Samsung Galaxy A21s review

Introduction

It is a tough job keeping up the Galaxy A series even for us, let alone for a regular user. There is one simple rule though - the lower the model number, the cheaper the phone. And the new Galaxy A21s isn't an exception - it's one very affordable smartphone with enough punch to make it an attractive offer.

While many of the recent Galaxy A phones have Super AMOLED screens, the most affordable ones, well, cannot afford such type of panels. That's why the Galaxy A21s relies on a PLS TFT screen, and it's 6.5" one with basic 720p resolution. Samsung is powering the thing with its own Exynos 850 chip, which seems adequate on paper, but we are yet to see how it will perform under pressure.

The Galaxy A21s, in addition to its large screen, can also brag with a quad-camera on its back and a beefy 5,000mAh battery with fast charging support. The camera setup is what we usually see in mid-rangers, so we appreciate Samsung's efforts to offer a little bit of everything - there is a 48MP primary, an 8MP ultrawide shooter, a 2MP macro and a 2MP depth sensor.

This new Galaxy A21s looks like most recent Galaxies and it runs the latest One UI 2.1. It is a sequel to the Galaxy A21, which saw an extremely limited release, with a better main camera and a larger battery. The A21s was made available to a lot more markets.

Let's take a close look at the Galaxy A21 specs sheet, shall we?

Samsung Galaxy A21s specs:

• Body: 163.7 x 75.3 x 8.9 mm, 192g; Plastic body and frame.
• Display: 6.5" PLS TFT, 720 x 1600 px resolution, 20:9 aspect ratio, 270ppi.
• Chipset: Exynos 850 (8nm): Octa-core Cortex-A55@2.0GHz; Mali-G52 MP1.
• Memory: 3/4/6GB RAM; 32/64GB eMMC 5.1 storage; microSDXC (dedicated slot).
• OS/Software: Android 10, One UI 2.1.
• Rear camera: Wide (main): 48 MP, f/2.0, 26mm, 1/2.0", 0.8µm, PDAF; Ultrawide: 8 MP, f/2.2, 123°, 1/4.0", 1.12µm; Macro: 2 MP, f/2.4, fixed focus at 4cm; Depth: 2 MP, f/2.4; LED flash, panorama, Auto HDR.
• Front camera: 13 MP, f/2.2.
• Video capture: Rear camera: 1080p@30fps; Front camera: 1080p@30fps.
• Battery: 5,000mAh; Fast charging 15W.
• Misc: Fingerprint scanner (rear-mounted), accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass; FM radio, RDS, recording, NFC, 3.5mm jack.

One thing is notably missing within the specs sheet - some sort of water protection. Yes, it may sound ridiculous for such a cheap phone to have one, but many other makers like Motorola, Realme, and Xiaomi are offering water-repellent coating or similar, which offers some peace of mind.

And now, without further ado, here is the Galaxy A21s - unboxed.

Unboxing the Samsung Galaxy A21s

The Galaxy A21s is packed within a white paper box. It contains a 15W charger and a USB-C cable. We are glad to see Samsung bundling a fast charger with the phone; few companies do that for their budget offers.

There is no screen protector on the phone, neither is there a case inside the box.

Design, build, handling

The Galaxy A21s is your typical budget phone, but it doesn't have to look cheap. Most of the front is occupied by the screen, while the frame and the back are made of plastic. Samsung knows how to make a good-looking phone though, and we are not disappointed with how the A21s has turned out.

One of the Galaxy A21s key features is the 6.5" PLS TFT screen with a small punch-hole cutout around the top left. It has rounded corners as all other recent displays do, and the bezels are trendily thin.

The Galaxy A20 had a Super AMOLED, but for the A20s, the maker decided to switch to LCDs, and this was later applied to the A21 duo as well. Still, most of the A series comes with AMOLED screens, so you are not without options if prefer that.

Back to the Galaxy A21s here, the screen looks okay for this class even if the colors appear to be a bit washed-out. And you can expect some uneven backlighting around the cutout, but that's to be expected for an LCD panel. Still, Samsung managed to keep this unevenness minimal as we've seen much worse from some more expensive offers.

