Samsung Galaxy S21 | Unboxing & Full Tour | Camera, Gaming Test & More By Tech Spurt

So here we are barely a fortnight into the new year. Frankly, my mouth is still gummy from all that festive whiskey and my hangover hasn't entirely buggered off and yet Samsung has already spat out its fresh batch of 2021 flagship smartphones and the most affordable of the new trio. Is this bad boy right here? The Samsung Galaxy s21 5g, although it's still not exactly cheap starting from 769 quid, so similar sort of price into that iPhone 12. But what I'm going to do now is whip the Samsung Galaxy s21 out of its box. Take you on a full on tour of the hardware and the software ahead of my review to see what our early impressions are of the camera tech, the game and chops see all that exodus.2100 stands up and all the rest of it and for the latest greatest tech. Please do put subscribe entering that notifications bell cheers now.

First, I've got to say that s21 box is suitably dinky, it's about the same size as the iPhone 12s box, and the reason for that is, of course, like the iPhone there's, no charger, bundled in there and also minor gripe here. But can we please stop putting 5g after the names of smartphones just because they've got 5g a lot of 5g phones are coming out now, and I'm sick of seeing 5g still, if nothing else at least the lack of a charge means the unboxing part of this, video is going to be very straightforward. Literally all you've got inside the box. Besides the phone itself is this dinky little insert, which contains a quick start guide and a type c USB cable, and you've also got a pokey pin device slap there on the back and that's it so if this was just a straightforward unboxing, this video would last like 30 seconds now. Let's turn our attention to this sexy slab of tech, the Samsung Galaxy s21 and first impressions- oh god, it's nice and compact at just 6.2 inches 172 grams. It's definitely nice and lightweight, but it feels an appropriate weight for its size.

It certainly doesn't feel you know too light or toy like, and thankfully Samsung has been kind enough to send me its new flagship phantom violet color, which was introduced for the s21 range, and I really like it so far. Actually, it's not in your face, uh, vibrant or anything like that, but I do like the way the color kind of morphs from blue into purple, depending on exactly how the light is striking it like the s20 fan edition, which was launched at the end of last year, the Samsung Galaxy s21 sports, a plastic back. So it's a kind of combination, hybrid old glass and plastic, and it's got this lovely matte finish to it rather than a glossy sheen so far seems reasonably good at sort of hiding greasy scuff marks. I just had a baking boat this morning as well, so you can see it's doing a perfect job there, and I found that the s20 fan edition that plastic back stayed pretty durable. It didn't scratch up too easily at all, but it definitely does feel quite plastic here on the back of the s21, rather than it's actually made of frosted glass and, of course, one design element of the galaxy s21.

That's really divided opinion is the camera chassis which, as you can see there kind of melds into the metal edge and yeah. I can see how it would be a level or heated design. Personally, I really don't mind it. To be honest, the main thing is that it doesn't jut too far from the surface of the phone, so you won't have any problems if you're resting the s21 on a desk uh, just using it without it wobbling about all over the place and the rest of the s21 design is pretty straightforward. You've got your power button and your volume rocker on the right edge.

Absolutely bug roll on the left down below is where you've got your sim tray and also your type c USB charger, no headphone jack. Sadly, once again on the s21 and as usual, full ip68, water and dust resistance bit of added reassurance, peace of mind if you're a bit of a Butterfingers, as you end up dropping in the sink or whatever right. Now, it's that special time when I'm going to get the s21 all set up bung my sim card in there, speaking of which it's a double-sided, sim tray here on the galaxy s21. So you can stick two sims in at the same time but of course no room for any memory cards. Thankfully, it's no biggie because on the galaxy s21 you've got a minimum 128 gigs of storage.

You can boost that to 256 if you've got a bit more cash to spare and that's just as well ready, because you've got a bugger ton of apps pre-installed on this thing, so standard stuff for a galaxy smartphone ready. So of course you get all of Samsung's own apps, many of which are just duplicates of the stuff you already get from Google, so you've got the likes of Samsung p as well as google, pig or Bixby on top of the Google Assistant. You've got the internet browser on top of uh, google, chrome, yada. You've also got a bunch of Microsoft, crap on there and, of course, the likes of Facebook and Spotify as well. Thankfully, you can just ditch any that your dawn wants or, for instance, Facebook can definitely do one LinkedIn as well can most assuredly piss right off.

