Samsung Galaxy S21 VS LG Velvet! Should You Spend Less Or More? (Comparison) By Matthews Tech

All, right guys, yesterday we took a look at the v60 versus the s21. Today we're going to do uh, the velvet so uh, starting off with the prices, so 800 bucks brand new for the new s21. The velvet will run you around 420 right now put those links down below, and you can get the refurbished one like the one. I have for actually 350 right now, uh. So let's go ahead and get started with the hardware here. So uh you know picking both phones up the velvet is a glass and metal phone and the velvet is kind of like, I would say it's a mid-ranger, but it's kind of like a mid-ranger plus.

I guess if I was to make something up, but it's not a flagship because it just doesn't have that. I guess that 800 series processor. So it's not a true flagship, but definitely, I think, a little step up from a mid-range, but hardware, wise, glass and metal, very thin phone, and also you have a little curved screen up front. That gives it a really premium feel to it, and you have a unique design to me, especially with the camera module the little water drop sort of descending setup here. This mirror finish is really nice.

Looking as well, it does pick up a lot of fingerprints, the galaxy s21 they decide to go with plastic. Like we've been talking about and um. Some of you guys were on board with the plastic, and some people were not digging the plastic, I'm kind of on like the side, where I'm not now. Now that I'm playing with it and feeling other phones, glass, metal phones, it just does not feel as premium as you know a know: glass metal phone, so I don't know you are feeling the metal part you know mostly, but it's just when you feel the back it just I don't know it just doesn't feel as premium, even though it's a matte uh finish, and it doesn't pick up fingerprints, but again it won't break as easy. So it really comes down to personal preference honestly, but I really love the s20s camera module set up.

I think it looks really, really good a really, really nice choice by Samsung looks much better than last year's design. So I really like that move, but as far as design, I actually really like the velvet's design. I think it's very understated and that underappreciated looking phone here just to go over the phone, so you have your power button on the velvet power button volume rockers the velvet still keeps the headphone jack. Unfortunately, there's no quad deck. You have stereo speakers on both of these phones, USB type c, there's no headphone jack on the s21.

Of course. Now, let's talk about the displays, so the velvet has a 6.8 inch poled display 1080p 395 for the PPI. The s21 has a 6.2 inch display 1080p 421 for the PPI, it's dynamic AMOLED, and it's also a 120 hertz HDR 10 plus display uh. So I definitely um don't see a huge difference when it comes to quality. Now I do see a difference when it comes to color uh.

The s21 is definitely a lot more vibrant, looking and the screen does seem to be just a little a little brighter to me as well, but they both look really, really great. So it really just comes down to personal preference here when it comes to quality. Now I can change my screen vividness on the velvet to get a more saturated kind of look like that, but they both look really great. So I want to know: do you guys prefer the look of the guys prefer the look of the curve display on the velvet, or do you like the flat display on the s21 uh? So I, like the curved display, the feeling in the hand but like a lot of people, don't like curve displays because you get accidental touches right um, but it just looks perfect to me. It looks cool, and it looks better from the front than a curve I mean than a flat display because uh the bezels seem more apparent on the s21 uh, but just talking about the uh rest of the phone, you have a punch hole, and you have your water drop notch up here.

So you do have a little more bezel, especially at the top and bottom of the velvet. But overall screen quality looks really great on both they're. Both very nice displays. It really comes down to uh. You know what kind of display you like curved displays or flat displays.

Now you will notice the difference between 120 hertz uh display here you probably you won't be able to see uh on this video uh, but it is very smooth, and it is noticeable from a 60 hertz phone uh. So that is one thing. That's really cool. Also, you can take advantage of 120 hertz games on the s21 as well, so it just gives off a really nice experience here. So talking about the software, you have android 11 on the s21 one UI 3.1 uh on the velvet. You have android 10, it will get android 11.

I believe the rollout has started. I just haven't got mines on this 18t version, and you also have lg's UX skin, which I like it's really almost pretty much like stock android to me. So I don't understand uh the hate here, and it's really not even a lot of stuff that lg's doing out here that really left uh, it alone. There's, there's uh, you know additional features and stuff your screen, recording, screen, sharing and stuff like that Samsung skin is definitely you know much heavier more feature. Pack you have to secure folders on here got a ton of stuff on here, your um, you know screen recorder.

You also have your desktop uh DEX mode, and it's just a ton of stuff. If you go into the settings and stuff a lot of stuff, you can customize and play with uh on the one UI for sure. So it really comes down to your personal preference and uh, which one uh you know prefer all right. So you have the snapdragon 765 g on the velvet. You also have 128 gigs of internal storage.

Six gigs of ram and micro SD support on the s21. We have the latest and greatest snapdragon 888 chips in the arena 660. You actually don't have any micro SD support. So this is the first time we're seeing that on the uh s series, and it is kind of wack. I don't I don't like it.

I feel like at this price point. You should be able to just keep the expandable storage. Why take it out? So I don't understand, but the base model is 128 gigs and eight gigs of ram. So let's check out those geek bench scores and then let's check out some real world our performance here, because the snapdragon 765 is really not a slow processor at all. It's actually should keep up pretty well, at least with uh.

You know your social media applications and stuff, like that, all right guys, as we can see here, big difference in both the single core and multi-core score um. So let's go ahead and see how this translates to real life. Here, let's go ahead and close out all these applications uh three two one and looks like the so right behind it too. So not a huge uh difference in terms of speed right there. The s21 was definitely faster.

Of course, let's try YouTube. That was pretty much. Even let's try play store s21. Let's try see Instagram three, two one, that's 21 by a good amount of time. Actually, let's try it's gonna of that um.

