The Galaxy S21 has been available for a solid week now and yet Samsung has shown no interest in ending its best deal. For now, you can still get $700 off any of the Galaxy S21 phones (including the Galaxy S21+ and S21 Ultra) if you are cool with handing over your current phone.
We’ve already written about this deal a number of times, so I won’t dive into every single detail again. If you need the full explainer, hit up this story or this one. For those who know, here’s the short version recap!
Samsung will give you an instant discount up to $700 if you trade-in select phones, like any Galaxy S20 phone. If you don’t have the newest of the new phones, they’ll still give you up to $550 off today for a phone as old as the Galaxy S10e.
Samsung’s trade-in program is the best because they give you the value for your phone up front rather than as a rebate-style discount that is paid back to you later. If you have a phone to trade, they’ll give you that money off today. At $700, that’s a Galaxy S21 for $99.99, a Galaxy S21+ for $299.99, or a Galaxy S21 Ultra for $499.99.
On top of their best-in-the-business trade-in program, Samsung is still offering up-to $100 in instant credit to spend on accessories, as well as the free Samsung SmartTag ($29.99 value).
Can you just give me a discount of about 300 bucks on the 21 ultra without a trade in. I realize that value is in the eye of the beholder however I dont give my old cars to dealerships I give them to family and same with my phones. you do not get value for trade ins.
I’m so over the S21. Bring on the S30!
The S21U is a great device. I am really enjoying it thus far. $700 off makes the value proposition solid imo.
I went to Best Buy to play around with the S21 Ultra demo unit. Don’t worry used lots of Hand Sanitizer after touching the S21 Ultra. Anyway have to say comparing it too my Note 10+ I can see no real reason to upgrade. Also I really can’t stand the Radii on the corners compared to the Note Series. I’m hoping the Note line is not dead. Also played around with the Galaxy Z Fold 2 and that phone I love. But again I see no reason to swao the Note 10+ for it either. If this years model has an S-Pen and better cameras then maybe.
The cameras are definitely way better. I had the N10+ and now the N20U and the cameras on the N20U were noticeably better than the N10+. With the S21U they are A LOT better than the N20U.
Only thing driving me nuts on the S21U is the narrow aspect ratio (see my post here on that).
IMO if you don’t care about the aspect ratio, and do care about cameras and FPR and cash isn’t an issue, the S21U is the better phone. But for me, that damned narrow aspect ratio is bugging me a lot.
Finally got my S21U and the cameras on this are easily the biggest improvement I’ve seen from any Samsung phone BUT, they still have trouble with anything that moves (gets blurred). Pixel’s are no longer king, the S21U matches them now, just not with moving objects and of course as always, video is better.
FPR is also significantly better now too, works fast and reliably now.
My biggest gripe though is unfortunately what all OEM’s seem to be doing now and that’s going tall and narrow. Attached a pic to show one reason this is super annoying (keyboard height settings are both extra tall)…that’s the one thing that really bothers me about the phone. It’s only like 2mm narrower than the N20U it’s with in that pic, but it makes a HUGE difference, not just in keyboard as I show in the pic, but in overall usability of the phone too, websites, emails, everything is shrunk down considerably to accommodate that narrow aspect ratio; it’s annoying. Can’t stand the narrow aspect ratio. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/180a75f079e455eb54e287d8540a3c836252c12afdafedf3702a53553372eccd.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/06e0cfa38e7d3f020e461ecb7ab9309fb1544e2a5d3837954a1d8f16f86101e5.jpg
One thing I found interesting is I got the 16gb model this time to see if it would actually get used, the extra 4gb that is because I had a theory that no matter how much ram a phone has sammy phones try to always keep 2-3gb free in addition to system reserved ram and I was right. On my 12gb N10+ & N20U they always average around 7.5gb used and in almost two years, max I ever saw was 9.2gb used. On this S21U 16gb in one day I’ve already seen 11gb used…so, for heavy multitaskers like me, on a sammy phone the more ram the better.
Thanks for the write-up and pics comparison.
Was on the fence to trade in my n20u for the 21u. My biggest gripe really is the sd card removal. And from the looks that 2mm narrower does look like a huge difference when keyboards are compared. Not digging that either.
Will just stick with my n20u until the next note. Hopefully.
Thanks again.
That’s why I refuse to buy one. I hate the tall aspect ratios and this is especially true on the huge screens. It’s why I am still rocking my Pixel 3 XL (plus I love the camera for my kids). It has an 18.5:9 ratio with a 6.3 inch screen. It’s actually about as wide as the S21 Ultra but I don’t need to shuffle my phone so much to use the top of the screen. I also don’t like that on YouTube videos about 20% of the screen is lost if you want to zoom to fill the screen.
Still not biting. Not much to gain over the S10+.
Everything about it is improved over the s10 plus. I know I know headphone jack and sd card gone sucks but what other flagships still has those things? S10 plus was a great phone for it’s time though
Faster chip (yawn), 5G enabled (coverage/speed still a joke), 120Hz screen (don’t need it). Other than these upgraded features, not much else to talk about. It’s just a phone. I’m hanging on to my S10+.
Literally everything is improved about the phone from display to internals cameras especially. Of course you don’t NEED any of it you could probably make do a flip phone or 100 $ Motorola to cover basic needs. Just saying the s10 plus doesn’t compare it’s the two year old big brother glad you’re still enjoying it though
Wish they would take a OnePlus phone.