Inside the cutout is a small 13MP selfie camera. The earpiece grille is above the screen, where the protective glass meets the plastic frame. There is no notification LED light on the A21s, if you were wondering.

The frame is curved and made of solid plastic. It has a grippy matte finish, which makes for enhanced grip, especially when you are shooting photos or watching movies on the go.

Around the frame you'll see all the essentials - the triple-card slot is on the left, the volume and power keys - on the right, while the bottom houses the USB-C port, the speaker, the 3.5mm jack, and the mouthpiece.

The rear panel is also made of plastic, but now it has a few different layers of paint, and everything is glossy. When the piece is not covered by fingerprints and smudges, it looks very cool - there is a subtle blue-purple-green gradient (depending on the reflected light and surroundings). But if you want to keep these good looks, you should know the back requires lots of cleaning.

The quad-camera setup and the LED flash are on the back of the A21s, separated within a black rectangle. It is protruding just a tiny bit and thus will not make the phone wobble on your desk, not a lot at least.

So, this black rectangle accommodates the 48MP primary cam, the 8MP ultrawide shooter, the 2MP macro snapper, and the 2MP depth sensor. A single-LED flash is here, too.

The fingerprint scanner is also on the back of the Galaxy A21s. It is always-on and impresses with speed and responsiveness. Registering fingerprints requires a few swipes, but you unlock it by simply tapping on it - no swipes needed.

The Galaxy A21s is no small phone, but it can't be with that 6.5" display. It is rather thin, though, and very easy to work with, especially with all the One UI improvements towards single-handed operations. Handling is okay, and the grip is mostly secure.

The phone lacks any sort of water resistance - there is no repellent coating or rubber seals around the ports. Such treatment has been spreading lately among Samsung's competitors, and we hope to see on the A series rather soon, too.

Display

The Samsung Galaxy A21s employs a large 6.5-inch PLS TFT screen with 720p+ resolution and 20:9 aspect ratio. It has a punch-hole cutout around the top left corner to make way for the selfie camera and its corners are trendily rounded as usual.

The exact screen resolution is 1,600 x 720 pixels or about 270ppi. That's not exactly sharp, but you will have a hard time finding pixelated content. For the budget class, 720p is the acceptable resolution and it is in line with most of the A21s competitors.

The maker of the protective glass on top of the LCD was not specified by Samsung, though.

You will probably notice the uneven backlight around the punch hole at some point. It is annoying only on bright backgrounds, but it was to be expected as the LCD's LED backlighting can't be perfect.

We measured a maximum brightness of 408 nits in manual mode, and 491 nits in auto mode. That's an average result for an LCD screen, but it is okay for a budget phone. The Redmi 9, for example, has an even dimmer screen at max brightness.

The black levels of the Galaxy A21s display turned out about average, too, and overall, the panel offers a good contrast ratio of about 1300:1 - we've seen worse, but we've seen better as well.

The minimum brightness at the far left of the scrubber is 4.8 nits, which is a good for reading in the dark but not outstanding.

Display test	100% brightness
	Black,cd/m2	White,cd/m2	Contrast ratio
Samsung Galaxy A21s	0.317	408	1287:1
Samsung Galaxy A21s (Max Auto)	0.384	491	1279:1
Samsung Galaxy A31	0	423	∞
Samsung Galaxy A31 (Max Auto)	0	635	∞
Samsung Galaxy A41	0	417	∞
Samsung Galaxy A41 (Max Auto)	0	624	∞
Xiaomi Redmi 9	0.202	328	1624:1
Xiaomi Redmi 9 (Max Auto)	0.253	426	1684:1
Motorola Moto G8 Power	0.341	500	1466:1
Motorola Moto G8 Power (Max Auto)	0.53	741	1398:1
Motorola One Fusion+	0.319	454	1423:1
Motorola One Fusion+ (Max Auto)	0.4	562	1405:1
Xiaomi Redmi Note 9S	0.303	421	1389:1
Xiaomi Redmi Note 9S (Max Auto)	0.42	575	1369:1

Color reproduction is consistently off on the Samsung Galaxy A21s. There are no contrast or color options, and the screen shows colors within the sRGB gamma. We measured an average deltaE of 6.8 and maximum deviation of 10.5. There is a noticeable blue tinge over the white and gray hues, while the rest of the colors appear the be rather muted and the picture often looks washed-out.