Let's try temple run. We can see s21 again but as we're seeing not a huge like it's not like crazy, a crazy different. You know speed difference here. Let's go ahead and try an uh web page here, openespn. com s21, but as you can see, not by a huge margin, you can see that, but still loading up, but it's not like crazy, a speed difference here, uh which um it's nice to see guys.

So how do these phones compare uh when you're gaming stuff, like that? And let's go ahead and check out the graphics on both so with the velvet you're limited to HD high and with the s21 you can go actually go up to ultra HD with extreme graphics, so big difference when it comes to gaming, so uh, that is where you know, there's going to be a big difference with this price, is you'll just be able to game at a higher fps in higher graphics. So you know you can see the difference in texture, quality and with the fps. It just looks smoother uh on the s21 for sure uh, but the velvet does handle gaming. Just fine. You just won't be able to like max everything out like with the latest and greatest, but it is very capable still uh of gaming.

Let's check out these speakers, so you have dual speakers on both of these phones: let's go ahead and start with the velvet uh. So what I'm hearing here is that they're both about the same amount of volume, but there's more depth with the base, and you have a little more kick uh with the s21 for sure here, but they actually both are very loud. You just don't have as much depth with the kicks and bass on the velvet yeah, but they're both they both sound, really, really excellent. So no complaints here, they're not distorting at the highest volume, so they both sound uh. Excellent.

Let's talk about getting into the phone, so you have an under display fingerprint sensor on both and the s21 fingerprint sensor. This year is very fast. It's been very impressive, and you have one on the velvet with the awesome always on the lock screen. You have the same thing on Samsung. You can customize, but uh.

This one has never given me a problem. It's not as fast as the velvet and with the s21. You do have the option to be able to do uh the um face unlock, and you do not have that option uh with the velvet so uh that kind of sucks, but um getting into the phone is fine for both of these guys uh. Now you also have ip68 dust and water resistant on both of these phones as well. So if you drop them in the water or whatever uh, they won't break immediately uh, which is nice.

Both phones have NFC for mobile payments as well, which is always nice all right. Let's talk about the camera so with the s21 12 megapixel standard, 64, megapixel, telephoto, 12 megapixel ultra-wide 8k video. You also have a 10 megapixel selfie, that's used in 4k the velvet 48 megapixel standard, 8, megapixel ultra-wide 5 megapixel depth, sensor, 4k video, as well as a 16 megapixel selfie that shoots in 1080p, so I'm going to go ahead and show you guys the photos, and then we'll talk about them right after so all right. So, let's talk about these photos, so one of the main things I noticed is that the s21 does handle white balance and portrait photos a lot uh better. You get just better blur and uh.

It handles the light. So I, when I take this picture, it was in front of like you can see the windows uh really bright, light coming out and they both handled it pretty. Well, it's just that the s21. I did a much better job with this shot here, retaining color and everything the white balance, which is nice uh. But let's move on to this photo now with this photo, you get really over saturated colors with the s21 uh for sure, and you actually get more detail with the velvet on this shot here.

Uh. For some reason, they both do a good job, but I can actually see like the texture on the velvet, so it did a perfect job with that one and um you guys would be surprised. These cameras are not like super far off. I was really impressed with the velvet now, with the ultra-wide lens. Samsung did an excellent job with the s21.

It takes some very detailed uh shots with the archer wise, so it really killed the velvet. If you look at the grass and stuff, I can see the texture and the grass, the velvet ended up a little soft uh on the ultra-wide. So you just get softer photos with the velvet. As far as the ultrawide is concerned, uh, so the velvet or the s21 really killed it there and uh right here with the trees, and you guys noticed the image uh profile here, or the color profile is um. The velvet is giving you way more natural color Samsung's, giving you a lot of like over saturated colors, which I guess looks good to people.

I guess that's what you know. People like to post these days super like photos that really pop, but as far as detail and stuff like that, they both look really, really good. Almost you know close with the detail here again with these standard lens here they both took another excellent shot again: more green colors on the s21, more lifelike colors on the velvet, but both very clean uh, looking photos here. Your selfie camera is going to be cleaner on the s21 as well. You just get an overall uh cleaner shot when it comes to detail.

Uh, that's one of the main things. I noticed that velvet was just a little soft compared to the s21 uh. When it comes to detail on the face you just get like a softer photo, but both cameras. Excellent- and you got to remember this- is like 400 bucks uh. You know more expensive than the uh velvet here, but I was really impressed with the velvet um.

You know the s21 is gonna, kill it with the ultraviolet and the front facing camera for sure uh, but the other uh sensors were pretty much tied. Uh to me, I was talking about the battery life situation, so have a 4 000 William battery on the s21 25 watt, fast charging wireless charging, and you have reverse wireless charging. So I could charge uh this phone up, uh with the s21, which is really cool on the s21. You have just a slightly bigger battery life at 4, 300 Williams, the same 25 watt fast charging wireless charging as well as far as which one has the better battery life um. They both seem to drain honestly at like the same pace uh to me so playing with both phones.

They both seem to have the same battery life, even though this one's a little bigger, now they're, both capable of 5g, but I haven't tested them on 5g because I don't have it in this area, but as far as battery life they're almost seemed pretty much on par with each other. I can't really say if one is better than the other uh without doing like a whole like actual screen uh drain test um, but they feel pretty much the same. So battery life is perfect on both uh. They definitely can go a day uh easily, so you can definitely get six hours of screen on time, uh easy with both of these phones so uh. What do you guys think be sure to let me know, and I'll catch you guys in the next one?.

Source : Matthews Tech