Why the Galaxy S21 Ultra was the last Samsung phone I actually wanted to keep

While these days Samsung is all about 200MP camera sensors, folding screens, and AI-integrated everything, I find myself looking at my S21 Ultra not as an aging relic, but as the last time a phone felt truly complete.

I’ve reviewed Samsung phones for the last 14 years, and the Galaxy S21 Ultra is probably my all-time favorite. It was peak Samsung, and while it wasn’t perfect, it’s the last phone I actually wanted to keep.

The Galaxy S21 Ultra was (and still is) great

A well-rounded premium phone with everything you could ask for

I’ve bought or reviewed dozens of phones over the years, but I always gravitate back to Samsung. And out of all of those, the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is the one I used the longest. A few years ago, I wrote an entire article about how it’s still worth buying.

So, why was the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra so great? Because it was nearly perfect. Sure, it doesn’t have a removable battery or expandable storage, but those are the only two cons. Everything else is perfection. Solid design, fast performance, great cameras, excellent display, easy to hold, etc. Owners all over Reddit feel the same way.

The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra has a stunning 6.8-inch screen that isn’t as wide or as hard to hold as current models or the older Note series. It has everything newer phones have, like four highly capable cameras, a crazy zoom lens, a versatile dual-telephoto system, fast performance, an under-display fingerprint scanner, and more.

Compared to newer phones, the cameras might not be as fancy or capable, but at least the S21 Ultras are consistent—something I can’t say about newer models. They try to do too much. Samsung’s last great Galaxy is also extremely well-built, although the curved screen can be a bit fragile; it feels great in the hand and is just easy to use. No flagship Samsung since is anywhere near ergonomic or comfortable to hold and use.

If you’ve read any Galaxy S reviews since, not a lot has changed. I skipped the entire Galaxy S22 series, S23, and even the S24 series, simply because the Galaxy S21 Ultra was still a highly capable phone. I reviewed plenty, but kept my S21 Ultra.

There’s nothing the Galaxy S21 Ultra doesn’t do well, even today, and that’s what makes it so great. The design still meets today’s standards, the cameras are serviceable, and it looks close enough to any other modern model that most people wouldn’t even notice it’s a 5-year-old phone.

All good things must come to an end, and I finally replaced it with the Galaxy S25 Ultra, but after realizing it’s huge, hard to hold, uncomfortable, and not all that much better, I settled for the Galaxy S25+. It’s good enough, I guess.

The S21 Ultra is no longer receiving updates, which makes me sad and ultimately led me to stop using it.

When everything changed

The shift to adding in all those Galaxy Note features

Released in a year when Samsung finally found the perfect mix of aggressive industrial design and raw utility, the S21 Ultra delivered an excellent experience. However, Samsung didn’t release a Galaxy Note 21 that year, and that was the beginning of the end.

Everything changed the next year with the structural shift toward incorporating Note features into the standard Galaxy S-series. Samsung scrapped the Galaxy Note line, then added all its “popular” features, like an S Pen, to the Galaxy S22 Ultra, and the rest is history.

When the Galaxy S22 Ultra arrived a year later, it was a huge square brick with an unwieldy and wider screen to fit the S-Pen, sharp corners that tore holes in jeans, and no real substantial upgrades. Same screen size, battery capacity, and fairly similar cameras. Meh! Then, the Galaxy S22 and S22+ were worse than ever in an effort to further differentiate the Ultra.

And, unfortunately, that’s the way things have stayed ever since. In fact, Samsung is slowly but surely going backward: the last two generations of Ultra phones finally have more rounded edges, but they’re still massive, wide, and heavy.

I tried the Galaxy S23+ and S24 Ultra, but didn’t love them. I wasn’t a fan of the Galaxy S25 Ultra, and the all-new Galaxy S26 Ultra is excellent, but it’s also massive, and the camera bumps are so big that it wobbles like a seesaw swing on a table or desk. Forget using it one-handed; you can’t use the S-Pen without holding the phone, as it’ll wobble too much on any surface.

I’d love to keep using my Galaxy S21 Ultra, but I also want One UI 8.5 and One UI 9, as well as security and maintenance updates. It’s too old, and Samsung no longer supports it. If you’re in a similar boat, it’s time to upgrade.

• 

  SoC

  Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy

  Display

  6.7″, 3120 x 1440, Dynamic AMOLED 2X, 120Hz

  The Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus is a premium smartphone with a 6.7-inch QHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X display and a 120Hz refresh rate.  It features the Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, 12GB of RAM, and a 4,900mAh battery with 45W Super Fast Charging 2.0.

  
  

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  Brand

  Samsung

  SoC

  Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5

  Get the new Galaxy S26 Ultra with AI smarts and an all-new privacy display. It’s big, powerful, packed with AI, and you’ll love the S-Pen stylus. 

  
  

The last great Galaxy

I rocked the Pixel 9 Pro XL for a while, too, and it’s pretty great, but I still can’t help but feel like the last phone I truly enjoyed and didn’t want to give up was the Galaxy S21 Ultra. I have a feeling I’m not the only one.

At the end of the day, it’s just a phone, and my current Galaxy S25+ does everything I need. It just doesn’t have the same wow factor, and I’ll probably replace it sooner rather than later.