Battery life and charging

The Samsung Galaxy A21s is powered by a massive 5,000 mAh Li-Po battery. It supports 15W quick charge and the phone ships with such charger. Unfortunately, it's not that 'quick' - it will replenish about 26% of its dead battery in 30 mins.

The Samsung Galaxy A21s posted an outstanding endurance score of 119 hours in our battery life test. The phone shows impressive times across the board - talk time, video playback, and web browsing. The standby performance turned out rather good, too.

Our battery tests were automated thanks to SmartViser, using its viSerDevice app. The endurance rating above denotes how long a single battery charge will last you if you use the Samsung Galaxy A21s for an hour each of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. We've established this usage pattern so that our battery results are comparable across devices in the most common day-to-day tasks. The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you're interested in the nitty-gritty. You can check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones we've tested will compare under your own typical use.

Speaker

The Galaxy A21s has a single bottom-firing unit, and it is tuned well with good presentation of mid-tones and bass. It posted an Average result for loudness in our seven-track music test, though, and no matter if it's a game, music, or video - everything sounds quiet.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.

Audio output quality

We've recently discontinued our audio output quality test.

The reason for that is that most phones that arrived for testing were already excellent in this regard and whatever difference there was, it was marginal and probably indistinguishable to anything but our lab equipment.

One UI 2.1 and Android 10

The Galaxy A21s runs Samsung's latest software combo, consisting of Android 10 with OneUI 2.1. The Korean maker has managed to maintain a surprisingly consistent look for its custom skin for quite some time now, and existing Samsung users on older devices should feel right at home with the general layout.

OneUI 2.1 has reached a level of maturity where simplicity, order, and good organization are a given. The Galaxy A21s greets you with straight-forward lockscreen and home screens, with both Google and Yandex widgets ready to rock.

Lockscreen • Homescreen • Homescreen • App drawer • Notification shade • Task switcher

If you are into customization, OneUI is surprisingly malleable. The built-in themes capabilities are extensive and include a rich online repository of both free and paid options. You can mix and match individual aspects of the design, like icons. You can also have the lockscreen background change automatically.

Samsung Themes

The A21s lacks a couple of features you may find on more expensive and AMOLED-packing Galaxies - such as the Edge panels and lightning, as well as the Always-on Display.

Navigation options, however, are all-inclusive. Out-of-the-box, the Galaxy A21s is set up with the old-school, familiar nav-bar. Gesture navigation is also available, and you get to pick between the One UI 2 set of actions or go back to the One UI 1 way of doing things. The former is similar to the current native Android 10 approach with a swipe-in from the sides for 'Back' and swipe-up from the bottom for Home or task switcher. The old way is by swiping up from three separate areas on the bottom that do what the on-screen buttons before them used to do.

Navigation options

Dark mode is a relatively new feature, at least in its current, dynamic and customizable state. It skins UI elements in black and shades of dark gray and also invokes the dark modes of supported apps, which include the in-house ones as well as most of the Google suite. Oh, and the GSMArena app, since its last update. You can also make use of an automatic scheduling system that toggles Dark mode at sunrise and sunset, respectively or set your own time-based schedule.

Dark mode

Biometrics on the Galaxy A21s include an optical fingerprint reader and basic camera-only face detection. The A21s is a consistent performer when it comes to fingerprint recognition and unlocks the phone in a flash.

Biometric security options

It is worth noting you have the ability to speed-up facial recognition at the expense of some security. The phone even allows you to override the requirement for open eyes for the unlock to work.

As a result of some of its extensive partnerships with third parties, like Microsoft, Samsung also throws in a few MS pre-loaded apps out of the box, to accompany its already above-average collection of in-house offerings. This might be considered bloat by Android purists, but if you don't want to use them, Microsoft apps are not too much in your face.

You'd be happy to learn that the Galaxy A21s also supports FM radio and the FM app is pre-installed.

