Samsung Galaxy S21 + in the test: Expensive but excellent

In the past few years, Samsung’s flagship smartphone game has been featured by upstarts like OnePlus, Huawei, and now even Xiaomi. The trend continues this year as well.

For example, the upgraded Galaxy S21 Ultra was featured on Xiaomi’s Mi 11 Ultra, which did not land in India for reasons beyond the company’s control. Likewise, the OnePlus 9 Pro remains an excellent choice and probably the best mainstream premium Android device right now.

But the only phone that has gone under the radar the most is the Galaxy S21 +, which recently saw a small drop in price. This is the best phone Samsung makes in my opinion.

It also remains expensive compared to the Xiaomi and OnePlus offerings in India. But it’s also Samsung’s most sophisticated phone. It will please the folks who want the South Korean brand with the halo, its rock-solid reliability, and its chic design language.

Stylistically, this is the most eye-catching phone that Samsung makes. But strangely enough, it’s also the most ergonomic phone it makes. This phone gets a flat screen, as opposed to the Ultra, which gets a curved screen. On the back and the side rails you can see a sandwich made of plastic and glass, which haptically can hardly be distinguished from the tank-like S21 + and is even lighter than the Mi 11 Ultra. The matte finish is designed to be nice to the touch and yet not attract a lot of stains. The colors of course add the touch of pizzazz that makes this phone chic. You get a luscious purple on the back that’s refined with gold on the rails, in a wrapper that preserves the beautiful, swaying camera bump that fuses with the frame of the phone.

Photo credit: Sahil Gupta

While all of this is great, it remains a pretty big phone. It gets a massive 6.7-inch Dynamic AMOLED panel. And due to the size of the display, it is also quite heavy at 200 grams. But Samsung did well to keep the phone below the 8mm mark at 7.8mm, despite incorporating technologies like wireless charging, IP68 water and dust resistance, stereo speakers, and a very impressive haptic motor that is the best is what you can find on a smartphone right now. It offers a good balance between all functions, practicality and ergonomics of daily use.

As with all Samsung products, the screen is of course blinding. It’s a downgrade from S21 Ultra, though, although most people won’t notice the difference. It gets a Full HD + resolution instead of a 2K resolution which I am fine with as that is the culmination of what is needed on a phone. I enjoy things like the contrast ratio, the brightness levels and the color rendering.

It feels imperious to watch HDR10 + content as the brightness scales 1300 nits. It also helps that it gets a refresh rate of 120Hz which can be stepped down to below 5Hz if not required.

And then the panel is covered with Gorilla Glass Victus on the front and back, which makes the phone safe. This screen also embeds an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner that works accurately and quickly.

As a phone that costs more than 70,000 rupees even after a price drop, it is believed to be the best in the business. This is where Samsung shows its ugliness. It’s struggling to keep up with the bullet trains, which are the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888-powered beasts coming from OnePlus and Xiaomi. The new Exynos 2100 represents a moment of redemption for Samsung’s chipset division, which in 2020 was almost as embarrassed as Ferrari’s F1 engine. Like Ferrari, Samsung has taken an impressive step to correct the mistakes of 2020, but its follies are not behind it yet.

In other words, the Exynos 2100, 8 GB DDR5 RAM and UFS 3.1 storage is fast, fast, but not the fastest. For some, given the Rs 70,000 price tag, that won’t be good enough.

It is also held back somewhat by the multiple layers of duplication in its software. You have a Samsung app for every Google app, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, you’ve also tied Microsoft’s productivity apps at the system level. Usually some of these things are a combination of good and bad. I would take all that Microsoft stuff, but I would love if I could get rid of all of the Samsung apps, including the useless Bixby assistant.

I like features like DEX, which Samsung brings to the table and which differentiates its offering from the more generic “throw the kitchen sink” approach from OnePlus and Xiaomi.

But what I’d love most of all is a simple, clean UX that OneUI 3.0 isn’t, especially when compared to Oxygen OS.

