The Christmas season has come and gone and we are already talking about what is bound to be the first flagship of 2021. As always the S21 isn’t coming alone. The Plus and ultra should follow suit keeping in line with the current Galaxy offering.

Release Date

Every year Samsung has made their new range known to the masses in February, preparing for a March launch. But this time it seems different. Many reports are claiming we will see a January 2021 launch due to a Galaxy Unpacked event taking place on 14 January.

Samsung will do all they can to make the handsets affordable by going down the S20 FE route by swapping some design features with cheaper materials. You can expect the prices of the handsets to range between £800 – £1200.

Design

  • Plastic and metal design
  • Camera housing reaches to edges
  • S21+: 161.55 x 75.6 x 7.86mm

You wouldn’t notice anything unfamiliar at the front of the S21 models but once you turn it around its a whole different story. Judging by the renders the camera sort of reaches the edge of the phone giving it a peculiar look.

Judging by these images it does look like Samsung will continue the design language for the rear of the device seen on the Samsung S20 models. The glass back seems to be no more and will now be home to plastic. Colours range from pink, violet and grey for the S21, and pink, violet, black and silver for the S21+. We won’t be seeing all of these colours in the UK so expect the traditional colours to be on these shores.

Display

  • 6.2in, 6.7in displays, Full HD+
  • 120Hz refresh rates
  • 1400nits peak brightness

Screen size for S21 and S21+ will be the same as last year with 6.2 and 6.7 inch. Its been claimed that the display will drop to a Full HD+ resolution which sounds like Samsung are intending to keep the price down by making this move and separating from the Ultra, which is likely to have curved edges, at the same time.

You can expect it to come with a 120Hz refresh rate but you can expect it to have more of an effect on the battery on the S20 and S20+ as they’re rumoured not to have the power-saving method.

Internal

  • Exynos 2100 or Qualcomm Snapdragon 888, 5G
  • 128GB/256GB storage options
  • S21 Plus: 4800mAh battery, 25W charging
  • S21: 4000mAh battery, 25W charging

Depending on the region the external spec will vary. Expect the UK variant to come with Qualcomm Snapdragon 888, while the rest of the world are likely to be Exynos 2100.

128GB and 256GB are likely to be the storage options with expandable memory on top taking your storage up to 512GB or even 1TB.

The battery life is likely to be around 4000mAh to 4800mAh with the s21 likely to be the former. 25w charging should be on board which will be helped with a 15W charger that comes in the box.

Cameras

  • Main camera: 12-megapixel, 1.8µm pixel size, optical stabilisation (OIS)
  • Zoom: 64MP, 0.8µm, OIS, 3x optical / 30x digital zoom (?)
  • Ultra-wide: 12MP, 1.4µm

Its most likely that both devices will come with a triple rear camera made up of a 12-megapixel main sensor, 12-megapixel ultra-wide sensor and a 64-megapixel telephoto sensor – the same as the Galaxy S20 models. The only thing that is likely to be missing it would be the DepthVision sensor from the S21+.

There are some rumours circulating about the S21 model’s camera functionality. Apparently, it will switch between 30fps and 60fps depending on the lighting conditions and an improvement to their controls and moon mode (all to be seen).