Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra: A Long Term User Review After 3 Months! By Shane Symonds

Hello everybody, my name is Shane, and this is the Samsung Galaxy s21 ultra, and it's been my primary phone for the last three months or so and in this video I just want to talk to you guys about some of my experiences. I've had with this phone and whether I can recommend it to you or someone else who may be considering getting this phone. This is Samsung's latest flagship phone, meaning they've, packed all of their greatest specs and greatest features and their greatest build materials into this device, and that's going to come at a price. But at this point in time the price is lower. The hype is down. Not every single reviewer is pushing this phone into your subscription feed.

This is the time realistically, where you might want to be considering a purchase of a phone like this. So the first thing I want to touch on with this phone is the durability. How has it held up in the last three months? I'm very happy to report that this is a very durable phone, no scratches on the screen. I'm super happy about that, and same goes for the aluminum sides and the glass back. There are no scratches on this phone so far.

I know a lot of people are gonna, throw a case on this phone anyways, which is what I did initially, and I recommended having a case on this, but honestly after using it for three months now, I've gotten rid of the case because I feel confident using this phone naked. The feel of this phone is just incredible. That is the biggest reason why I've just gotten rid of a case. It's honestly one of the best feelings I've ever had with any phone, and, yes, you might be saying to yourself Shane. So what big deal it feels nice in the hand.

I think a good comparison to make here is with the iPhone 12 Pro max. You can see here just so barely that on this siding it's straight flat and on this siding it's rounded, and it just makes a huge difference. I absolutely love using this phone on a daily basis, because it just feels so good in the hand and to go along with that. Nice feel we have a super nice look here as well. In my opinion, the design of this phone is really nice.

I know on camera, it's probably not the most glamorous thing, you've ever seen on a YouTube, video or YouTube tech review, but in person I just absolutely love the look of this phone, and it's not being super flashy. I just want something that looks clean. Furthermore, I can appreciate the look of it and I can just appreciate the use of a phone like this on a daily basis, which I do and the main reason I bring these points up. First about this phone opposed to the usual performance and specs, and things like that is because across the board with Samsung phones, it's a pretty similar user experience in terms of the software and your interactions with the phone, for example, I just did a video on the galaxy a52. This is a more budget-oriented phone from Samsung and in that review I said that between this a52 and this s21 ultra, my overall experience was pretty much the same.

But on that same note, if you're looking for a nicer, build material and solid build material, so you don't have to worry about this phone breaking or something happening to it and makes it compromised with the looks and the physical. Those are definitely a 10 out of 10 for me on this s21 ultra Samsung definitely nailed it, especially compared to last year's s20 ultra. I just personally was not a huge fan of this camera array. I personally just don't like it that much. Furthermore, I like how Samsung morphed the camera module into the corner of the phone, so it's just more so part of the phone.

You still have a camera bump and then, of course, the backing. This has this fingerprint magnet and I just don't like the look of these glossy, backed phones as much. I absolutely love again. This matte back you're not gonna, get any fingerprints. I didn't wipe this down before making this video.

This is just how it's been for the last three months, and you can see there's just barely any fingerprints at all. Another reason why I love using this without a case on it, but now getting into what makes this phone so special the 6.8 inch display. This screen is one of the best I've experienced on a Samsung phone in general, aside from the foldable phones, that is a whole different category of phone, the bezels are practically non-existent. There is a little of edge display on this phone, which just means the edge goes around the side, and it makes it a bit larger to the eye, but you can run into some problems with accidental touches if the screen is going too far over the edge. So what Samsung did is that they tone that down a little.

It goes over the side ever so slightly, but I have not had any accidental touches on this phone at all. So while the screen size itself is impressive, everything else going on with this display has just been phenomenal. So of course we have the small hole punch cut out at the top. This has not been a distraction for me at all, and then the best aspect about this display is not only do we have a 120 hertz refresh rate display. It is also packed with a 1440p resolution and oh man, the text, just everything, is so crisp on this phone with that 1440p resolution, and I know a lot of phones that come out from Samsung and other brands are at 1080p and honestly 1080p is perfectly fine and if you do have a 1080p phone right now do not feel like you have to jump up to this s21 ultra and get the 1440p display.

