What’s Good About The Samsung Galaxy S21 5G: My First Impressions

I watched the Samsung live event the other day. It was when they launched the new Galaxy products which includes the new Galaxy S21 5G series devices. I immediately fell in-love with the design, especially with the new rear camera layout. This time it doesn’t look too big and out-of-place.

It comes with Samsung’s new 5nm Exynos 2100 SoC, which is Samsung’s answer to Apple’s new A14 Bionic chipset and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 chipset. The Galaxy S21 also has a SD888 variant but that is only for the North American market. Either way, the race to a beasty processing power is totally on.

I got a surprise message few days ago, stating that I will be receiving the new Galaxy S21 5G for a review. This got me really excited and more eager to give the new Exynos 2100 a full trial. And a few days later, I received a brand new Phantom White Galaxy S21 at my doorstep.

The first obvious thing that I notice is the box itself. It is way smaller than usual, and thinner. As mentioned in the live event, the new S series will omit the charger plug, but will only come with the USB type-C cable in the box along with some documentations and warranty card. Oh, and also the SIM ejector pin.

So what I got in the box are only the phone, cable, some paper works and a pin. That’s all.

I guess they are following Apple’s method to save the planet by reducing waste and improve the environment. A good gesture I must say. I’m sure more phone companies will follow suit. Luckily for me, I have tons of chargers laying around in the house somewhere.

My first impression of the S21 5G is that, it feels smaller and lighter. Yes, the screen size for this is smaller than the Plus and Ultra version. And it is also thinner. I honestly like the feel of this phone in my hand. The size is just right because I prefer small aesthetic phones. If they have a mini version, I’d go for the mini version.

I really love the Phantom White colour as well. And the back texture is a smooth matte type rather than having a shiny surface and it’s made of plastic (polycarbonate?) with a metal frame reinforcing the sides. I prefer it this way actually. I don’t like those shiny fingerprint magnet at the back.

The new Galaxy S21 5G comes with a 6.2″ Dynamic AMOLED display with a maximum of 1300 nits brightness. The display looks really sharp and vibrant to which I think is better looking than the previous S20 series.

My review unit comes with a 256GB of internal space and 8GB of RAM. The S21 series doesn’t come with an expandable storage anymore so what you have is what you get. But having 256GB of space is ample enough for few years of use.

As for the camera department, I’ll leave that for my full in-depth review which is coming up within a week or so.

Here’s a quick look on the new Galaxy S21 5G specifications:

• SoC: Exynos 2100 (5 nm), Octa-core (1×2.9 GHz Cortex-X1 & 3×2.80 GHz Cortex-A78 & 4×2.2 GHz Cortex-A55)
• GPU: Mali-G78 MP14
• OS: Android 11, One UI 3.1
• Memory: 128GB 8GB RAM, 256GB 8GB RAM
• Display:
  Dynamic AMOLED 2X, 120Hz, HDR10+, 1300 nits (peak)
  6.2 inches, 94.1 cm² (~87.2% screen-to-body ratio)
  1080 x 2400 pixels, 20:9 ratio (~421 ppi density)
• Battery:
  Li-Ion 4000 mAh, non-removable
  Fast charging 25W
• Camera:
  12 MP, f/1.8, 26mm (wide), 1/1.76″, 1.8µm, Dual Pixel PDAF, OIS
  64 MP, f/2.0, 29mm (telephoto), 1/1.72″, 0.8µm, PDAF, OIS, 1.1x optical zoom, 3x hybrid zoom
  12 MP, f/2.2, 13mm, 120˚ (ultrawide), 1/2.55″ 1.4µm, Super Steady video
• Selfie Camera:
  10 MP, f/2.2, 26mm (wide), 1/3.24″, 1.22µm, Dual Pixel PDAF
• Colours: Phantom Gray, Phantom White, Phantom Violet, Phantom Pink

Be sure to check back this site for the full review. Meanwhile, I will put the new S21 5G through a full test as much as I can. And of course play a few games of PUBG Mobile on it.