Samsung’s Galaxy S21 range according to the pros

Update: Samsung’s launched its latest flagship Galaxy S23 Series consisting of the Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23 Plus and Galaxy S23 Ultra. Buy your S23 phone today!

We sat down with a few of our mates from the Samsung team to talk all things S21.

We’re kicking off 2021 with an exciting Samsung phone drop. Yes, that’s right, the coveted S21 range is here, and it’s bigger and badder than ever. But you don’t have to take our word for it, we’ve got the scoop straight from the horse’s mouth. And by horse’s mouth we mean these three absolute legends, Michael Scuteri, Fayssal Merheb and Jay Merheb from Samsung Australia.

Here’s what the pros had to say about Samsung’s new line of phones – the Galaxy S21 5G series. 

First off, what’s your favourite thing about the new S21 range?

Jay: My favourite thing is the focus lock. So, in the S20 Ultra, when you would zoom in past 40x or 50x zoom all the way to 100x zoom, it was really hard to get a good shot. You don’t really notice how much your phone vibrates until you’ve zoomed 100x close. Now with the S21 when you zoom in past a certain point, you can tap on it and it’s locked in, so now that’s locked in, if I turn that off, you’ll see that once I click on it again I can continue to zoom in and it will continue to lock onto your focus point.

With 8k recording, you can also take a screenshot called 8K video snap. It’s like you took the photo from the camera mode but you’re actually taking a screenshot from the video, that’s how detailed the video is. There’s a whole bunch of more technical stuff, like 12-bit raw, but that’s more for editing photos.

My other favourite feature is just the design and the contoured camera. One thing I had an issue with was dust getting caught in the case with the old camera cut out, so the way this sort of curves in, it’s just nicer to look at.

Michael: My favourite feature is an existing feature on our S20 but something which they have massively improved and that is the single take mode. It takes a ten-second shot of what you're doing, so the more you move and the more you do things in the frame, the more options it will give. It can give up ten photos and four video options from that one thing you’ve shot.

One of the other big things they’ve changed is S Pen support. Typically, only found on the Samsung Note range, the Ultra is the first phone in the S series that has support for the S Pad.

It brings the same feature-set that we’re used to with the Note: the same air command, how the phone tracks and recognises the pen when it's close to the screen and you have all the same type of pressure things, so if I push down hard on the screen, you get the thicker line if you push down soft you get the thinner line.

The S Pen support on S series hasn’t been done before from us and we have a variety of different cases that can house the pen. It’s free-standing, so it doesn’t go into the phone this time around, it’s an optional accessory, not a necessity. There are some advantages for having a free-standing (not included) pen, one we can make the pen quite a bit bigger, with our note series pen, prior they had to fit into the Note so they were quite a bit smaller. But the S21 pen is quite natural in terms of use, more like a pen or a pencil.

Fayssal: In terms of my favourite feature, I pay way too much money for Netflix, Stan, Amazon Prime accounts, multimedia. The display on the S21 is phenomenal and you would expect nothing less from Samsung. They make amazing TV screens but, having the Dolby Atmos audio in there as well and the 120hz refresh rates on the screen, just in terms of consuming content, I don’t ever use my laptop anymore for my Netflix I just watch everything off my phone. I just binge watched two seasons of The Boys and then Man in the High Castle on Amazon. 

That’s awesome and presumably that’s a lot to do with the processor, is it the Snapdragon 888 that’s running or is it something different?

Michael: There are two versions. The Snapdragon is typically found in our US market, in the Aus market we’re running with the Exynos 2100

Is that for all the Australian models?

Michael: Yeah, it is for a few different reasons. One is around 5G networks, we find that the Exynos chip is better for facilitating the 5G in Australia. But we’ve done a lot of work in the background to make sure our chip is on par with the Snapdragon chip and making sure there is zero difference in terms of quality or performance in comparison. Across the board, you get the same performance no matter what chip

Ok, so, it’s mostly to do with 5G and how the S21 runs it.

Michael: it’s more the market in the US, their towers are a little bit different and Qualcomm have a big agreement with them in terms of how the technology works with each other, we choose to work with them for the US market because it suits them more, but everywhere else uses the Exynos chips.

And who manufactures that chip?

Michael: Samsung. We do end to end with that one.

Aside from all the amazing camera features what’s the most notable feature in the S21 range?

Michael: To be honest, the screen. I mean that’s the number one feature on a phone right? Umm for me that’s the biggest thing. I also really love Decks, I don’t know whether you’ve seen Decks before, but it allows you to have like a desktop experience when using a TV or computer and it’s got really good compatibility with Mac computers as well which I find is always a roadblock for people. So, Decks for me is something I use, because I actually have YouTube channel, I take a lot of the content on my phone and then I use Decks to edit because I find that having the desktop experience on a phone makes editing a lot easier.

Are you guys going to upgrade to the newest model?

Fayssal: Definitely! Just waiting for pre-orders to go live.

Are there any secret features that you enjoy that no one knows about?

Michael: Good question.

Jay: I do! 12 Bit Raw. So, when you’re shooting in a promo, it gives you a video format which is a raw format. It allows you to edit a photo after taking it and it gives you 12 Bit which means it gives you 64 times more colour depth and gives you a lot more data to work with, so, when you’re editing something like the exposure of the photo or the colours in the photo, it gives you a whole new dynamic range, so rather than changing it a little bit and watching the whole photo go dark I can fine-tune and I love my photo editing.

If you’re looking for a new phone and the Samsung boys have convinced you, you can explore the three new S21 models for yourself here.