Now, as I expected, the software of choice here on the galaxy s21 is the latest freshest android 11 and, of course, sat on android's face is Samsung's fresh, do one UI version, 3.1 launcher, and today's wallpaper of choice is a nice bit of one punch, man action the anime character that I get compared to the most I'm guessing because of his baldy bounce, rather than his prowess in fights and of course, one UI adds a whole, but ton of bonus features to android. I can't go through all of them in this unboxing, but I'm hoping to do like a tips and tricks style guide to go through some of the best software bits here on the s21 soon, but from a quick scout about it looks like all the standard uh one UI features that Samsung fans should know and love to make a welcome return likes the always on display, which is, of course, fully customizable. As always, you no longer have a dedicated Bixby assistant key here on the galaxy smartphones, because you can just long press the power button instead to wake up Bixby, but I'd rather just have it actually switch off the phone. As you can see there, you can customize what a quick double tap of it does. You've got an intense amount of motion and gesture support, including fan favorites like lift awake, and you've also got that uh much needed one-handed mode.

Now that our smartphones again massive as hell a lot of beef and the galaxy s21, is just about compact enough that I could reach up to the top end of that display, even with my stubby little fingers. But you can drag down that notifications bar from anywhere on screen anyway, and then that one-handed mode can be activated with just a quick little swipe down like so as you can see, you can have it either left or right sided and that's really handy when you're in an app where you find yourself constantly reaching up to the top end of the display to actually tap on stuff. Of course, one of the best bits of one UI in Samsung, galaxy, smartphones in general, is that excellent Knox security software as for actually unlocking the device you've got an ultrasonic scanner built into that display and touch words, so far seems nice and nippy and responsive. I do sometimes struggle with Samsung's in display scanners, sometimes when my hands get really dry, they just aren't quite as responsive or accurate, takes a couple of taps to work, but yeah so far. Certainly no problems and you've also got a bit of fierce recognition support to back that up as well, if you're not masked at the time.

Obviously I did struggle to set this up at first on the galaxy s21 I kept getting a fierce note, found message which I thought at first was just a bit of harsh judgment, but I think it was just the dodgy lighting in the studio to be honest and now touch whether that's all set up. It seems to work an absolute charm, as you can see, it doesn't take too long to recognize you'd. Rather, it took its time a little and sort of made sure it was. Definitely you and one of the biggest updates that Samsung picked up in the galaxy s21 launch was to its smart things' app, which has now got some extra functionality to help. You find your Samsung shears that you might have lost, so this will help you track down a rogue s21 if it's gone missing.

Just log onto your Samsung account on a computer you'll see its last known, location, uh or its current location. If it's still turned on- and this will also work with the other Samsung gear- like the Galaxy Buds pro and, of course, those new smart tags and definitely do stick about for a full review of both of these bad boys. However, one feature that you won't find on the standard galaxy s21 that you will find on the plus and the ultra are that ultra-wide band tech, which can be used to, for instance, unlock your car as a wireless car key if you've got a supported model, so you definitely have to jack up your budget. If you fancy a bit of that now on the Samsung Galaxy, s21 you'll find a 6.2 inch, dynamic, AMOLED 2x display it's a similar sort of screen tech to what we saw in last year's big Samsung smartphone releases, except this time it's full HD, plus instead of quad, HD, plus and yeah. When you compare the s21 side by side with uh, you know, last year's s20, you will notice a difference in the detail.

Levels. You'd have to get those finer details coming through really nicely on that s20 compared with the s21. But you know what, because it's a 6.2 inch, it's a fairly compact screen anyway, certainly more than up to the task for a bit of YouTube, Netflix, Disney plus whatever, and on that default vivid mode. Oh, my god, those colors, they slap. You really hard right in the face, just like what's going on in this scene.

Here god, I love a bit of cobra Kai but of course, as usual, got full control over the display output here on the s21. All you got to do is dive into the settings head to display, and you can play around with all kinds of stuff in here. You've got the usual dark and light mode. Of course, you've got the adaptive brightness eye, comfort, shield and screen mode is what you want if you want to play around with the color temperature and everything and get more natural. Looking hues, if you don't want them really in your face, you can of course play around with the white balance as well to make them a bit cool a bit warmer, and I guess ever the optimist, one of the advantages of having a full HD plus resolution.

Instead of quad HD plus, is you no longer have to decide? Do I want that quad HD resolution, or do I want 120 hertz refresh, which you do have supported here on the s21? It is an adaptive screen refresh, so it will stick to 60 hertz uh when you're not using a supported, app, and it'll bump up to uh to 120 hertz whenever it detects. There's lots of motion going on, or you're using a supported app that does a bit of that 120. And, as usual, with the galaxy s series flagship smartphone. Of course, you've got a dual stereo speaker setup, so, let's just dive on into YouTube and test out the video with that ending that notification spell cheers. So if you're after a ford for effortless one-handed use, the s21 is certainly one of the most compact in 2021 and well worth considering well, so that is certainly uh, nice and loud on top uh top volume there.