It's really not a night and day difference, but it's still something that I still noticed, and it is honestly an amazing experience. Now I know what you're thinking with all those things considered big display fast, refresh rate super crisp text and high resolution display that it's going to kill the battery life. But honestly, I don't know what wizardry Samsung did with this phone, but the battery life has been great on this device for me. So while I certainly don't recommend you to use your phone for this long in a day, it can last for up to nine hours, which is absolutely incredible. This is really a two-day battery life.

If you're going to use your phone in a healthy way, unlike myself, but overall, you can definitely expect at least bare minimum eight hours to nine hours of screen on time. If you are always on your phone you're, always watching content, you're, always playing games always doing something on your phone all day long. This is definitely a win in that category. Now the other big aspect of this phone are the cameras. Samsung has been pushing this camera super heavily in their advertising.

It's what every big phone manufacturer is doing now, they're putting a lot of focus on these cameras and to be honest at the end of the day, a lot of your money going towards these high-end flagship phones is because of those cameras. So that is something you really need to consider with this phone is: do you need this elaborate camera setup? This camera is super versatile. The biggest thing I've appreciated out of this camera is the 10 times optical zoom and the optical image stabilization, which means you can just take this phone out and record video without any fancy, gimbals or other accessories. You can be running or walking, and the video is just super smooth, buttery smooth these cameras are the real deal for me personally, I'm certainly not a camera reviewer specifically, but if you want a good camera system to go along with your good feel, good design good display good battery. All those other aspects, then this really brings it home here on the s21 ultra and now something not as big as the other things I previously mentioned, but could be important to you is the biometrics or unlocking and getting into this phone.

It is just unbelievably quick. It's quick on pretty much any Samsung phone you get, but I mean it is just superfast on this phone. You just need a tap of the thumb to get in with that fingerprint sensor on the bottom of the display. You can have it set up so that it's on your always on display, so you always see it there you're always going to tap it, and it's just the tap on other Samsung phones. Furthermore, you have to hold it down, and then you're waiting.

Another split second for it to unlock, but there has been none of that on the s21 ultra here. It's just boom. You are right in and the face recognition also works quite well. So it shouldn't pick up my face as well here because of all the camera stuff and microphones I have around, but you can still see that it is getting in really fast. It's, honestly.

This is actually as slow as it gets. You can see there just unlocked instantly and some of the times it is just as soon as you press that button and the screen lights up. You are right into your phone, but that is going to bring us to the s pen functionality of this s21 ultra. So for those of you who don't know the s, pen was exclusive to the Samsung Galaxy note series, but for the first time Samsung has brought the s pen to this s21 ultra and in my 21 days later review I praised the s pen, I absolutely loved that it was coming here to the s21 ultra. But now, honestly, after three months of personal usage, I've just haven't been using that s pen nearly as much as I was in the review phase, where I was just using every single functionality of the phone.

It just ultimately turned out for me personally that, since the s pen is not attached to this phone, it's not inside the phone in a slot or anything. I just still prefer the standard s pen sliding inside the phone, and it's just always with you- you don't have to worry about it being a separate accessory, and you need to have a particular case from Samsung to use with the phone to put the s pen into it. There's a lot of steps involved with making sure you always have that s pen with you, whereas on the note it is always in your phone, and it is just ready at a moment's notice, no matter what honestly stick with the note device, if you want to have that s pen experience it's just so much better having it built into the phone and the last thing I want to talk about and why this s21 ultra is superior over some other Samsung phones are the speakers. So we do have a dual speaker setup here we have one on the bottom and then one on the top- and you may have noticed if you watch other Samsung videos- is that the a52 and a72 Samsung's, more affordable mid-range smartphone options also now have the dual speaker setup, one on the top one on the bottom: it's not as good. Honestly, it's not as loud.

