Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsIncredible hardware; meh software
Reviewed in the United States on June 16, 2021
It has been years since I've had a Samsung phone. The last one that I owned was an S4. Since then, I have avoided them like the plague. The software experience of the old TouchWiz ran me off and kept me away.
In recent years I've heard more and more about how much better one UI is so I decided after all of these years, and in the lack of a pixel flagship, to give the S21 Ultra a shot. Things have greatly improved compared to those days of TouchWiz but nevertheless the incredible hardware that Samsung builds is still completely devastated by their disappointing software.
Surprisingly, this time around I have very little problem with the overall UI. I have managed to work around most of the problems that I did have. For example, I can't stand the horizontally scrolling app drawer so I switched launchers and as usual with Android that's no big deal. I've removed or disabled most of the extraneous Samsung apps that can be removed or disabled and the rest can be ignored. Bixby can be remapped to Google Assistant for the most part but Bixby routines for hardware control are pretty useful. Most of the UX ranges from perfectly fine to really good.
Unfortunately, where the software really really falls short is where this phone is meant to shine. The Galaxy camera software is bloated beyond usability and largely unable to take a usable photo of anything that either moves or is in low light. The S21 Ultra, in particular, is more of a camera than a phone but the software that you have to use for the camera part of it simply doesn't work well enough to use in many cases.
If you want to take a photo of a landscape or a building or a car in broad daylight it will come out looking amazing. If you want to take a photo of a child or a pet playing in the Sun it probably won't work. If you want to take a photo of something in a little like then it probably won't work.
It seems unable to take a photo of a moving object without motion blur even in broad daylight. When it does manage to take one then it misses the focus and focuses on some random thing in the background rather than the moving subject. Along those same lines, it is unable to focus at all in many cases in the dark.
The camera app spends so much for the phones processing power trying to present you with an image in the viewfinder that looks better than the final photo will that it can't actually take the photo when you press the button. Instead of understanding your button press to mean take the photo now the phone interprets it as a request to take the photo at some point in the future. If you shutter lag is immense and it is real.
This is all an entirely software problem. I know this because when I use a port of the Google camera the phone produces amazing photos in nearly all scenarios. Unfortunately, you are unable to use the Google camera ports using Hardware shortcuts to launch the camera if the phone is locked which makes this solution unusable.
Fortunately, many of the problems with the Samsung camera software seem to be slowly getting resolved. The June update has made massive strides to improving the shutter lag. If they continue on this trajectory then the S21 Ultra camera might be usable by the time the s22 ultra gets released and then they can start all over again.
Moving off of the camera, my only other real problem with the device is the fingerprint sensor. Under screen fingerprint sensors are both unnecessary and poorly functioning. Don't get me wrong, the fingerprint sensor works fine without a screen protector or with a film screen protector. However, this is a $1,200 7-in slab of glass that I carry with me all day, everyday. It needs more protection than a simple film screen protector. It needs a glass screen protector but they simply don't work well enough with the fingerprint sensor.
I've tried multiple glass screen protectors for this phone and none of them work with another fingerprint sensor. Even the $50 ones that are applied using liquid adhesive and cure under UV light don't work reliably with the fingerprint sensor. They work sort of, but not well enough to rely on. With them in place, the fingerprint sensor is unable to read your finger properly in most situations. It will eventually get it if you try three or four or 15 times but you can't expect it to get it on the first try and that is unacceptable.
Just put the fingerprint sensor on the back so that we can please use the phone with proper protection.
The fingerprint sensor is the only Hardware problem that I have with this device. The camera software is my primary software complaint. Unfortunately, on a $1,250 phone those two complaints are significant enough to run me off and keep me away again. They are also significant enough to knock a five-star review down to two.
I can't wait for the Pixel 6 release, I want a different phone.