Apps • File explorer • FM radio

There are also features like the Game Launcher and Game Booster in case you need to optimize your phone's in-game behavior.

Game Launcher, Game Booster and Game Plugins

There is one big omission in this version of the One UI, though, and that's Auto Rotate. While the Galaxy A21s has the sensors to do it, it was simply not implemented for some reason. You can rotate the screen with on-screen shortcuts in most of the apps.

Performance and benchmarks

The Galaxy A21s employs the Exynos 850 entry-level chipset by Samsung. It has an octa-core Cortex-A55 processor with all cores clocked at 2.0GHz.

The SoC offers a modest Mali-G52 MP1 GPU.

Finally, the Galaxy A21s is available in three different configurations - 3GB RAM + 32GB storage, 4GB RAM + 64GB storage, and even 6GB RAM + 64GB storage. There is a standalone microSD slot in case you need to expand your storage.

First, we ran GeekBench, and it's no surprise that every other phone did better. The Galaxy A21s has no powerful cores (such as Cortex-A7x) whatsoever, and its Cortex-A55 CPU hit rock bottom of our CPU chart.

GeekBench 5.1 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Huawei P40 Lite
  1862
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 9S
  1785
• Sony Xperia 10 II
  1413
• Realme 6i
  1349
• Xiaomi Redmi 9
  1325
• Samsung Galaxy A41
  1175
• Samsung Galaxy A21s
  1100

GeekBench 5.1 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Huawei P40 Lite
  591
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 9S
  570
• Realme 6i
  388
• Xiaomi Redmi 9
  362
• Sony Xperia 10 II
  315
• Samsung Galaxy A41
  309
• Samsung Galaxy A21s
  184

The Galaxy A21s has a single-core Mali-G52 GPU, which is enough for an okay graphics performance under a 720p screen. Sure, it is far from ideal, but for this budget class - it is enough.

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Realme 6i
  31
• Huawei P40 Lite
  30
• Realme 6S
  27
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 9S
  26
• Samsung Galaxy A21s
  19
• Samsung Galaxy A41
  12
• Sony Xperia 10 II
  10

GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Huawei P40 Lite
  18
• Realme 6i
  17
• Realme 6S
  16
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 9S
  15
• Samsung Galaxy A21s
  11
• Samsung Galaxy A41
  6.9
• Sony Xperia 10 II
  5.6

Finally, AnTuTu 8 puts the Galaxy A21s once again at the bottom of our chart. Its CPU score came low, and combined with the mediocre performance in graphics, storage, and UI - the final number turned out to be pretty low.

AnTuTu 8

Higher is better

• Huawei P40 Lite
  325777
• Realme 6S
  278982
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 9S
  254000
• Realme 6i
  202275
• Xiaomi Redmi 9
  201829
• Sony Xperia 10 II
  196545
• Samsung Galaxy A41
  170044
• Samsung Galaxy A21s
  107157

The Galaxy A21s biggest issue is the weak processor. While an eight-core CPU is the standard today, most if not all, competitors offer at least two powerful cores such as Cortex-A75. The underpowered CPU makes for uninspiring UI performance, and some lag or stutter do happen once you start populating those homescreens and apps with content.

The single Mali-G52 GPU is enough for budget gaming under a 720p display. It will be far from smooth or stutter-free, but possible it is. Lighter games may even do rather well.

Performance-wise, the A21s is not up to par with the competition, crippled by its disappointing processor. Sure, it is a budget phone, but we expected a bit more honestly, even in this class.

A quad-camera setup

The Galaxy A21s has a quad-camera setup on the back with a rather familiar arrangement - a high-res primary shooter, an ultrawide snapper, a macro cam, and a depth sensor. A single LED flash is around as well if you ever need it.

The primary camera uses a 48MP Samsung ISOCELL GM2 (S5KGM2) 1/2.0" sensor with 0.8µm pixels, f/2.0 lens, and Quad Bayer color filter. The latter means this camera saves 12MP photos, though a high-res 48MP shooting mode is available as well. Phase-detect autofocus is supported.

The ultrawide camera uses an 8MP Samsung ISOCELL 1/4.0" sensor with 1.12µm pixels behind f/2.2 lens. The focus is fixed.

