One of the highlights of the smartphone release calendar is the arrival of the Samsung Galaxy S series of phones. Ahead of a rumoured January 2021 announcement, details on the Galaxy S series – likely to be the S21 line – have begun leaking, including a live photos of the phones.
To start with the range will be called the Galaxy S21 series rather than the S30 according to Twitter leaker Jon Prosser with three models in the range: the Samsung Galaxy S21, S21+, S21 Ultra. That’s not to say Samsung won’t just go with Galaxy S30 as the name for their S series models when they do launch.
A new look
According to leaks, Samsung will go with a new look for the 2021 S series, with a new camera island design and a flat display.
There have been several leaks of renders of the S21 phones appear, including some from Steve Hemmerstoffer via his Onleaks Twitter account. The leaks show the new design for Samsung’s camera array on the rear on the S21 Plus and S21 Ultra, which will now extend all the way to the left side and top, apparently wrapping around the corner of the phone.
Renders are fine, but the real thing is what we want, and a photo of the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra and S21 Plus has shown up on YouTube channel Sakitech. The photo shows the renders are decently accurate, with the new camera island wrapping the top left corner of the phone.
According to the video, the Galaxy S21 Ultra will have the highest end camera specs, which will include a 108MP main sensor, 12MP Ultra-Wide sensor and dual 10MP telephoto sensors, one with a 10x and the other with a 3x optical zoom.
According to Sakitech the Galaxy S21 and S21 Plus will share the same camera setup which includes three sensors: a 12MP main sensor, 12MP Ultra-Wide sensor, and 64MP telephoto zoom lens.
Specs
There’s nothing official until the phones are announced, but it’s almost a no-brainer that Samsung will include 5G connectivity across their range. Samsung has been releasing their S series phones in Australia using their Exynos processor, and it’s expected we’ll see this continue with the S21 series.
The latest Exynos processor off the Samsung line is the Exynos 2100, rumoured to be built on the 5nm EUV manufacturing process. The Exynos 2100 hasn’t been announced yet, so no official specs are available yet.
Rumoured specs for the Galaxy S21 Ultra include 12GB of RAM as well as a 6.8-inch AMOLED display, which could possibly be flat rather than curved. A 5,000mAh battery will keep the S21 Ultra running all day.
The Galaxy S21 Plus will include a 4,800mAh battery, while the base model Galaxy S21 will have a 4,000mAh battery.
S Pen
A key feature of the Samsung Galaxy Note line has been their S Pen stylus support, but rumours have been circulating that Samsung is bringing this feature to the Galaxy S21 Ultra.
Leaker IceUniverse tweeted that this feature was coming to the Galaxy S21 Ultra, though another leaker believes the S Pen may be sold as an accessory, with a possibility you’ll have to store the S Pen in a case rather than inside the phone itself like the Note series.
Availability
Samsung will announce the S21 series at a Galaxy Unpacked event in 2021. Previously Samsung has announced their phones at Mobile World Congress, however they’ve moved towards having their own events of late.
The current rumour is that the Samsung Galaxy S range will be announced on January 14th 2021, ahead of a January 29th launch.
As Prosser points out there will be a range of colours available, though Samsung tends to release these only to select markets.
For their global launches Samsung has previously shown themselves as being quite adept at getting phones to consumers, so we expect the Australian launch of the new phones to coincide with global availability announcements.
As usual we’ll bring you all the announcements as soon as Samsung makes their new S series phones official.
