Phone Overheating

[Lastboyscout]

Shooting an unboxing video, which was 10mins plus. Finished shooting. Went to phone to upload video. It had overheated, restarted and lost all my footage. So, now have to redo the whole thing using my DSLR camera. Not happy!!  This is a common issues with the Galaxy S21 Ultra.

[GusB]

Is the S21 ultra a new device? (Less than a week old?)

[Lastboyscout]

Now, got at launch.

[antikythera]

Have you applied all available monthly android system updates for it and cleared the cache partition afterwards?

[Lastboyscout]

Hi, yep. Still having continual circa 10min overheat issue. I have the Exynos 512gb version.

[GusB]

I have the same model... something obviously isn't right... Does the battery drain suggest anything consuming lots of power?

[Lastboyscout]

No, shooting UHD 60FPS with no other Apps open. Normal battery performance is fine. This is a real pain, as sold all my Canon DSLR stuff as this was a more convenient solution and great camera.

[Babishko]

My 512Gb S21 Ultra is now three months old Lastboyscout and when first out of the box was getting hot when just opening the camera app. I came onto this forum and discovered that this was a problem affecting other S21 Ultras so I didn't panic or whatever and just decided that the problem was probably a software issue and to see how the issue went with this in mind. I used the camera day by day only taking a few pictures at first and a little 4K 60fps video here and there and then gradually stepped up the frequency of camera use and began to gain confidence in the phone as monthly software updates hopefully were righting things. My camera got worryingly hot at first I must say but gradually began to run cooler. Three months down the line and I give my camera a real hammering at least every other day as this was the reason I bought the phone. Even after a one hour photo and video session the camera is now only slightly warm.
I think the camera is fantastic and takes truly brilliant pictures that sometimes make my jaw drop and I look forward to using it at every opportunity. I shoot video outdoors in good to fair light conditions but only at 4K 60fps which is my thing and the video it shoots is brilliant in good light but was noisy at first especially indoors. This has improved noticeably now but there is still a little too much noise in some poor or challenging light conditions but given time I hope this will improve. I am so glad I kept with the phone and bedded it in gently as now I am truly reaping the benefits big time. I must say that in the early days I was careful not to let the phone overheat to the point it switched off or whatever as this could cause more harm than good in the long term.
Some people out there have not been so lucky though and this overheating problem has persisted for them. I could not put up with this and would take my phone back for replacement as I have full insurance on the thing. I feel for people who are having a continuous issue as owning this phone and using it's camera can be a real joy as I am finding out and disappointment and frustration are not what you good people are paying a lot of money for. Good luck to you Lastboyscout and good luck to everyone else out there with a continuing overheating camera problem. 👍👍

[antikythera]

The UK market got shafted by Samsung with Exynos instead of Qualcomm chips. Maybe this will be the smartphone equivalent of dieselgate where customers join and sue Samsung on mass

[Lastboyscout]

Couldn't agree more. I have mainly been using mine for product photography and quite a lot of it. I do not really have an issue here and the camera is great. Just getting into unboxing and video reviews and this is where the problem lies. Particularly as I would like to shoot 8k and pullout stills from that, thereby negating the need to do so much still stuff. Be interesting to know if the Snapdragon phones are having the same issue. I'll have to do some digging around. 👌👌