It's not as punchy the sound on this s21 ultra is extremely loud. I can have music playing on this phone upstairs. I can be downstairs, and I can still hear it. This is basically my portable speaker. I don't carry around a Bluetooth speaker with me or anything, no matter what I'm doing.

It's never not loud enough for a lack of better terms, and the speakers are the real deal on this guy. It's another aspect of just what makes this phone so special for me in the last three months of my daily usage- and this last feature I have probably appreciated the most, even though it's not exclusive to this s21 ultra is the 25 watt superfast charging with this phone. This has been a feature: I've loved on most Samsung phones, but now what Samsung has been doing is that you do not need to have the official 25 watt charger from Samsung to take advantage of these fast charging speeds, any charger or power bank you have that has power delivery technology is going to be able to charge the phone at 25 watts. So I just have a manpower power bank here I think it's a 60 watt charger, but it has the power delivery. So I'm just going to go ahead and plug in here, and you can see that we have the blue circle, which means it's superfast charging.

If you go to the always on display. You'll also see here superfast charging, so you may be thinking to yourself Shane. That's really! Not all that fast. I'm seeing all these Xiaomi phones and other devices that have 65 67 watt charging, but honestly the 25 watt charging is the sweet spot between not completely destroying your battery and getting a really quick top up. Whenever you need it, it is so nice to really quickly charge back up.

I'm talking about like 50 battery back in 25 to 30 minutes you just plug in your phone for a little. You go take care of a couple of things around the house and your phone is charged up for the rest of the day. I absolutely love having the fast charging capabilities and, yes, we do also have the wireless charging and the reverse wireless charging, but I can say that I have not used the reverse wireless charging once in the last three months, but it is something there, and I appreciate that it's there kind of like the s pen, functionality. That is something you may not want right now at the second, but maybe hey a year goes by, and now you want to use the s pen. That is an option for you, but now the thing that is really the downside of the phone and what is holding a lot of people back from getting a phone like this is the price.

The price at this point is one thousand dollars. I can jump onto Amazon right now, s21 ultra there you go one thousand dollars, so that has been the price consistently here for the last month or so honestly, it has been at a thousand dollars. So I really don't call this a twelve hundred dollar phone. It is a one thousand dollar phone. In my opinion, three months later, I'm still going to say it's worth.

Considering this is certainly not a slam dunk in terms of value, you are paying a premium for that really nice feel I mean it just feels great and the nice camera system and, of course, the great display, the 1440p resolution, but on the value side of things, Samsung is bringing out some perfect options right now, like this galaxy a52 that I just reviewed, I mean yes, you look at this side by side with the s21 ultra, and you immediately notice: hey thicker, bezels, hey smaller screen, it's not as fast and smooth of a refresh rate. It's 90 hertz opposed to 120 hertz and oh, it's, a 1080p display opposed to a 1440p display, but when you realize this is a 350 phone opposed to a 1, 000 phones, and you're getting most of the perfect features that I talked about, you're really getting a similar Samsung experience as far as app usage goes as far as software experience goes as far as general camera use goes to be completely honest. I'm definitely not using this camera enough, as I should to get the full value out of the phone. That's why? I'm a little conflicted about the value overall, if you're not a super heavy camera user, then one of these options, like the a52 or even the galaxy s20 Fe that doesn't have a super specked out camera, but still has a lot of the great Samsung camera features. That's something that you might want to consider instead of the s21 ultra.

If you cannot afford that 1 000 price tag. But to summarize this video, the s21 ultra, is an extremely nice phone. It's been my favorite phone of the year. I have countless other Samsung phones that I could be using. I could be using my iPhone 12 Pro max, there's just so many options of phones out there to be using, but this s21 ultra has captivated me the most overall based on my last three months of usage.

If you have the money to afford a phone like this, I can definitely recommend the galaxy s21 ultra. But what are your thoughts on the Samsung Galaxy s21 ultra? Let me know your thoughts down in the comments below and if you enjoyed this video then be sure to give it a thumbs up, and please consider subscribing to the Shane Simon's YouTube channel today and I hope to see you guys around for the next video thanks. So much for watching take care.

Source : Shane Symonds