the picture which does help. I tried this out in broad daylight, using a tripod at three times and 10 times.

Zoom. The image is clear, but you can see the moment. The camera has switched to a digital zoom, because the image quality the grades massively and at 100 time zoom, creates a sort of painted image effect in broad daylight, with a tripod there's a recognizable image there, but it's not a useful image. How is the camera in general? There are lots of upgrades across the board in comparison to last year's handset night mode has massively improved. Samsung has upped its pixel binning technology to make that happen, which combines data from several smaller pixels into one larger pixel.

In short, the s21 ultra captures much more light in dark conditions with reduced noise. They are impressively lit images that, in some cases, look like it's daytime. Of course, you don't want all your evening images to look like it's the middle of the day, and they won't depend on what mode you use, but when you're in a pub or a bar, if we ever get to that stage again and there's low lighting you'll be able to capture something which is kind of the point. The cameras are overall, very accomplished. You can capture some amazing stills, but the results can also be inconsistent.

Let's take the portrait modes, it captures depth of field images very well, and the edge detection works far better than the pixel 5, which I had previously, but the tones are off in this image. My skin looks completely washed out in the regular still the tones are perfect, and the image looks good if a bit over processed, however indoors in portrait mode, the 40 megapixel selfie camera appear to handle this better, even with awkward lighting conditions. In this image, there was a bright light source coming from behind me that made the image look overexposed in the preview, but the final shot. The light was tamed, and the camera captured the detail of the hallway. Is it top heavy, so the s21 ultra feels more balanced in hand rather than top heavy like the s20 ultra, it doesn't feel balanced, just more balanced, like he has a sort of counterweight at the bottom.

It does weigh slightly more at 227 grams than its predecessor, 222 grams. So maybe it does. The new camera bump on the back takes up a full quarter of the phone and wraps around one side of the device. It's as deep as the s20 ultra's camera bump, but because it's wider, the phone lays more flat on a table not by much, but it is something. What I like is that the camera sensors are slightly sunken in which means they don't make contact with the surface when it's laid on its back and therefore aren't at risk of being scratched with last year's ultra coming down in price.

Is that a better value buy? It's an interesting question. My view is this: the s20 isn't a great phone. A lot of phones from last year are both better and cheaper, even with Samsung's discount. The s21 ultra, however, is a better phone, both in the camera department and all other places than the pixel 5 and most other android phones. It also rivals the iPhone 12 in the camera department.

In the UK, I've seen the s20 ultra drop to 800 pounds if you're, considering that get a pixel 5 and save some cash, if you can stretch, definitely get the s21 right. That's it from me. I've been Janna McGregor thanks for watching. If you've got any more questions about this phone or any other device, then get in contact by the links in the description cheers you.

Source : Forbes