New Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra renders have let us get another good look at the Korean phone maker's next flagship device.
Shared on Twitter by Ice Universe, these are CAD shots, so they're not as pretty as other renders we've seen. However what they lack in visual appeal they should make up for in accuracy to the final product.
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The most noteworthy part of these renders are the curved edges. Samsung offers flatter displays on the Galaxy S20 series while keeping its trademark "Edge display" available on the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 series. Since both of these series are believed to be merging next year, it follows that at least the range-topping S20 Ultra would keep the curved screen.
The Galaxy S21 and S21 Plus, the other two models we're likely to see, may use flatter displays instead based on the other rumors we've heard and previous renders we've seen. But since these are only Galaxy S21 Ultra renders, we can't double check that at the moment.
Galaxy S21 Ultra CAD shows that the chin and side bezels are basically the same. It will be the narrowest chin mobile phone in history. pic.twitter.com/opQSRcODbUNovember 19, 2020
The view of the bottom edge of the phone reveals, unsurprisingly, a USB-C port. Whether Samsung will provide a cable and charger is another matter. Apple took the surprising move to remove the charging brick from the iPhone 12's box, something that at least one branch of Samsung thought was quite funny.
However, Apple has a habit of kicking off unfortunate smartphone trends, and a recent rumor claimed Samsung was looking into removing charging blocks from its phone boxes. Apple arguably began the trend of removing the headphone jack, and sure enough, the Galaxy S21 doesn't have one according to this render.
The bezels in this S21 Ultra render, in particular the bottom "chin" bezel, are very narrow. Ice Universe has claimed before that the Galaxy S21 will have particularly narrow bezels, which will give the phone a modern look.
Samsung has been working on something called "blade bezels" to reduce their prominence further, but that's likely still a few years away from appearing on an actual phone. We're expecting more exciting features from the display itself, likely sharing the QHD resolution and 120Hz refresh rate of the S20 and Note 20. The S21 Ultra may also get LTPO technology, which allows a completely variable refresh rate between 1 and 120Hz to maximize battery efficiency.
As for cameras, the S21 and S21 Plus are thought to use a 12MP main camera, 12MP ultrawide camera and a 64MP telephoto camera with unknown optical/digital zoom. The S21 Ultra will instead use a 108MP main camera, and will use two telephoto cameras, one with a 3x zoom and one with a 10x zoom, for ultimate photo versatility.
In addition, we're anticipating Snapdragon 875 and Exynos 2100 chipsets in the S21 series, depending on where you buy them. Normally, the Snapdragon chip beats the Exynos when it comes to computing power, but early benchmarks indicate the Samsung-made chip beats Qualcomm's by a big margin.
We're expecting a January release for the Galaxy S21 next year. Normally Galaxy S series phones come out in February, but it looks like Samsung's going early this coming year in order to avoid losing sales to competent rivals like the iPhone 12 or the OnePlus 8T.
