#1:Samsung Galaxy S21 5G, US Version, 128GB, Phantom Gray - Unlocked (Renewed)
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Product Description
This pre-owned or refurbished product has been professionally inspected and tested to work and look like new. How a product becomes part of Amazon Renewed, your destination for pre-owned, refurbished products: A customer buys a new product and returns it or trades it in for a newer or different model. That product is inspected and tested to work and look like new by Amazon-qualified suppliers. Then, the product is sold as an Amazon Renewed product on Amazon. If not satisfied with the purchase, renewed products are eligible for replacement or refund under the Amazon Renewed Guarantee.
Customer reviews
Excellent so far
I ordered it on Sept 20th at $339 plus shipping of ~$34 and Morocco VAT of ~$80, so totally I paid $449.
Delivery was very good. I saw it was shipped on the 25th. On the 30th, I received an SMS from DHL saying they planned delivery on Oct. 3rd, but on the same day I got an email asking for copy of national ID and content description for clearing customs. I am not a Morocco residents nor citizen, so I sent my foreign passport instead. On the 3rd, Amazon tracking info said clearing custom was delayed as additional documents were needed. So I called DHL, and the rep said it would be delivered on the 4th instead. On the 4th, I saw a newly posted message about delay on Amazon tracking. I called DHL various times but couldn't get to anyone. I then sent an inquiry by email and get a response shortly saying it was being taking care of. Then late afternoon, I got the package.
Upon arriving, the seal of the packing had an opening large enough to put in a hand but not for getting the phone out, so I didn't complain.
Unpacked, the inner packing of the phone was in excellent condition, very much like the original packing but had no Samsung marking, rather, it had a marking of "amazonrenewed". There was a film covering the screen, like on a new phone. The phone appeared in excellent condition, only had a small scratch at the back when I looked in detail, and a hair of scratch on the screen that is only visible under bright light and in a particular angle. I tried but couldn't turn on the phone - there was no response. The box also included a USB-C cable and a cheap non-Samsung charger made in China. I used my own Samsung Charger to charge the phone. After plugged in, it showed the battery was at 0. So I let it charge to full.
After started, it turned out fully unlocked. My Morocco sim card works with 4G. The phone's software looked already reset, but I reset it myself anyhow. Then updated to the latest system with Android 12, and loaded many apps I need. During about the first week, the battery appeared quite poor. With medium usage it lasted about a day. I tried all necessary settings to conserve battery, but it didn't seem to help much. These couple days, it becomes much better, lasting about 45 hours. I read it was likely due to some AI processes either from Android 12 or Samsung doing the learning work at first. But it's pretty bad the phone doesn't show any info.
I would say I am very happy with the phone. And this is after having a terrible experience in the past with Samsung.
The last Samsung phone I had was S7 Edge bought in Thailand (I am a traveler), new at a Samsung store for perhaps ~$800. I actually wanted the normal S7 (without the "edge"), but it was out of stock then. I never liked the "edge", it was a silly design in my mind. The phone worked well initially, but in the coming couple of years I had a terrible experience. About 5 months later when I was in Vietnam, the screen started to show shaded bands across. As I was wondering how or if I should return to Thailand to get the phone serviced, the bands disappeared after a month. Then about another 7 months later when I was in Azerbaijan, the phone couldn't start after I did a system update. So I couldn't use the phone for a couple weeks until I reached Tbilisi in Georgia when I had someone flashed it. About a year later, it died on me again when I was in Morocco. I had someone re-flashed it, but it was not successful. About 1 month later I reached the city of Fes where there is a Samsung service center. After checking, they said there was something wrong with the motherboard. Very shocking! I've never had such problem in my life with all the phones and computers, cheap or dear, and this was a flagship! So eventually, I sold it to a local repair shop for $200, for which they said they only needed the screen. That was end of 2017.
So I never bought a Samsung again, and would definitely not buy one at the full price. I admit the S series is not worthless. At least, I like the camera. But I never had a chance to buy one at a largely reduced price (I won't buy from just any second-hand sellers).
