Samsung Galaxy S21 5G | Factory Unlocked Android Cell Phone | US Version 5G Smartphone | Pro-Grade Camera, 8K Video, 64MP High Res | 128GB, Phantom Violet (SM-G991UZVAXAA)

Cheaper than in stores, Great Unlocked phone. I purchased this because it was about 300.00 less than the stores and the Samsung site. Recieved mine yesterday. I’m think I am having problems with people hearing me on speaker at times but that could be user error. Still trying to figure that out. Plus my calls aren’t ringing thru,I just see a pop up. Again could be a user issue. Its truly unlocked, many camera options. Note, no outer jacks to plugged head phones truly bluetooth. Works for me though. I absolutely love the back of the phone, its not slippery or metallic like. It has some friction so it doesn’t just slide out your hand. Love the floating home screen and the flashlight is quite bright. As usual Samsung rocks. Fingerprint reader, add at least two, one holding in your hand and one on your lap or desk.. The pressure points are different and could throw it off and it won’t work. My experience anyway. I will keep trying my phone out and update my post if needed but so far so good. I have the purple cell and its much prettier than the pics.

Power Features. My device arrived in perfect new condition. Set up was easy, and I found getting everything organized natural. I decided to write a review to give some important things to know from the power users point of view. I have used the device for about 1 week now.First, some background. I work on consumer electronics professionally. This means I’m absolutely a power user. Other reviewers cover the basics better, so I’m going to focus on those details that power users would really want to know but have a hard time finding before buying.I’ll start with the bad. Samsung completely dropped the ball on two important features: visual voicemail and RCS messaging.The former only works if you have a carrier app that supports it. The built-in dialer has no support for visual voicemail whatsoever, and if you install the Google dialer, Samsung’s modifications prevent it from accessing visual voicemail services on my carrier. If you care about visual voicemail, and your carrier doesn’t provide a carrier specific app, then you’re out of luck. In my opinion, this is the biggest downside of the phone: Samsung software. If I knew that visual voicemail wasn’t officially supported without a carrier application, I wouldn’t have bought this phone. I’m on Mint Mobile where no carrier application is available, meaning I just don’t have this feature on a premium flagship phone. That’s a fail. I expect this feature standard in the premium segment.For RCS messaging, support in their SMS app is strangely absent for this latest model phone. Even if you install Google Messages and Carrier Services, it activates, but I was never able to successfully send an RCS message.As a power user, I like running the latest Android software. Samsung is getting better about this, but the updates will lag Pixel phones. Samsung is on the right track offering 3 years of software support followed by an additional fourth year of security updates.If you like Android tunables, this is the phone for you. You can control everything from high-speed battery charging levels vs cycle count to detailed power savings restrictions applied to each app. You can control the kind of network you connect to using what technology, and you can even view networks in your area from other carriers that aren’t yours! I really like having this degree of control over the phone. It almost makes up for the lack of visual voicemail.Snapdragon 888 performance is the best at any price for Android. Although it doesn’t challenge the king of mobile silicon performance, Apple, performance remains excellent with the new X1 prime core. This phone can play anything beautifully and will not leave you wanting more.Reverse wireless charging and the ability to output to a full size display over HDMI are as niche as they are wonderfully geeky. I love the idea that I could use this phone as my only computer.The indisplay fingerprint reader is fast and responsive. I have applied a glass display protector, and it still works if you recalibrate your fingerprints and increase display sensitivity. It’s just not as responsive. I’m of the opinion that the back of the device is the best place to put a fingerprint reader or on the power button. With that said, the solution works.Battery life is genuinely all day. It’s definitely not two day battery life, but I end the day using my phone actively for much of it with some power to spare. The battery size for this phone is just right.Camera is spectacular. It’s better than my own eyes. I’ll leave this one to the photographers. I love the AI powered scene recognition; it’s helped me take some unbelievable shots.Overall: a premium device with strange omissions and cool niche features. I like the phone, but I question the manufacturer’s priorities at times. You shouldn’t have to compromise at this price. With that said, this is pretty cool phone that will please many users.

