Problems with S21 Ultra

[Altar]

I'm incredibly disappointed with the last flagship of the S21 Ultra (Exynos).
Samsung has always been a guarantee of quality for me. I have owned all S flagships since the S2 version.
But what does this mean now?
I feel subjectively worse image quality in photos taken with the S21 Ultra than with the S10 plus.
Huge battery drain when using the camera.
And more overheating when using the camera. I don't know if it's because Exynos.

This will be the first phone I am considering returning to the merchant.
Do you think there is a chance that these things will be fixed in near future through software updates?

[smiley]

How long have you had it ? Has it trained the battery usage patterns ? I assume you are running the latest AUBB software? Did you use the smart switch app to synchronise all your previous apps and stuff from the old to new phone ?

There are some known compatability issues between Android 10 and 11... and these cause battery issues.

I have had the S21u since 29th January on launch day. It has improved and I am sure the camera will be resolved in the next few updates.

Smiley

[Altar]

• Bought March 23, 2021
• Has it trained the battery usage patterns ? - How to find out?
• Yes, AUBB version from 04. march
• Smart Switch - Yes, but after that I deleted the data and cache of the photo application.

Thank you for the encouraging words, they give me hope it'll be OK.

[RXM]

I was the same. My phone was so hot once I thought that I'd seriously damaged it, i'm guessing it was over 60°C at the back especially up top. I was using lightroom with a kickstand case and an S Pen so only noticed when I felt great radiating from the phone. My battery would last like 5 hours or so with downgraded settings. But there's good news and the bad news I guess. This was at the start and now my phone rarely gets hot or even warm to be frank and my battery life is enormously better. The bad news is I put in a lot of time to get it that way.

I had to factory reset my phone, possibly due to transferring using Smart Switch as pointed out. I wouldn't use the service again if transferring between different android versions (just a hunch of mine).

If you go to 'battery and device care' in settings then click on bar with the battery then the next page will show up in the top right a bar chart icon and three dots. On the three dots menu is automation and I use adaptive battery saving. You can toggle most battery settings in this area and you can see if your battery is learning your usage patterns too as it won't show how many hours of battery you have left it will show learning usage patterns. Battery usage limits will allow you to put apps to sleep which use up to much power in the background regardless if they're open or not. On the more battery settings the adaptive battery will over time do this but you can manually do it to speed the process along.

I went through app permissions and removed permissions I deemed unnessessary, same with notifications. Using dark mode everywhere,

Some of these are totally optional but the one that worked the most was the factory reset which is a pain unfortunately.

Also I've just seen the update on Samsung Members about going to settings - apps - open in play store and in the top right corner and updating Chrome and Android System Web view to prevent apps crashing. Also selecting auto update by clicking the three doors on the top right on the Play store pages I just mentioned.

I'll update this comment if I think of anything else that could help. It's a grreat phone once optimised.

*Settings - Connections - More connection settings - Nearby Device Scanning (On to Off). Up to you if you think this would be a useful feature but not for me.

*Cleared the cache for every app I had. Was told by the help team to do this for my browser app but did it to every app manually (is there a better way anyone) . This can be done by long pressing on an app, hitting the (i) option in the top right then clicking on storage then bottom right hit clear cache. Nothing bad will happen doing this, just mind not to hit clear data on the bottom left (warning message will display anyway so not to worry.).

[Pjc21]

I agree with everyone here.. my battery life is very good after using for a month or so..
also I think a recent update has been a bit of a downgrade on the camera as I get more noise now no matter what settings I use.

Gets a little warm from time to time using the camera but that depends what I am doing with the camera.

I would end by saying that I'm confident with a couple more updates it will be smoothed out.

I think that by May, it will all be doing what it should, which kinda begs the question.. why did Samsung release a phone earlier this year if there was still alot of work to be done behind the scenes?

My guess would be to try and get around some issues caused by covid.
Chip sets, general Supply chain, developers maybe working from home?

Anyway I have faith that it will get sorted in due course 🙂

[RXM]

My thought exactly regarding the earlier release. Especially with Covid delays added in the mix. It seemed crazy. Maybe strategic? The camera has certainly improved but still lacks imo in the Ultra Wide range and zoom in regards to sharpness and details but I think this is Exynos chip based on comparison videos I've seen online. Not saying they 're bad just not picking. I'll need to test to see if mine has gotten worse in regards to photo noise but often I'll use night mode even when it's only slightly dim. Dark mode is great.

[Altar · Accepted solution]

I would like to say that the problem was solved (at least it looks like) by a complete reset of the mobile phone and not restoring (not using) the backup from the previous phone (S10 +). Minor shortcomings remain in the quality of photos and video recording, which I think will be solved in future updates.

[ChloeBeth]

I just got my phone just over a month ago, and I might as well have kept my pixel 2, the camera is awful