Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G Unboxing, Setup & Comparison to iPhone 12 Pro Max

 

 

what's up guys, today we're going to be unboxing the brand new Samsung galaxys21 ultra. We're going to run through the setup process and also briefly compare it with apple's iPhone 12pro max and also the Samsung galaxy s20 ultra from last year. so the ultra is the largest and the most expensive of the s21 line this year. The Samsung galaxy s21 and s21 plus both coming in smaller and cheaper.

Display and Storage

The Samsung galaxy s21 has a 6.2 inch display and starts at7.99 while the Samsung galaxy s21 plus has a 6.7 inch display and starts at9.99for the 128 GB model and then, of course, we have the s21ultra which has a 6.8 inch screen and starts at twelve hundred dollars for the 128 GB model you can also get this in 256 or 512 Gb for 1249 or 1379 respectively.

Available Color Option

But anyway let's go ahead and unbox this guy, and take a look at it so you can see the box here it's a very nice black shade and obviously, i did get this in the black color as well. Samsung galaxy s21 does come in five different colors it’s have phantom black, phantom silver, phantom titanium, phantom navy, and phantom brown.

What you Get into Your Samsung galaxyS21 ultra Box

Let’s go ahead and take a look at the phone itself so right when we take the top off. you can see there we just have some paper that says Samsung and the phone is right there. We pick it up by the bottom tab right here and that piece of paper comes right off and we have our Samsung galaxy s21ultra right here.

Let’s take a look at what else we have in the box. Before we get to the phone itself you can see we have just a box right here and nothing else in the box so we just have this little box right here with the sim eject tool on the back inside we have our USB cable right here and then we also have our quick start guide inside as well. Let’s go ahead and take that out and take a look and that's everything we get in there.

Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra Comparison with iPhone 12 Pro Max

Camera

Just a quick reference guide with the terms and conditions and then just an ad for the Samsung galaxy s21 5G right there. so we're gonna put all this off to the side over here and take a look at the s21ultra so on the bottom we have this little tab here which will pull off the plastic. On the back of the Samsung galaxy s21 ultra right there every satisfying. And we have the matte black backing which I absolutely love. We also have a cover here for the camera so go ahead and peel that off as well always satisfying. And man those are some massive cameras right there, I bet this thing is going to take insane pictures. Which we'll do a minor test in a video but. I will have a more detailed Blog coming on the s21ultra Vs the iPhone 12 pro max so make sure you guys are be connected for that. We do also have some plastic of course on the front screen right here as well and then also it looks like we have some on top here as well so very protected in there from scratches. we'll peel off this last piece of plastic right here, it kind of just goes around the border there, around the edges and here we go, this is the Samsung galaxy s21 ultra.

 Let’s go ahead and just right off the bat compare it to something like the iphone12 pro max. in terms of just the size so the size there is pretty similar. it is a little bit taller but it is also skinnier than the iPhone 12pro max if we just set them right here you can see the iPhone 12 pro max is just a little bit thicker than the s21.

Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G's Camera 

And of course the cameras there's a massive difference and just the overall look and design of the cameras right there. A lot more lenses on the s21 ultra here and also the edges I can tell right away that we have aluminum edges on the s21ultra versus stainless steel edges like the frame is stainless steel on the iPhone 12 pro max. They feel about the same in terms of weight the iPhone 12 pro max is a little bit heavier but they feel very very similar In the hand and then compared to last year's s20 ultra you can see here the front is very very similar but of course on the back you are going to see quite a change there of course in the camera bump. But that's really not the only difference you're going to be able to tell with these two of course we do have the matte coating as well which is different from last year. so let's go ahead and boot up this s21 ultra here, and see what we're working with so here is the welcome screen on this big 6.8 inch dynamic amoled display so we do have a 1440by 3200 resolution with a pixel density of 515pixels per inch so I can already tell that gaming and just videos, just media consumption overall is going to be amazing on this phone.

Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, Under-Screen Fingerprint Sensor

It’s also has 1500 nits of max brightness so this thing is going to get extremely bright and that's a great thing for me. see how it compares to maybe something like the iPhone 12 pro max which just for comparison gets 1200 nits of max brightness so quite a difference there. We do also get an under-screen fingerprint sensor, which is something I can't wait for the iPhone to get we may be getting that this year or possibly next year. But let's go ahead and continue through the process, the setup process here and i will talk about that fingerprint sensor when it comes up in the setup.

So now we just have to go through a few legal items to review. So I just wanted to agree with those and click on next we're gonna go ahead and connect to Wi-Fi. It’s checking for software updates now so we'll see if we have any software updates, which I don't think we should at least not yet but it's still checking for those updates. I did also want to mention that I did get some pre-order bonuses here as well. Samsung always does good with pre-order bonuses. So I will be unboxing these here in a minute just a few extra goodies.

Anyways you can see here we have the option to transfer over some data from an old phone to a new phone. So I’m going to go ahead and do that let's go ahead and tap on next and I’m going to go ahead and use the Samsung galaxy s20 ultra here. So we have the option to select galaxy slash android or iPhone or iPad so of course, I’m going to select galaxy. there agree we're going to do it wirelessly and you can see we get this pop-up on the old phone right there let's go ahead and tap on yes we're going to allow and it's going to switch and transfer over all of my data. And you can see it's going through it very fast of course I did not have too much data on the old phone but you can see this is everything it's switching over right there. It’s going to tap on transfer and again it should not take too long since i don't have too much information on this phone.

 I just need to verify that this is me with the fingerprint sensor and there we go. It’s copying and I will be back once this finishes and there we go… we are all set up. I decided not to do a fingerprint scan or a facial recognition scan because I will do that in the settings here. I just wanted everything to transfer over as you can see right there. Everything is still transferring over and you can see the transfer there is at 85 so it's almost done and while we're waiting.

Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, Qualcomm 3d Sonic Sensor, Gen 2

I am going to show you guys the fingerprint scanner. Because we do have again the second generation3d sonic sensor and it's larger on the s21 ultra and also 50 faster than the fingerprint scanner the first generation 3d sonic sensor in the s20ultra. so let's go and test that out so we're going to go into our settings here and then scroll down to biometrics and security, and we're going to go to fingerprints we're going to enter in our pin right there and you can see we get the splash screen for fingerprints right here. Let’s tap on continue and it says start scanning with the enter of your fingertip and it shows us where we should be putting our thumb right there let's go ahead. And tap on that and you can see we get a percentage value there. That shows us how much we've scanned so we're at 54% just trying to get different angles here and I can already tell just from doing this. That the size is bigger I mean it is 77 larger the area right here for where you put your fingerprint sand it. Definitely shows I can already tell just from the setup process here. So let's tap on done and there we go. We only have to do it one time so now I’m just going to go ahead and lock the phone and put my fingerprint in and yeah… that definitely feels faster as well. Definitely faster and definitely more area to work with more room to work with than last year's s20 ultra. This is really nice because that was really my number one complaint with this phone. I didn't use it very often because I did just use facial recognition but when I did, I noticed that it just wasn't as accurate as I wished it was. So you can see there the data did finish, the transfer did finish there.

The Snapdragon 888 processor

Now I do have all my information from the s20ultra on at my s21 ultra. All the applications and data and things like that now inside of the s21 ultra we do have the snapdragon 888 processor. Which is a pretty fast processor. And I will be putting that up against the iPhone 12pro max and also the s20 ultra as well. In a future speed test and we also get 12GBs of ram so it a massive. 12GB of ram you also get 16GB of ram, if you get the 512 storage model of the s21 ultra. This year is crazy so we do also get a 120 hertz refresh rate. So it's going to make this phone just feel even more smoother.

 And if we go into our settings of s21 Ultra.. here I will show you how that looks so let's go into a display right here and you can see if we go down to motion smoothness it shows you the different options right there. We have adaptive and standard and it says for adaptive get smoother animations and scrolling by automatically adjusting your screen refresh rate up to 120 hertz. You can also set it to standard for better battery life with a 60 hertz screen refresh rate. But I’m pretty sure most people will want that 120 hertz just because it makes everything feel just that much smoother.

