 I reviewed the Espanol and Ultra January last year when Manila was still in an all-out pandemic lockdown. I therefore didn't get to have the real-world usage when it came to using the camera and its battery consumption since the places I visited were just nearby and an electric outlet was always within reach. Since then I've had a chance to take it on several trips abroad from the selfie capital of New York City to the sights and sounds of Singapore to the old towns of Barcelona. It also isn't a new phone. The S22 Ultra, the immediate successor, launched in January of this year 2022 and we expect the S23 Ultra to presumably launch in January 2023 which will soon make the S21, this phone, a two-year-old flagship phone which may make people wonder if it is still worth investing in today. Do I buy 2021's flagship, spend top money for this year's flagship, or don't buy anything at all and wait for next year's S23 Ultra flagship? I have very strong feelings about the S21 Ultra especially since it has been my trusted companion for 18 months now. I have never used any other phone since I made the switch from my Galaxy Note 9. I therefore might be able to provide more real-world feedback as opposed to other mobile reviewers who review a new phone every other month. Hi, I'm Rafael from Hardware Sugar and without further ado, this is my in-depth review of the S21 Ultra for mid 2022 and whether you should consider investing in it rather than the S23 Ultra or Samsung's new foldable smartphones which they recently released this August. A year and a half later, I still feel like I'm holding a piece of art in my hands. It helps that I found the perfect case to match the minimalist aesthetic while at the same time providing the protection needed for the camera bumps. The case is made by Rinkay and I highly recommend it because it is inexpensive, stylish and extremely useful due to the textured grip. I am a COVID safety nut and so there was a point in time when I applied isopropyl alcohol more than once a day on the screen each time I left the house, most especially when I began traveling again. There is no screen degradation whatsoever and the aluminum build has held on really well without a scratch inside. The camera lenses themselves also seem to be in good shape. I've easily dropped my S21 Ultra close to 10 times by accident already and if it wasn't for my Rinkay case, I'm pretty sure some dents would have shown up already by now. To me, the design build of the S21 Ultra is more attractive than that of the S22 Ultra. Yes, the camera module on the S22 Ultra has been redesigned so you don't get such a blockish look. However, the S21 Ultra block adds more character. Well, this may be a question of personal taste. This is my first time thinking that the older flagship of a product line looks a lot better than the most recent. The punch out for the front-facing camera has aged well especially if you consider that the iPhone 13 has still chosen to keep such a large empty notch. Why Apple? Lastly, I need to report that the built-in screen fingerprint sensor can get annoying. I was surprised to find out that as I was traveling more often, the fingerprint sensor was being activated when it was inside my pocket more often than I'd like. The result was that I needed to use my pin in order to access my phone even if it had it restarted it. This however seems to happen in more strenuous occasions such as when I'm hiking or trying to catch a train. It however isn't that annoying that I'm turned off in my purchase. The S22 Ultra has a built-in silo for the stylus that comes with it. The S21 Ultra unfortunately requires that you get a separate case and the stylus. I bought the Spigen version of the stylus case and got the official stylus from Samsung but to be honest, the bulky case just wasn't for me and I was willing to sacrifice the stylus functionality. I grew up re-liking the Note 9 for the convenience and aesthetics of a slimmer phone. If price is a factor, I don't think buying the S22 Ultra now just for the stylus is much of an upgrade unless you are a serious handwriting fiend. This is coming from me who found smart select and pinning really helpful in my Note 9. However, just like in all things, if price isn't a problem then go for the S22 Ultra. This is the only place where I think I sacrifice somewhat of a downgrade from when I left my Galaxy Note 9 in favor of the S22 Ultra. While opinions may differ, to me the S21 Ultra represents the biggest noticeable single upgrade I've ever had since I picked up my iPhone 3G from my Nokia back in 2008. The quantum leap forward is most noticeable due to three things with respect to the S21 Ultra which are one, a fantastic camera, two, great battery life, and three, fantastic screen quality. Let's talk photography. The camera is the most noticeable jump in quality if you are coming from a phone which is three or five years old or longer. Mostly because you have four camera lenses to choose from ranging from the 0.06 fisheye lens, 1x, 3x, and 810x lens. To get the absolute cleanest photos and videos, you must only use these four options without zooming in manually. The reason for this is that optical zoom which is one of the four is vastly superior to digital zoom and as you can see from this video I shot of me changing from each camera lens. 0.6 lens, 1x, 2.9. You can see that there is a little bit of fuzz and it clears up the moment you go to 3.0. So 3.0 onwards you're actually using digital zoom which is using the 3x scope all the way until we get to a 10x scope. Once you get to reach a 10x it gets a lot clearer. There we go. So it magically just sort of locks in for clarity. You can go further but you're now using digital as opposed to optical zoom. For the first time since I've ever started using a smartphone camera did I find myself often walking further away from a subject just so I could use the 10x lens to maximize clarity. I've had so much fun being a lazy photographer with the phone that I hardly need to move around because of how highly adaptable the shots could be because of these options. While the most recent iPhone has an optical zoom of 6x it doesn't necessarily make it a worse phone it just makes 6x shots clearer than the S21 own trust because with the latter it would be using digital zoom through the 3x lens. For me the 10x and the 0.06 fish islands are groundbreaking changes and these alone can make me talk for hours about the phone. Shots with the 0.06 fish islands is great for people who need to take high quality photos of houses and apartments for work or as a hobby. I've had to deal with a lot of real estate brokers in the past when you were still in the business of Airbnb but camera phones up until recently couldn't capture the scale of how tight rooms interconnected even if you're trying your darn best to find the perfect angle. Yes this can be seen as cheating in the sense that there is a chance that it distorts the actual room by making it bigger than what it actually is. I can't however deny how great the shots look so I really don't care. So