That's for sure. It's like the echo we sound. You know it's not quite super crisp clear I'd. Imagine it'll be better on the plus and the ultra. But, to be honest again, it will do the job, absolutely fine for just kicking back with a bit of video action.

Uh and, of course, if you want to be listening to music well, you're going to have to use a dongle or get some Bluetooth on the go now power in the galaxy s21 is Samsung's fresh new five nanometer exodus 2100 chipsets, it's the first time. I've actually been excited about. An excellent has been stuffed inside a smartphone for quite some time. Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to do any benchmarking on the galaxy s21 ahead of the review embargo, but certainly so far, their performance is nice and silky smooth, and what I can do is get a bit of gaming on the ghost going to try a bit of Call of Duty action, but of course, quickly before we do that. I just mentioned Samsung's game launcher has been updated for the s21 as well.

You've got usual features on there, of course, which tells you exactly how much of your life you are wasting playing games gives you fast access various games on the likes of the galaxy store, and you can also play around with the settings a bit as well. So if you spend a bit too much time on your pub g's or your caller duties, I definitely recommend just tapping that and then, when you're, actually in game, you can drag down the notifications bar and go to the game booster tool. It just pops up on screen like, so you've got the new priority mode, which is definitely ideal if you're playing something like ecology and easier pub g's, where you don't want to be interrupted, mid-game, as it could mean life or death. You also get an estimate of how much battery life you have remaining. If you keep on gaming and that's definitely one area which I will be testing out quite thoroughly for my s21 review, because I want to see just how energy efficient that five nanometer 2100 is hopefully because it's a nice small chipset same size as the snapdragon 888 it'll hold up well anyway, that's enough chatter, let's kneecap! Some more force should have been checking your six buddy because so far, certainly the screen seems nice and responsive bloody kids get back to your home school and have a bit of this.

You get ah bugger, okay, so the s21 doesn't seem to make me suck at this game. Any less uh, but certainly, as I say, screen nice and responsive performance has been good on these top detail levels: oh bugger off oh piss. Luckily, the rest of my team seems fairly confident, so that's making up for me. Well, this is my third game now and uh. The back of the s21 is starting to get a little warm, but seriously nothing too uh troublesome, hey, final kill and all this super violence doesn't seem to be sapping the battery too uh swiftly.

Either and speaking of that battery, it's a four thousand William cell here in the s21 so far smaller than what you'll get in the plus and the ultra, which is the 4 800 and a 5 000 respectively, but hopefully should see you through a full intensive day, especially as it's a full HD panel. Now we're not quad HD. As I said before. Of course, it will depend quite heavily on the Enos 2100 and how energy efficient it really is. So stay tuned for my review for more on that and another benefit of that exodus.2100 chipsets is you've, got integrated 5g with it, just like you do with that. Snapdragon 888, so you've got 5g support on that dual sim setup.

It's just sub 6. Here in the UK, though, I believe that the US model has four millimeter wave support, because you've actually got millimeter width over there, and it's just a bit of Wi-Fi six action on here as well. So great news if you've already got yourself a Wi-Fi six modems. Now, let's finish up this galaxy s21 unboxing, with a look at Samsung's triple lens rear camera tech, which is exactly the same as the camera setup you'll get on the galaxy s 21 plus. So what you have here is a 12 megapixel primary shooter.

You've also got a 12 megapixel ultra-wide angle lens, which you can swap to with a quick tap like saw, and then your last lens is a 64 megapixel, telephoto shooter, which you might think of as three times: optical zoom, that's actually a hybrid zoom. Hence, the high megapixel count, and thankfully you've got a tasty bit of built-in optical image. Stabilization for that telephoto lens. As you can see there, the images stay nice and steady despite my trembling hands, and you've also got the same on that primary lens as well, so because that primary lens captures images at 12 megapixels. But if you type up here, you do have the option of swapping that telephoto lens and using a 64, megapixel uh resolution snap.

Instead, however, you'll definitely want to stick with uh the standard primary lens to get the best possible results. As usual, it's a bit fear, detection, autofocus and, as you can see, there seems nice and nippy uh snapping between close and far subjects really handy. If your subject is moving about and a really fast shutter action too, as well, you can also hold down in order to jump into video recording and most of Samsung's. Camera features have been tweaked and improved in some way. For instance, the single take is now in version 2.0. You can once again change the duration of this all the way from 5 to 15 seconds the same as after the last update, and then basically just tap that shutter button and then get lots of dynamic action on the go.