S21 Ultra Screen Resolution

Now if we go down to screen resolution you can see it’s set by default to full hd plus which is the 2400 by 1080resolution and you can go ahead and change that here. If you want to just know that it will impact your battery life. I’m also going to go ahead and change the screen timeout here to five minutes just because that really annoys me when it just locks the screen when I’m still using it.

The Cameras

So now let's talk about the cameras on the back side of the s21ultra. We have a really nice uniformed layout right here so it doesn't look quite as awkward as like the last note did. I just really didn't like the look of this. It really stuck out a lot and it also was not uniform it didn't go all the way to the sides like we see here with the Samsung galaxy s21 ultra. it also looks extra good that it's all matte black here as well, but anyways you can see here we have five different lenses or sensors including the flash right there as well. So we have two primary lenses. One is the108 mega pixel, 1.8 lens and the other is the 12megapixel ultra wide lens and then we have two telephoto cameras as well. One is a 3X and one is a 10X zoom telephoto camera which is nice. We do also have a laser autofocus sensor which will help with autofocus in both photos and especially with videos. And that sensor is something that is brand new the Samsung s20 ultra did not have. That we can also record an upto 8k at 24fps on. They're also the layout finally changed from the transfer. But if we go into the camera right here and then go over to video and then tap on where it says fhd we can record in up to 8k at 24fps. It right there now obviously that's not going to be practical for most people most people are not going to be shooting in 8k. It’s really over kill but we can also shoot and everything else like 4k 60fbs- 4k 301080p. If you want to as well so that compared to the iPhone 12 pro max which can only record up to 4k at 60fps but once again the 8k is kind of overkill at this point.

 In time you'll also once again notice the big difference in the cameras on the back of the iPhone 12pro max compared to the s21 ultra.

 So obviously we just have three camera lenses on the 12 pro max along with the lidar scanner there as well so we don't have a laser autofocus sensor. But I will be testing autofocus on both phones to see how much better one is over the other. But I already know that one big advantage that the iPhone 12 pro max will have over the Samsung galaxy s21ultra is both deep fusion and also the smart hdr the third generation smart hdr. those are both computational things, both things that happen thanks to the a14 bionic chip inside of the iPhone 12 pro max but it will be interesting to see how these two compare.

When it comes to picture and video quality and actually since I’m curious I am going to go to take a quick video and test out the autofocus to see which one has better autofocus overall. after comparing the autofocus on both I actually think that the iPhone 12 pro max is better with autofocus and video. I kept bringing a knife into focus and it looked like the iPhone was just quicker to latch on to the knife just. consistently every time even without the sensor that the Samsung s21ultra has the iPhone 12 pro max still seemed to get this in focus quicker than the Samsung galaxy s21 ultra which is really interesting. And that just really speaks volumes about the a14 bionic chip inside of the iPhone and just how well that handles things even like, autofocus so just pretty interesting results.

There of course I will test this more in depth in the future. That is just a quick initial test that I’ve done but aside from the autofocus, I would expect the s21 ultra to probably be a little bit better in terms of dynamic range and especially zoom. When it comes to video since we do have that 10X zoom. The periscope zoom lens on the s21ultra. So I will be testing that again but I would expect some pretty exceptional results from this phone. Now as far as the selfie camera goes we have a 40 megapixel lens on the s21 ultra. which can shoot video in up to 4k 60fps and on the iPhone 12 pro max we can shoot that same video up to 4k 60fps but we only have a12 megapixel lens. But as we know nowadays the megapixels really mean absolutely nothing it all comes down to computational photography and just kind of what the chipset can do to enhance the photo and video quality.

I would imagine that the front-facing camera quality is probably about the same if not better on something like the iPhone 12 pro max just because this thing takes absolutely incredible selfies. Especially portrait selfies in low light it's just incredible. The results I’ve been getting from the iPhone 12 pro max but the s21 ultra could surprise me. And I will let you guys know in my later comparison with these two phones.

