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Transcript
00:00It's been two and a half years since the Galaxy S21 was officially launched,
00:06so I think it's time to re-review it. It's time to make an updated review on this phone
00:13to find out if it's still worth it two and a half years later in 2023.
00:19As always, we're going to start by talking a little bit about the price.
00:23Right now, the S21 is available completely new for about $500 on Amazon. Of course,
00:30like in every video, you have a link in the description directly to Amazon too,
00:35specifically the best price I found on Amazon.
00:38But hey, let's move on to the design category, which, as you can see,
00:42is one of the strong points on this phone, and well, on pretty much all Galaxy S phones.
00:47It's made out of glass and aluminum with simple but elegant lines and an unbeatable
00:53feeling in your hand. If you've ever tried one of the latest Galaxy S phones,
00:57you know what I'm talking about. They're very aesthetic, they have very good materials,
01:01and above all else, they are very, very ergonomic.
01:05As for the processor, we have a Snapdragon 888, which was the best processor you could put on
01:11an Android phone two years ago, and therefore, of course, is an absolute killing machine,
01:18whatever you throw at it. Every application works super well, stable and fast. The system
01:24moves fluidly and without any irregularities or performance failures, and you can play all the
01:30games you want, no matter how demanding they are, you won't have any performance issues.
01:35We're talking about an almost identical user experience to what you can get with a Galaxy S22
01:41with the only difference being that the S22, of course, being a newer phone,
01:46has a little bit more power to spare, but that's only going to be noticeable in a couple of years.
01:51Right now in 2023, both of these phones work absolutely identical. You're not going to
01:56notice any differences. But anyways, that being said, let's move on to another very good feature
02:02and quite acclaimed on the S21, which is the battery life. But before we talk about the
02:09battery life, I have to tell you again, because it's important that you have a discount link in
02:14the description for the S21, the best price on the Internet. So if you're interested in buying it,
02:19at least check it out at the end of the video, because we have to keep talking about the battery,
02:24which, as I said, is a very good component on this phone. As you can see, it is not as good as
02:30the one on the S22. But don't let that fool you. It is still an amazing battery. And unless you're
02:36addicted to your phone, you will very comfortably get till the end of the day. More specifically,
02:42it will give you around eight hours of screen-on time under normal conditions. And we move on to
02:48the screen. Surprise! Another very good component on the S21. It has an OLED panel with 120 hertz,
02:561200 nits of brightness, and obviously the most high-end panel available at the time it came out,
03:02which are specs that are well ahead of their time. Remember, this phone came out in 2021,
03:07and at that time, not every phone had 120 hertz and over a thousand nits of brightness.
03:14By the way, let me emphasize again on the panel quality of this phone. A lot of people, when they
03:20want a good display on their phones, they look for resolution, they look for brightness, they look for
03:25refresh rate, which sure are important factors to a display, but the most important piece of
03:31technology that's put into a display and that affects its quality is the panel. If you have a
03:37bad panel, doesn't matter if it's high refresh rate, very bright, OLED, any name you want to
03:43throw at it, it's going to look bad. That's why there's $300 Xiaomi's with technically on paper
03:50the same specs as $1,000 Samsung phones or $1,000 iPhones. It's because sure, on paper, they have
03:57the same specs, the same numbers, but the panel quality on the Xiaomi is way worse than the panel
04:02quality on the Samsung phone. That's a thousand bucks. And finally, it is time to talk about the
04:08most important component on this phone, the cameras. As you can see, we have three lenses on
04:13the back, a 12 megapixel main, a 64 megapixel zoom lens, and a 12 megapixel ultra-wide, and they are
04:21all very, very good. This is actually the first year where Samsung heavily increased the size of
04:28the sensors in the cameras to, you know, let in more light for the colors to look more real and for
04:34there to be a little bit more depth of field, which is something you could also see on Apple's
04:38camp with the iPhone 13s. And it really makes a big difference in the way videos and photos look.
04:45And it really makes a very big difference in the way pictures and videos look. The bigger the sensor,
04:50the more light gets in and the more information you can capture. So everything looks better.
04:55It doesn't look like a phone video. It looks more like a, like a, say, under a thousand dollar video
05:01camera, DSLR camera, almost. But anyways, I know what you really care about here are the photos.
05:06So I'm going to show you a bunch of photos from the three cameras, zooming in so you can see the
05:10small details on each one of the cameras. And then I'll come back to give you my conclusions and talk
05:15about the other camera, the selfie camera. Let's go.
06:45Okay. So those were all the main cameras on these phone. I've seen very, very big improvements,
07:04especially on the main camera, as opposed to last year, as I said, because of the sensor size,
07:09the bigger the sensor, everything is better. That's why cinema cameras are so big because you
07:13need a very big sensor to capture a lot of light and a lot of detail. It makes everything
07:18better. You can capture a more dynamic range too. And that doesn't really apply to the selfie
07:23camera though. I think it's pretty much identical, which is not a bad thing because the S20 had a
07:27very good selfie camera, but all the big changes on the rear cameras are enough to make it a worth
07:33upgrade over the S20, even though the selfie camera is, I would say almost identical.
07:39So yeah, adding up all of these components, the amazing processor, the very good battery life,
07:45the very good panel quality, the very good camera system. I think that if you're looking to get a
07:51phone that is around the $500 price range, this is one of the best options, if not the best. If
07:58you're looking for an Android phone specifically, I would say this is the best option available
08:03right now for $500. So yeah, I recommend it. I very highly recommend it. And let me remind you
08:10one more time that you have a discount link in the description to Amazon. Very good price right now.