The macro camera has a 2MP sensor with f/2.4 lens and fixed focus at 4cm. Finally, the depth camera uses another 2MP sensor with f/2.4 aperture.

The selfie camera offers a 13MP sensor with 1.12µm pixels behind f/2.2 lens. The focus is fixed.

Like many other Samsung phones, the selfie on the Galaxy A21s has a toggle to determine how wide the frame will be. This setting annoyingly defaults to the narrower option and hence - an 8MP crop, which is unfortunately also the norm with many other Samsung devices. When shooting in the wider aspect, selfies come out in 13MP.

The camera app is the same you'd find on every Samsung with a few minor design tweaks introduced with One UI 2.0 like the larger font for the modes and the outline for the selected mode as opposed to the solid bubble of before.

Functionally, it's mostly identical to any other camera

app out there. Swiping left and right will switch between all available modes, and there's also an option to re-arrange or remove some of the modes from the viewfinder. Vertical swipes in either direction will switch between front and rear cameras.

The settings icon is located in the upper left corner of the screen and gives you fine control over the cameras. You don't get separate setting screens for photo and video, since the options aren't that many in total. The usual stuff like video resolution, grid lines, location data, etc., can be found there.

The Galaxy A21s camera does not support Night Mode.

Camera app

Photo quality

The 12MP default photos from the main camera are not the most detailed shots we've seen but otherwise excel in everything else - the sharpening is just right, the colors are accurate, the contrast is superb and the noise is very low.

The dynamic range is commendable in most of the photos, thanks to the Auto HDR, which triggered when needed.

Main camera, 12MP

While we recommend leaving the HDR on Auto, some users may not be fans of the boosted images. So, here are a couple of scenes shot with and without HDR to give you an idea of what to expect. You will gain some sharpness at the expense of some detail in the shadows.

HDR • no HDR • HDR • no HDR

There is a high-res 48MP mode even though it is a bit hard to find - it's within the aspect settings. The 48MP images look mediocre in detail and if downscaled to 12MP you'll see little to no benefit in detail and sharpness. It is not worth the hassle to shoot in this mode, at least on the Galaxy A21s - the photos are large in size, it takes extra time to capture them, and they just don't look that good.

Main camera, 48MP

The ultrawide 8MP photos show good enough detail, spot-on colors, and okay dynamic range. While they aren't that sharp, everything else looks fine, and the contrast is rather great. We've seen worse from more expensive phones, so we'd say we are happy with what the Galaxy A21s does with its ultrawide cam.

Ultrawide camera, 8MP

The 2MP depth camera comes in handy when shooting portraits. The 12MP portraits taken with the primary shooter with the help of the 2MP snapper are great - the detail is plenty, the contrast is great, and the subject separation is proficient enough for this class. The artificial blur looks rather good as well.

Portraits, 12MP

The Galaxy A21s has a 2MP macro camera with a fixed focus at 4cm distance. If you get the distance right (it's not that easy), then you will get detailed shots of bugs, flowers, or, say, banknotes. The colors stay true to life and the contrast is good, though not great.

Macro camera, 2MP

The 12MP low-light photos we snapped are good for this budget class. The ones taken at sunset are great with more than enough detail and great color saturation.

When the night falls, the noise levels spike and the noise reduction becomes overly aggressive and smears a lot of the fine detail. The pictures are still usable though and will do for the social networks and apps.

Main camera, 12MP

The low-light ultrawide photos are poor in detail and become rather unusable when the available light goes from low to scarce.

Ultrawide camera, 8MP

The Galaxy A21s lacks support for Night Mode.

We also shot our usual posters with the Galaxy A21s. Here's how it stack up against the competition. Feel free to browse around and pit it against other phones from our extensive database.

Samsung Galaxy A21s against Galaxy A41 and the Redmi 9 in our Photo compare tool

Selfies

Depending on the view mode, the camera will either give you a 13MP shots, or an 8MP crop from the said shot. We captured all selfies in the native 13MP mode even it was not the default one.

The 13MP selfies are average at best - they are lacking in detail, the colors are washed-out and the contrast is not great either.

