Samsung Galaxy A21 Summary

Samsung Galaxy A21 smartphone was launched on 8th April 2020. The phone comes with a 6.50-inch touchscreen display.Samsung Galaxy A21 comes with 3GB of RAM. The Samsung Galaxy A21 runs Android 10 and is powered by a 4000mAh non-removable battery. The Samsung Galaxy A21 supports proprietary fast charging.

As far as the cameras are concerned, the Samsung Galaxy A21 on the rear packs a 16-megapixel primary camera; an 8-megapixel camera; a 2-megapixel camera, and a 2-megapixel camera. The rear camera setup has autofocus. It sports a 13-megapixel camera on the front for selfies.

Samsung Galaxy A21 is based on Android 10 and packs 32GB of inbuilt storage that can be expanded via microSD card (up to 512GB). It was launched in Black colour.

Connectivity options on the Samsung Galaxy A21 include Wi-Fi and GPS. Sensors on the phone include fingerprint sensor.

Source: GSMarena

Samsung Galaxy A21 Full Specifications:-

General

Display

Hardware

Camera

Software

Connectivity

Sensors

Design and hardware

The Galaxy A21 is humongous — it’s a little taller and wider than even the S20 Ultra (although the Ultra is thicker). The A21 doesn’t share its expensive cousin’s luxurious screen-to-body ratio, though; whereas the S20 Ultra sports a 6.9-inch display, the A21 packs a marginally less ample 6.5-inch screen. Its bezels are hardly distracting, though, especially in this price segment. Also not distracting: the hole-punch selfie camera tucked into the top left corner.

The screen’s an IPS LCD panel that’s nice and vivid, but it’s only 720p — which is pretty rough at this size, shaking out to 270 pixels per inch. It also doesn’t get nearly bright enough to comfortably use outdoors on a sunny day. There’s a little bit of a shadow around the hole punch selfie cam, too, though it’s not particularly irksome when you’re not looking for it.

Volume and power keys live along the right edge of the phone, and while the power button is at a fine height, the volume controls sit way too high on the phone’s plastic frame. Unless you have particularly long feelers, you’ll have to shimmy the phone down in your hand to tweak the volume. The rear-mounted fingerprint scanner is similarly out of reach — when holding the phone in a natural position, my index finger just barely reaches the bottom of the sensor. This is not a phone for the small-handed.

The phone’s bottom edge has a USB-C port, a 3.5-millimeter headphone jack (hooray), and a single down-firing speaker. The speaker actually sounds okay, all things considered. It’s not as tinny as I expected, but it’s situated to the left of the USB port, which makes it exceptionally easy to cover when you hold the phone in landscape.

Software, performance, and battery life

Samsung’s OneUI skin is a known quantity at this point. But in case you haven’t used a Galaxy phone since TouchWiz: it’s fine. Samsung’s suite of apps — the dialer, the calculator, the gallery, et cetera — are all lacking the design finesse seen in their Google counterparts and Samsung’s settings menus can be a little nebulous. But on the whole, OneUI is mature and thoughtful. It doesn’t have any grating quirks to sink the experience, and I didn’t mind living in it during my time with the A21.

Unfortunately, the phone is absolutely packed with bloatware. Facebook, Amazon apps, Microsoft apps, two weather apps, and no fewer than four music streaming apps all come preloaded, among others. Boost Mobile itself also had its way with my review unit, stuffing it with junk like a “secure Wi-Fi” utility — which costs an extra $2 a month to enable, as repeated notifications will remind you. There’s no unlocked variant of the phone, and I have to assume other carriers are more or less just as heavy-handed.

Considering the A21’s Mediatek Helio P35 processor and three gigs of RAM, you probably wouldn’t expect it to be particularly snappy — and you’d be right. Multitasking is a bit of a slog, but generally speaking, performance was never bad enough to frustrate me outside of the odd occasion where an app would take a few beats to open. The phone visibly struggles under the weight of more demanding games like Asphalt 9: Legends, but simpler titles like Mario Kart Tour run just fine.

Battery life is solid. Once over two days of sporadic mixed use, I managed to eke out about five and a half hours of screen time. Considering that time included gaming, streaming videos over Wi-Fi and 4G, taking photos, and idling for nine or so hours overnight, that’s really impressive.

Cameras

The Galaxy A21 comes with a quad camera setup, as prominent branding next to the sensors eagerly points out. There’s a 16.1-megapixel primary shooter, an eight-megapixel ultrawide, a two-megapixel macro, and a two-megapixel depth sensor. The two latter cameras are complete junk. A lot of manufactures have been taking this tack lately: jam in a couple of additional cameras and boast about how many you’ve got. I wish they’d stop.

Considering the A21’s price, though, I don’t hate photos from the main and wide cameras. They can produce some passable shots with good light, which is about all you could ask for in the budget segment. But they do struggle everywhere else. Scenes with high dynamic range are particularly tough, uniformly exhibiting either blown out highlights or crushed blacks. Low light photography is also a no-go.

At night the quality of photos drops considerably, primarily because the Galaxy A51s doesn’t offer a dedicated night mode. Photos tend to lack a lot of detail while the other three lenses stop producing anything worthwhile altogether. The addition of an AI-enabled Night mode could solve a lot of problems and is possible to be introduced in a future software update. Apart from that the device also happens to have a 13MP selfie shooter which does churn out decent photos with a blend of face smoothening. The portrait mode on the front of the device works quite well in terms of background separation from the subject.

Some Verified Reviews

1)   For a budget android device I have been pretty impressed. I needed a loaner phone, something android that wouldnt take long to set up and use. This phone surprised me with its abilities for the price. For being an entry level device I was impressed. It lacks some of the more advanced features you find in flagship phones but overall I was surprised to see how well this phone did in the 2 weeks that I needed it. I am happy to turn this device off and keep it in reserve is I need a backup phone again.

2)   Tried out the a-series because I have always had the s-series. Has the same feel as the S-series but just not waterproof. A nice screen for video watching and surfing the web. A little cheaper in the pocket book than a S-series too.

3)     Just been activated one week, so far great phone, replaced my Samsung Galaxy J7 great size much bigger then my old one.

Should you buy it?

Sure, if you want a giant phone from your carrier and your budget is a firm $250. The A21 is a truly massive device at a truly low price, and it handles basic tasks well enough for folks who are less demanding of their electronics. Just be prepared to disable a ton of bloat.

I’d also take a hard look at used and refurbished phones first. You can get an unlocked Galaxy S9+ on Swappa for about the same price, and it would be a better experience overall. But if your carrier is offering particularly appealing incentives or financing that meets your needs, you could do worse than the A21.

Also Read: Apple-iPhone 13 release date, price, specs and leaks