After opening up pre-orders for its Galaxy S21 series last week, Samsung has now announced the Galaxy S21, Galaxy S21+, and Galaxy S21 Ultra smartphones, along with Galaxy Buds Pro wireless earbuds and Galaxy Smart Tag tracker at the 2021 edition of its Galaxy Unpacked event.
Starting with the design, the S21 Series, for 2021, gets a new rear-end design, with the contour cut camera module seamlessly blending with the metal frame of the device and, somewhat, eliminating the camera bump. The vanilla S21 gets a polycarbonate plastic back, instead of the glass back of the Plus and Ultra, and a flat 6.2-inch 1080+ AMOLED 2X panel.
It is an adaptive refresh rate display, which adjusts the refresh rate from 48Hz to 120Hz, depending on the content. The display also houses a 10MP selfie camera neatly tucked in a hole-punch cutout at the top. Moreover, the phone also gets a 70% larger ultrasonic fingerprint reader, hidden beneath the lower half of the display.
The smartphone comes powered by a Snapdragon 888/ Exynos 2100 SoC, depending on the region. It is coupled with 8GB of RAM and up to 256GB of internal storage. Further, the rear camera module now houses a 12MP primary sensor, along with a 12MP ultrawide lens, and a 64MP telephoto sensor with 3x optical zoom.
The Galaxy S21 comes equipped with a 4,000mAh battery with support for 25W wired charging (which has to be purchased separately from Samsung's online store at ₹1,999) and 15W wireless charging. It also supports 9W reverse wireless charging. The smartphone runs on Samsung's OneUI 3.1 skin on top of Android 11.
Lastly, the Samsung Galaxy S21 price in India starts at ₹69,999 for the 8GB+128GB trim and goes up to ₹73,999 for the 8GB+256GB trim. It will be available in four colours – phantom violet, phantom white, phantom grey, and phantom pink. Customers who pre-book the device will start receiving it from January 25 onwards. However, the device will be officially available only starting January 29.
The Samsung Galaxy S21+ is the spiritual successor to the Galaxy S20+ from last year and is a bigger version of the Galaxy S21 with a few minor upgrades. Starting off, over the vanilla S21, the Plus gets a glass back, which makes it a touch more premium to hold.
It gets a bigger 6.7-inch display, which is similar to the S21's smaller display in terms of its resolution and adaptive refresh rate. The S21+ also gets a bigger 4,800mAh battery, although the charging speeds are the same as the regular S21.
The other advantage here is the Ultra Wide Band (UWB) support, which enables faster data speeds in the supported areas. The rest of the specifications of the Galaxy S21+ remain identical to its lesser sibling. Even the availability of the device remains the same.
As for its pricing, the Samsung Galaxy S21+ price in India starts at ₹81,999 for the 8GB+128GB variant and goes up to ₹85,999 for the 8GB+256GB variant. It will be available in three colours – phantom black, phantom violet, and phantom silver.
The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, as its name suggests, is the top-spec model in Samsung's S21 line-up. The main distinguishing features here are the display and camera. Plus, it is also the first S series device to get native S-Pen support.
The Ultra gets a 6.8-inch curved Dynamic AMOLED 2x panel with a QHD+ resolution and an adaptive refresh rate, ranging from 10Hz to 120Hz. It also gets the most cameras at the rear, with the setup comprising a 108MP primary sensor, a 12MP ultrawide lens, a 10MP telephoto lens, with 3x optical zoom, and a 10MP periscopic telephoto lens, with 10x optical zoom.
And while it comes powered by the same chipset as its lesser siblings, the Ultra gets up to 16GB of RAM and up to 512GB of internal storage. It also gets a 5,000mAh battery, but the charging speeds remain identical to the more affordable S21 models. The rest of the specifications of the Ultra are the same as the Galaxy S21+.
The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra costs ₹1,05,999 for the 12GB+256GB variant and goes up to ₹1,16,999 for the 16GB+512GB variant. It will be available in two colours – phantom black and phantom silver.
The Galaxy Buds Pro are a successor to the not-so-old Galaxy Buds Live, which draw its design inspiration from the Galaxy Buds+. According to Samsung, the Buds Pro feature better ergonomics and allow for longer listening times.
However, the main talking point of the Buds Pro is the inclusion of Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), which works with the help of three dedicated microphones on each earbud, one of which has a high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) to help with the ambient sounds.
Each earbud comes with an 11mm woofer and a 6.5mm tweeter, the former of which will deliver deep bass and the latter will help with crisp trebles. The earbuds can last up to 5 hours on a single charge with ANC turned on and 8 hours if ANC's turned off. The charging case provides an additional 18 to 28 hours of listening time, depending on whether ANC is turned on or off.
The Galaxy Buds Pro case can be charged via USB-C, and it also supports Qi wireless charging. The Galaxy Buds Pro is available in three colours – phantom silver, phantom violet, and phantom black – and can be bought for ₹15,990.
Along with the S21 line-up and the Buds Pro, Samsung also announced its first Bluetooth tracker, dubbed the Galaxy SmartTag. It is available in two variants – SmartTag and SmartTag+. While the SmartTag uses Bluetooth 5.0 Low Energy (LE), the Smart Tag+ uses Ultrawide Band (UWB) and will be launched later this year.
The idea is simple. Both trackers can be attached to valuable items and can help you locate them if you happen to misplace them. These pair with Samsung's SmartThings application, which allows the user to check the tag's location and even play a sound if they are misplaced. The trackers have a range of 120m.
As of now, the SmartTags will only be compatible with Samsung devices, which limits their usage. Samsung has not yet announced the pricing of the SmartTags in India, but the standard SmartTag is available for $29.99 (around ₹2,192), and the Tag+ will retail for $39.99 (around ₹2,923) in the US.