The only thing that has been greatly improved, even more so than OnePlus, is software support. It’s excellent – you keep getting the security updates and even feature updates that made this phone a great device. Samsung also commits to 3 years of software support and is usually among the first to give a taste of the latest Android versions.

The overall experience of using the phone has been generally enjoyable. I’ve replaced the standard Samsung launcher with something called a Niagra launcher (I recommend it to users looking for more simplicity in their Android experience). It makes a huge difference to how the user interface is navigated every day.

As for heavy duty tasks, the phone coped well with games like Call of Duty Mobile on the highest settings, even though the phone warmed up. It even managed to record 4K video at 30 frames per second for over 20 minutes without getting too warm. In general, the sustained performance has been excellent and close enough to phones with the latest Qualcomm chipset.

Normal tasks such as long typing are supported by the cuddly feel, additionally enhanced by the excellent Samsung software keyboard, which in my opinion is now the best on Android.

Photo credit: Sahil Gupta

In the camera department, the S21 + remains cautious yet reliable, more than other phones. It doesn’t have the dazzling marketing to secure huge camera numbers, but it does have something more rugged and reliable for everyday use.

Samsung uses a conventional 12-megapixel primary camera optically stabilized with an f / 1.8 aperture Big Boy 1.8-micron sub-pixel and a dual-pixel PDAF. It takes excellent shots in all conditions. It tends to take oversaturated photos with lots of detail. It shines in all conditions and generally plays in the same league as the OnePlus 9 Pro camera system.

Samsung has improved its night mode, but it remains slower than the competition, which sometimes results in blurry photos. Samsung complements this camera with a 64-megapixel telephoto camera with 3x hybrid zoom, which does an excellent job in its limited zoom capacity.

Samsung is cautious about the ultra-wide-angle camera with 12 megapixel resolution and a 120-degree field of view. It also supports night mode and generally takes excellent landscape shots. All cameras also take decent portrait photos.

Samsung has given the S21 + an excellent camera system, but to do justice to the competition, I would say that the iPhone 12 or the Mi 11 Ultra have better systems on balance.

In the video department, the phone is ahead of the competition. It has the ability to capture usable 4K video from most of the edges and even 8K video. Thanks to the stabilization system combined with crisp sound, it can also record stable videos, which is not the case with other Android phones. Selfies are also quite decent due to the front-facing 10 megapixel snapper.

Samsung excels at doing other things well too. For example, it is one of the first phones to support ultra-wideband technology. It will also be able to wirelessly unlock some cars with the Android car key in the coming months, hopefully even in India.

It features packed stereo speakers that have been tuned by AKG – they sound sublime and double up well with their gorgeous screen. The phone supports the latest WiFi standards and also supports a number of global positioning standards.

It even gets Samsung Pay, but Samsung has removed the MSFT technology it used to work with traditional point of sale (POS) machines in India. It even has USB Type C 3.2 and USB for on the go.

Photo credit: Sahil Gupta

The battery life of the S21 + is also excellent. Its 4,800 mAh battery lasts a long time. It will last a 12-hour workday with around 25 percent battery life in the tank. It is not the fastest charging phone as it charges from a 25 watt charger that is not included in the retail package.

Since it supports the USB PD standard, it can also be charged at 45 watt speeds. While it’s generally outside the iPhone 12, it’s among the slowest charging flagship phones out there. Wireless charging is also slower than the competition at 15 watts and can support 4.5 watts for reverse charging. In general, battery life is not an issue on this phone.

At around Rs 70,000, the Samsung Galaxy S21 + is perhaps the most understated phone, rather than the hyped, considering its capabilities and looks. This phone deserves more attention than it gets as it plays in the same league as the OnePlus 9 Pro, iPhone 12, and Mi 11 Ultra.

In many ways, it’s better than the three and that’s something to check out. It’s elegant, competitively priced, with robust all-round capabilities, and bears the hallmark of the Samsung brand. The S21 + is a winner, even if it may not be the best value for money.