Samsung did their Unpacked event this morning and I watched the whole thing over coffee instead of doing literally anything productive, so let's talk about the Galaxy S21 for a minute.
The headline that actually surprised me: the base S21 is $799. Last year's S20 launched at $999. That's not a typo and it's not some carrier-subsidized asterisk price either, that's the actual sticker price Samsung put up on stage. I can't remember the last time a flagship phone maker cut the entry price by $200 year over year instead of finding some new reason to charge more. Usually it's the opposite direction: more cameras, more glass, more money. So either Samsung knows something about 2021 wallets that I don't, or they're just tired of losing the "which phone costs less" argument to Apple every single year. Probably both.
The S21 Ultra is the one everyone's going to actually want though, and it starts at $1,199. It's got the 108MP sensor, "Space Zoom" that claims 100x (in practice these things always look like a watercolor painting past about 30x, I don't care what the marketing slide says), and (this is the actual interesting bit) S Pen support. Samsung didn't put a Pen in the box, you have to buy it separately along with a special case that holds it, which feels like a weirdly half-hearted way to bring back Note functionality right after they basically confirmed the Note line is on ice. If you're going to make your flagship phone into a Note, just put the pen in the box. Don't make me buy a $40 accessory to unlock a feature you're advertising on stage.
And yeah, no charger in the box. Samsung spent a good chunk of 2020 making fun of Apple for pulling that move with the iPhone 12, there were literal Samsung ads mocking it, and now here we are. I get the environmental argument, I really do, e-waste is a real problem and most people already own six USB-C bricks in a drawer somewhere. But it's hard to take "we care about sustainability" seriously from a company that was dunking on the competitor for doing the exact same thing four months ago. Just own it, don't pretend it's new.
Colors are the usual Phantom lineup: Gray, White, Violet, Pink depending on the model. And I'll be honest, "Phantom" as a color-line name has officially worn out its welcome for me. Every product Samsung ships now is Phantom This or Phantom That. Pick a new word, guys.
Preorders opened right after the stream ended, phones ship January 29th. I'm not upgrading, my S10 is still doing fine and the battery hasn't even gotten noticeably worse, which honestly says more about how incremental phone upgrades have gotten than anything about Samsung specifically. Three years ago I would've preordered within the hour. Now I mostly just watch these events the way you'd watch a car show — interested, mildly entertained, no intention of buying.
One more thing while I'm here: it's wild that Unpacked happened at all this week given everything else going on right now. Feels like half the tech world is still dealing with fallout from the Parler stuff and app store removals, and Samsung's just up there doing a normal product launch like it's a normal January. Which I guess, for them, it is. Life goes on, phones still need announcing, somebody's still got to sell you a camera bump.
Anyway. If you're the type who upgrades every cycle, the S21 lineup is available to preorder now, and the price cut on the base model is genuinely the most interesting decision in the whole announcement. Everything else is what you'd expect from a spec sheet in 2021 — bigger sensor, faster chip, same glass slab shape we've had since 2017.