The Battery life

Now, as far as the Battery life goes we have a 5 000 milliamp hour battery on the s21 ultra which is massive. And it's likely going to outlast something like the iPhone 12 pro max. Which has a 36 87milliamp hour battery. But yeah just holding the phone in the hand it feels absolutely great I mean that matte back is just my favorite finish on the back of any phone. I really haven't had a full matte finish on the back of a phone since like I think the iPhone 7plus a long time ago. So it's been a while since I’ve held something with this nice matte black finish. I just love the look, I love the feel and the size the edges are not stainless steel which is what I’ve been used to on the iPhone 12 pro and pro max. But it is aluminium right here and it feels fine it again doesn't feel quite as quality and as premium as the stainless steel edges do. But it’s fine I mean it feels great in the hand and I really have no complaints at all. So far I do also love the fast fingerprint scanner here as well it's definitely faster than it was on the s20 ultra which is nice so I did also get some extra goodies from Samsung when I pre-ordered the s21ultra. They always give you pre-order credits which is nice. They allow you to get other additional products with your phone. so I went with the galaxy buds live right here, I also got the smart tag which is going to be the early competitor to apple's air tags whenever those come out. 

Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra-Wireless Charger duo

Samsung Galaxy s21 Ultra wireless Charger Duo

I also got the Wireless Charger duo here so it charges the watch the buds iPhone and air pods and also of course the galaxy phone. so we're going to start from smallest to biggest I want to check out the smart tag here first because I think this is going to be pretty similar to what we're going to get from apple later. This year I would assume later this year with the air tags so we just have this little tray. That comes out just like so and you can see that is the smart tag right there. So very similar of course to the tile tracker which is where you can track your devices that is, of course, the same thing, that Samsung is doing here with the smart tag and you can see it's also in matte black.

Samsung galaxy smart tag

 It Samsung galaxy smart tag on it right there. It’s nice that it kind of matches with the matte black phone that I got right here. so you do need these smart things applications for this to work. So if we go into smart things right here we'll agree to the terms. We’ll go ahead and start that and then we should be able to pair up our smart tag right here and you can see down at the bottom it shows the Samsung galaxy smart tag right. There we're going to add that now and you can see it says let's get started let's go ahead and start and it's going to connect and we do also have a percentage up top for this. So it says to press the button in the center of the smart tag go ahead and tap on that and you can hear the audible chirp right there we go and now you get the option to rename the device if you want to. I’m just going to leave mine at smart tag so there you go once you get it all connected and updated. it shows you pretty much how to use this and the benefits of this so it says find phone or tablet with tag so it says can't find your phone or tablet make it ring by pressing your tags button twice. You just press this middle button right here twice and it will ring where your phone or tablet is and you can also start automations with the tag as well which is pretty neat.

Then we have the wireless charger duo right here which will charge up your phone, the watch, the buds, and also it works with the iPhone as well and air pods as well.

Let's go ahead and unbox this I always like Samsung’s wireless chargers for some reason I prefer them over a lot of other companies. let's go ahead and take this out and you can see we have a clear sheet over it right there we have our USB cable in here and our regular fast charging plug right there as well we have a little pamphlet in here and we just have some plastic on the back so this is also matte black. So everything is matte black which is awesome. We have a nice theme going here and I can set these smart tags there if I want as well and just charge everything up at a time.

Samsung Galaxy-The Buds live

Then finally we have the buds live so these are Samsung’s answer to the air pods. These are the bean headphones so let's go and check out what these look like. So we have a pamphlet that popped out right away with just some getting started information there. And we have the case right here so you can see this is what the case for the buds live looks like. And you can see the beans in all their glory right there so these are what they look like in the hand. They have that nice glossy look to them. I do wish that these had the matte black look as well so everything kind of went together because sees this is what they look like and they're gonna be very similar to last year's buds as well. And then in this box, we get our USB charging cable and two additional rubber pieces which you can put on your headphones if you want to.

Guys there you have it that is an unboxing and first impressions of the Samsung galaxy s21 ultra.

I actually love the phone so far and I’m really curious to see how the camera works out and how fast it is in terms of performance. I will be testing all that stuff in the future. So make sure you are be connected for that. I just love the way this thing feels on the hand, I love that matte finish. so if you guys do want to read more articles on this in comparison to the iPhone 12 pro max let me know down in a comment below, but anyways if you guys did enjoy this article I would appreciate if you give it. And thanks once again for giving your time and I’ll see you soon with another article.