Give and take. Pros:Industry-leading processing power and firmware.Long firmware support life.Excellent battery life.Super nice display.Charges fast.Great speakers.Great glass used for the display and back.Should be more resistant to damage, in comparison to other Samsung phones (re: s20 FE) which use the brittle Gorilla Glass 3. And even if you break it, Samsung is the Honda of phones. Parts are always cheap, readily available, and as such repairs are cheaper and easier to access.Looks good while doing all of the above.Cons:The fingerprint reader is abysmal. I’m coming from a Razer Phone 2 which read and recognized my fingerprints near instantaneously, and very reliably. Sometimes this thing just refuses to recognize my prints, or takes a good second or so to do anything about it.This camera is years behind what it was hyped up to be. On my RP2 I was running a Gcam mod and generally getting better results, ESPECIALLY in night mode. I was kind of gutted when I discovered how inferior this camera array is. Lots of noise on the wide angle, tons of focus hunting regardless of which lens you’re using, just generally primitive by today’s standards. Is it a hardware issue or a software issue? No idea, but it’s unacceptable either way. Do NOT buy this phone for the cameras. Many cameras from a few years ago are better, especially with Gcam.The display, while beautiful, has pretty terrible viewing angles. Yet another problem I thought we left back in 2015.RAM is silly low, even by flagship standards from 2-3 years ago.Meh:Samsung is still lagging behind stock android in many ways. There are a lot of redundant and pointless apps/”features” that are clearly just Samsung trying to trick you into giving THEM your data, rather than Google; and doing it poorly. Customization is somehow better and worse than ROMs which are closer to stock. Sammy put a few decent features in here for customizing, but not really anything you couldn’t have gotten from a 3rd party. The launcher is terrible and restricting, but easy to replace. I personally use Microsoft Launcher with a bunch of 3rd party widgets, icon packs, etc.Conclusion:At the end of the day, this is a matter of price. When this phone was released for around $1k, it was insanely overpriced and not at all worth it. However, I snagged it on Prime Day for $699. At that price, I feel like it BARELY scapes past acceptable. $100 more than that and I would have returned it and waited to see what comes out later this year from other mfgs. The s21 line is bizarre to me. It blends top of the line features and tech with relatively archaic features and tech. I would not call this a flagship series, except in that Samsung does not have a higher-tiered line. This could have been much more polished, and it’s sad they cut corners and had some critical oversights. But again, if you can get this for almost half of what it cost at launch retail, it’s worth it. Don’t expect bleeding edge performance across the board, and you should be satisfied.

High quality phone with a great user experience, middling battery. I came to this phone from a OnePlus 6t after growing suspicious of OnePlus’s company decisions/priorities and wanting a smaller phone, and I have been largely satisfied with it over the past 3 months. Since the last Samsung phone I had (S7), the software experience has gotten much better. GoodLock lets you customize basically everything OxygenOS did (taking away OnePlus’s main argument nowadays).The speakers and vibration motor are much higher quality than I was used to, and the overall construction of the phone is very solid. I haven’t had any durability issues with it in the past 3 months, and the phone still looks pristine even without a case. The cameras are also fantastic. I have been using my DSLR far less than I was before because of the wide range of capabilities the three different focal lengths have. I only wish the wide angle camera had a macro mode like some other phones do.My only worry with it has been battery life. The OnePlus 6t really spoiled me in this regard, getting 7-8 hours of screen on time even after 2.5 years of use, and initially this phone didn’t live up to that. However, over time it has gotten better (as people said it would), and it’s probably around that range now.Overall, I would definitely recommend this to anyone who is looking for a small phone with top end features.

Excellent upgrade from my previous S9. I was very happy with my Galaxy S9, and thus had not considered upgrading until now with 5G being rolled out “for real” in many locations. I was quite surprised however, when I began using the multiple camera format of this device because I was convinced that improvements to the S9 camera were unlikely. Whoa – so wrong! The range of photographing capabilities have been significantly advanced in this model and I coudn’t be happier with the results I’m seeing. AI is in its infancy, yet there are applications in the camera of this device that offer real advantages with impressive results. Also the much larger battery is doing a much better job of reaching the end of my typical day with power remaining. For my purposes I am very glad that I decided to upgrade to the S21+ and I highly recommend this model.

battery life is absolutely horrible. The phone is ok it feels a little cheap for what it is and the price compared to my S8 I had before hand. But the battery life is horrible it goes from 100% to dead in a day sometimes a little less and that’s with it not being used just sitting in my purse. If I use the phone for audiobooks at work it goes from 100% to 20% in 5 hours when my s8 could and still can go at least 2 days sometimes longer on a single charge. IDK I am kind of disappointed being that I will be stuck with this phone for a few years and the price I paid

Still going strong. Son had this as his birthday present, he loves using it and has been using this for over 3 years now. It is still going strong, and no malfunction to it. The battery life is still good, even after many years, and it is compatible with our phone carrier, even when we brought it overseas. We were able to use it anywhere in the world. Very nice.