Hopefully, your subject is doing a bit more than chocolate monkey here, just sitting there, looking all glassy eyed and then once the galaxy s21 has worked. Its magic you'll have a bunch of different photos and videos to choose from which do random stuff. So that's a bit sped up action and various stills and all that good stuff, and its great news, if you can't make your mind up about whether you want to shoot a photo or a video that basically does everything for you. They can now produce more results than ever before in this version 2.0, including some slo-mo action and all kinds of good stuff. If you tap the more option, as you can see, you've got a shag load of extra stuff, all the standard stuff that you'd expect to see on a galaxy s.

Series smartphone, including the night mode of course, which again is supposed to have improved quite dramatically. So I've turned off all the lights in the studio made. It super dark just going to tap that knight board now, and then I'll also do a shot that isn't night mode just to do a comparison. So there's the standard shot without the night modes and then, if we flick across there's the shot using the night mode, it was just a two second uh burst because it wasn't like crazy dark. But, as you can see, there's definitely made an impact.

Uh. Certainly the likes of the phone box and everything you can see is available a lot more detail a lot brighter. Those colors are looking a lot more natural as well. It's definitely pleased with that initial test, we'll of course be fully testing out the galaxy s.21's camera Texas stay tuned for my in-depth review on top of the nine mode. You've also got the portrait mode, the obligatory food mode, and you've got your pro photo mode as well.

If you want to dive in there and piddle about with individual bits like the ISO levels, the white balance mess around with contrast settings and the highlighting- and this does come with uh the option of capturing in raw as well. Although I don't believe the s21 supports 12 bit raw, unlike the ultra now, let's have a go with that zoom lens, which starts you off at a three time zoom, but you can go all the way up to 30 times if you crash right. The way in- and this has got Samsung's new zoom lock feature on the go as well, which, as you can see there just tap the preview basically, and then it will lock you in that position. So perfect, if your hand is starting to wave at that sort of level, but of course, not too surprising, given it's a three times hybrid zoom, that about 30 times level. Of course, things are starting to look proper grainy.

So if you just dive back a bit, let's try 10 times zoom, instead, yeah still looking quite fuzzy. So with the standard, s21 you're, probably going to want to sort of stick to sort of three times four times and not pinch in much more beyond that, and then, when it comes to the video chops. Well, of course, you can shoot up to 4k resolution video at 30 or 60 frames per second here on the galaxy s21. Otherwise, you do also have the option of shooting at full-on AK resolution at 24 frames per second and one of the new features here on the galaxy s 21, as well as the fulled auto feature which can actually change up dynamically, the frame rate from 30 to 60 frames per second, when it detects lots of motion going on as it most definitely isn't in this currency. So I'll definitely be testing out all of those video modes.

For my in-depth galaxy s21 review and if you dive into more there's plenty more video chops in here as well, including the likes of pro video, we can actually mess around with individual elements like the ISO levels and everything while you are recording you've, got loads of other great tools in here as well, including uh, the fantastic zoom effort which allows you to very slowly and smoothly pan into your subject and then back out again and if you jump back into the mall section. Another fresh new camera feature for the s21 series is the director's view, and this allows you to shoot with both the front facing and the rear facing camera. At the same time, a bit of vlogging action, of course that's a feature that we have seen on Samsung smartphones in the past. But with this you can actually uh jump between the three separate lenses there on the back. You can actually get a preview right there at the bottom of what uh the image will be.

Oh, and I have to say after using the camera for about sort of 15-20 minutes, or so the s21 is starting to get quite toasty up around that sort of camera housing area, certainly up around the top edge of the phone as well, so I'll, be keeping tabs on that see how it fares uh, with lots of use out in the field as it were, and let's finish up with a quick squid to that 10 megapixel selfie camera as well. So yes, let's have natural looking uh stones. Please definitely want to capture me in my fully pale glory and, as you can see, you've got your usual uh wide angle, effort on the go, which makes pretty much bugger all difference, but it's always quite amusing. With that selfie snapper, you can of course, shoot photos. Uh you've got the usual portrait mode shenanigans and all that good stuff too, and you know what that's actually not a bad selfie.

That's that's pretty good for me. I'd give that at least a b plus Christ. This thing can even make me look good. Then I'm instantly sold uh. If you dive on into the video mod, you can shoot up to 4k resolution video at 60 frames per second or, as you can dial it down.

If you want as well and once again got that full HD auto, which switches between 30 and 60 fps and there you have it in a nutshell: the Samsung Galaxy s21. So, as I say, a full review should be coming in about a week or so I'm hoping to do some comparisons with some big rivals to the s21 as well. Let me know what you think down below be interested to see if you're tempted by the standard s21, if you'd rather upgrade to the plus or the ultra or frankly, the whole of it can just suck right off and from all the latest greatest tech. Please do put subscribe ding that notifications bell and have yourselves a lovely rest of the week, cheers everyone loves you. You.

Source : Tech Spurt