MARCH 2021 T3 69Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra
zoom, and Samsung’s famous 100x
‘Space Zoom’ digital zoom. You
also get a fast laser focus sensor,
12-bit HDR, and a brighter noise
sensor for low-light photography.
Shooting modes are bountiful, and
include a fully manual Pro mode.
Samsung has really got Portrait mode
sorted now, with subjects captured
and lit wonderfully, and backgrounds
blurred out with subtle rather than
overbearing bokeh.
Samsung’s useful Single Take
function also returns. This mode
works by recording an action over
a user-defined period of up to 15
seconds with all of the phone’s rear
camera lenses, and then providing a
range of shots and a video to choose
from afterwards, using AI to take
multiple versions of the same event.
Video star
There’s a load of video shooting
modes, too, including Portrait video,
Pro video, super slow-mo, ordinary
slow-mo, hyperlapse and Director’s
View. That last one is neat, as it lets
you capture video from both the rear
and front lenses simultaneously, so if
you’re a frequent vlogger or YouTuber,
you’ll be able to capture your
reactions as events unfold.
The S21 Ultra can shoot 8K video at
24fps and 4K at 60fps with stereo
sound recording, and it comes with
both optical and electronic
stabilisation. The front-facing camera
can record in 4K at 30fps or 60fps.
The level of zoom delivered by
those rear cameras is very impressive,
with complete manual control to
zoom in or out as the user wishes.
As with the S20 Ultra, the quality
of the zoomed image remains strong
even into the 30x-50x range, so you
can legitimately use it to capture
distant objects or scenes. However, as
soon as you really push the zoom up
towards 100x, image quality degrades
rapidly, culminating in a watercolour
effect at maximum zoom. As such,
while technically impressive, the
100x digital zoom will have very
limited usage in the real world.
The 108MP main snapper is the
everyday workhorse of the camera
system, though, and remains a veryimpressive piece of kit. Detailing is
high, noise is low and colour balance
and definition excellent. What’s even
better is that, unlike last year, the
camera’s autofocus works quickly
and as it should.
Samsung is going toe-to-toe
with Huawei right now for the best
smartphone camera system crown,
with Google, Apple and Sony making
up the rest of the top five. Image
quality really is right up there with
the best.Display of affection
The hardware spec on the Samsung
Galaxy S21 Ultra reads like a phone
enthusiast’s dream setup.
The huge 6.8-inch Dynamic
AMOLED panel comes with a 120Hz
refresh rate and a WQHD+ 3200 x
1440 resolution. Crucially, both of
these can be enabled at the same time.
Throw in HDR10+ and a max
brightness of 1,500 nits and you’ve got
a display that matches and maybe
even beats that on the OnePlus 8 Pro.
The screen is simply gorgeous, and
aside from the pin-hole selfie cameraTHE HARD(WARE) FACTS
The phone has some
seriously powerful innards:
its brand new Snapdragon
888 SoC, 12GB of RAM and
Adreno 660 GPU mean
it makes short work of
anything you throw at it.<RXFDQVKRRW
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Now able to use the Note’s
S Pen, this has become the
perfect chum for note-takers
and creatives – but with
nowhere to sheath it, you’ll
want a compatible case.