Selfies, 13MP

Portraits are possible with the selfie camera and they are okay at best - the subject separation isn't great and the algorithm masks this with blur. The results are so-so, but for an entry-level phone it could have been a lot worse, too.

Selfie portraits, 8MP

Video quality

The Samsung Galaxy A21s is not that capable as a video camera and it is capped at 1080p and 30fps. There is no support for electronic video stabilization.

The 1080p videos from both the main and ultrawide cameras are encoded with an AVC video stream at 17 Mb/s and two-channel, 256 kB/s 48 kHz AAC audio, inside an mp4 container.

The main camera captured outstanding 1080p videos with plenty ofdetail, top notch sharpness, accurate colors, natural dynamic range, and excellent contrast.

The same goes for the 1080p clips from the ultrawide camera - they are sharp, with true to life colors, though their dynamic range is lower.

Finally, closing this camera section off, here is the Galaxy A21s in our video comparison database.

Samsung Galaxy A21s against the Galaxy A41 and the Redmi 9 in our Video compare tool

Wrap-up

The Galaxy A21s seems like a reasonable offer - the large 6.5" screen, the very good quad-camera, and the beefy battery that scored a very high endurance rating. The phone costs about €170 for its 32GB version, which is a budget-friendly price as far as Samsungs go.

Unfortunately, the entry-level market is oversaturated with offers and has to offer some impressive bang for the buck bundles. And the Galaxy A21s often looks inadequate when compared to many of the affordable phones that are available right now on the shelves.

Alternatives

Realme is selling the 6i model in Europe for the same price as the Galaxy A21s. It is quite the match to the A21s - it has the same screen (though brighter), same quad-camera, and same battery, but trumps it with faster processor and graphics, and the best part - you'd be getting it with 4GB RAM and 128GB storage.

Then there is the Redmi 9, which costs €40 less than the Galaxy and yet offers a much better and high-res display, a faster processor, plus it can also brag with a wire-free FM radio reception.

Or you can find the Redmi Note 9S for as low as €185. It improves on literally everything. The 9S has a water-repellent coating and one larger, brighter, and higher-res screen. Naturally, the 9S has faster hardware and more storage. This is quite the upgrade for just €15. The Redmi Note 9S omits NFC support though, which maybe a deal-breaker for some.

The Huawei P40 Lite is quite cheap already, in fact, it cost just €190. If you can live without the Google stuff, then you will enjoy the most powerful phone in this price bracket, with an excellent camera and top-notch battery life.

Then there is the Galaxy A41 by Samsung. It's an AMOLED-packing phone with more powerful hardware, more storage, and better selfies. It is a compact phone, yes, but you do get the high-quality screen and selfies for as little as €220.

Realme 6i • Xiaomi Redmi 9 • Xiaomi Redmi Note 9S • Huawei P40 lite • Samsung Galaxy A41

The biggest blow to the Galaxy A21s comes from Samsung itself, unfortunately. The 2019's Galaxy A20 - the one to spawn the A20s, A21, and A21s, is still available, and you can buy it for €170 - same as the A21s. And this particular Samsung features a Super AMOLED screen and a much more powerful processor and GPU. The tradeoff is the macro and depth shooters, but it is a tradeoff we will make in a heartbeat.

Samsung Galaxy A20

The verdict

So, yes, the Galaxy A21s is not a bad phone per se, but the competition often has to offer better for the same cash. And that will be the biggest turnoff for many. Even Samsung is ready to sell you a better device at that price!

Still, being a good phone often means that it will be noticed one day, probably in the upcoming months. The Galaxy A21s needs only one thing to become a good offer, and that's a proper price drop. Once that comes to pass, it may as well find a place in our buyer's guide. Until then, the Galaxy A20 will get to keep its spot in there for yet another couple of months.

Pros

• Large and wide display with small notch
• Excellent battery life
• Latest Android and One UI
• Versatile camera with great photos and videos for the class
• NFC, microSD, 3.5mm jack, FM radio

Cons

• Inadequate processor performance
• Washed-out screen colors
• The selfies could have been better
• No screen auto-rotate
• Somewhat slow charging

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