if you are in the real estate business or if you are an influencer who does a lot of house projects this is an awesome feature which you will find very helpful. Shots with the 10x lens just leave me astonished on how powerful we can make our smartphone cameras now to the point that they become kind of creepy spy gear for stalkers. You can be so far away from a subject that they won't give you a moment's notice and you can simply pretend that you are taking a shot of something behind them while taking extremely detailed close-ups of them. I say this both to compliment the clarity of the camera and to warn people that the time has come to be extremely weary of a person with a smartphone even if they're 20 or so meters away from you if you value your privacy. Nevertheless it is quite something to zoom in on your pc from bed to see if you were upload as finished rather than being a plebeian and wait at the desk itself. I mean how can I go back to my previous life before this. Ow. The major drawback I can say about the 10x and 0.06 lenses though however are that they work very poorly in low light scenarios meaning they are only best used for well lit settings. So this is the camera at 1x lens and here it is on 0.6. Notice that the color of the wood has dramatically changed it's gotten a lot noisier in terms of clarity again 1x on the 10x zoom it's still a lot clearer than most cameras but it's definitely more noisy with low light. When it comes to video the 10x scope has become mighty handy for rare experiences such as this bird's nest which I documented from afar from my original review. We started our youtube channel with our camera phones and if it weren't for the fact that the s21 ultra overheats due to prolonged usage of the camera I would actually have recommended it as your main content creating device. I made a separate video about the s21 ultra's overheating issues this is still applicable today and so I don't recommend this phone for content creators who need to shoot a rule or extended periods of consecutive content without breaks. The s21 ultra comes in two different chips depending on where you buy yours those with the xnose chips for phones sold in europe and asia are prone to overheat more than those of the snapdragon one sold in the united states. It is important to note that the upcoming s23 ultra is rumored to do away with the xnose chip altogether and move to the snapdragon version. If your cell phone is going to be your sole youtube phone this is an incentive to wait however if you would like to take a lot of photos and short videos like no videos longer than 10 minutes every 30 seconds of usage then you will be just like me and be very happy with the content it produces. All right so I'm here at the Queensboro bridge. To answer some questions posed to me by a lot of viewers my experience with overheating is purely on me using the phone for recording video. I however never had a problem using the phone for video calls using whatsapp zoom or any other video chat app and also does not overheat with me when I play games albeit I rarely play games on it. I placed this section as a reminder that the possibility of it overheating and the camera being unable to be used is still a possibility however after a year and a half usage the benefits outweigh the drawbacks from me any time. I got my sm1 ultra on launch alongside some really essential freebies the galaxy buds pro and the superfast charging adapter if you're willing to take the risk of waiting you might be lucky and snag a similar deal at the pre-order of the s23 ultra next year I cannot highlight enough how important it is to have the super fast charger it charges my phone from zero to 50% in under half an hour and a full charge and a little less than a full hour as much as I can I tried to use my galaxy note 9 or even my ipad pro charger instead of the super fast charger for the purpose of prolonging the lifespan of the battery however there have been days when I was traveling that I needed to get out of my hotel room in a flash and the super fast charger always removed all forms of anxiety with its ability to juice it up to what I needed for after just a mere 20 minutes or so I use a lot of google maps listen to Spotify take a lot of photos and watch youtube videos when I'm out in a new city or when I go on hiking adventures if I intend to be out the whole day I bring a power back because I'm not confident that it would last the whole day I usually end up placing my phone on flight mode at a 30% mark if it will be another three or five hours or so before I get back to my room I wouldn't say the battery life is bad but rather it has given me the best battery life than any of my older iPhones looking back however it is possible that I got a little bit further with my galaxy note 9 nevertheless I do very much like the 120 hertz refresh rate screen plus if the power is going to that then I don't really mind the faster battery drain the 120 hertz refresh rate makes every phone feels slower even if the other phone processes things at the same pace the satisfaction of 120 hertz with your finger is a game changer in fact you notice it more when you are using other phones as opposed to when you're actually using the s21 ultra the screen quality of the s21 ultra is amazing the bezels of the screen are hardly noticeable and the colors are vibrant you do be on this while at the airports or in bed the past year and a half have been phenomenal in conclusion the s21 ultra is a phone I would recommend hands down for anyone who finds the latest flagships to be too expensive but wish to experience a breathtaking upgrade nevertheless if you're coming from an old iphone or even an older android phone then the great things you'll like about it right away are the refresh rate and the variable lenses especially the 10x zoom lens while I haven't camera tested the new foldable samsung phones I'm pretty confident that the camera of the s21 ultra will probably be just as good or maybe even better than those of the foldable samsung seems to reserve the best camera modules for the s line while reserving the more novel multitasking experiences for their foldables I will be surprised if I find myself drooling for the s23 ultra next year because I'm extremely happy with the s21 I like it so much in fact that I think it's time that I invested further into the samsung ecosystem by buying a galaxy watch 5 not because of the creepy spy cameras but because of those as well the integration between wearables seems to be more seamless than ever I only found out recently that you can play spondify offline purely from your galaxy watch without the need of your phone do you have the s21 ultra what's your experience so far and let me know if you have any other questions I didn't answer for the video computer shop full-service pc store and hardware sugar rigs we clean computers the excellent cable management and cpu cooler repasting in cleaning we also clean and repace gpu's www.hwsugar.ph 100% up-to-date inventory thanks for watching and maybe one of these days