So now, the Amazon reviewed phone with some warranty got me interested. Yes, I have some risk, but to me with the past experience, the risk is not much higher than getting a new phone from Samsung, plus, I am putting in a much lower bet now.
Amazing Phone, Poor Battery
This phone is wonderful. It's extremely fast, loads everything pretty much immediately, has a good, loud speaker and has done everything I have needed it to do perfectly. The only issue, and unfortunately is a very big one, is the poor battery life that it has.
The SECOND I take my phone off the charger it IMMEDIATELY starts to drain even when I'm not using it or have nothing open.
I'll take it off charge in the morning, look at the time and set it on my night stand on the lock screen while I get ready for work which only takes me a few minutes as I shower the night before. So simply getting out of bed, putting my clothes on and brushing my teeth is all I do and by the time I get back to my room my phone has already dropped around 5 or 6%.
I work 8 hours. By the time I get to work my phone is usually in the 80s percentage wise and at the end of my work day it's fully dead.
All of my older phones: Samsung Galaxy A50, LG V20, etc all had very long lasting batteries even though they were much cheaper phones than this and they would literally last me from the minute I woke up, until the minute I went to bed and that's WITH continuous usage including playing Spotify all day at work.
This phone dies so quickly and if I'm using it continuously or using it to listen to Spotify at work it will die within a matter of two hours and that may be generous.
I'm not sure why the battery is so bad, I know it's likely because it's refurbished because I'm sure a brand new model wouldn't be like this, but with this refurbished phone the battery life is horrendous.
Other than that though this is a wonderful phone and if you get one that has a good battery I am 100% guaranteed that you will be MORE than satisfied!
Fast shipping. Received in 1 day. Big performance phone for productivity (Samsung Dex)
So far this phone performs great. It is fast and very responsive. 16GB of RAM! I could open a lot of apps in the background and it is still running without sluggish. It is new and never been used (I think) since the imei is still good and not being registered. This phone with 512GB storage is sold out pretty much everywhere and you cannot even get them from Samsung website. Don't buy 128GB. It is useless since the storage is so small. Add $50 and you could get 256GB. However, I recommend 512GB.
What is great is the camera. It works a lot better than S20 Ultra 512GB. That one was a let down and I returned it. I stuck with S8 Plus for 4 years but I love that phone. The autofocus and nightime mode improved significantly at least for me. The S20 Ultra autofocus is horrible. It seems the multitasking works a lot better to. App can easily works as popup instead of of multiple presses in s8 plus. Speaker sounds is a bit louder and has more bass sound. Wi-Fi 6 and 5G are definitely the best features. With 5G, I am no longer having blackout in certain area around my house area. When there is no 4G LTE, 5G will take over and when there is no 5G, 4G LTE is taking over. In the past, I only have 4G LTE and 3/2G. You have three different customization on how to switch to different apps (multitasking). I haven't really go out and use the camera yet although it is the main reason why I am buying this phone. Another plus side is this is a t-mobile version.
The only downside is no micro sdcard, 100X space zoom (a feature JOKE from Samsung Marketing department), 3 buttons instead of 4 and finger print from the front display. For finger print, I love the rear touch since it is more convenient to use with one hand. Finger print is a bit troublesome to detect unlike the old one. (Update: You have to press a bit harder on the display to get your fingerprint detected. So far it is working better than I first initialed test). I am hoping Samsung will bring the sd card back in the future. Seriously 108MB, 8k (never use this feature ever), 4k size of photos and videos and you do not provide sd card? Even my Sony A7RIII works great with micro sd card in sd card adapter. There is no excuse of not giving customer sd card option. The excuse of sd card is slowing down phone performance is an old myth provided by none techies or those people who never used sd card. Not sure why the hate on sd card. If you don't want to don't use it. Recently so many big companies either getting hacked, attacked with ramsomware or services shutting down cloud drives becoming a joke. Samsung shutting down their own cloud for photos/videos services and Google their unlimited photos. With all the security issues and possible shutdown, it is not a safe approach for storing your photos/videos for backup.
To work around it, you can use
- USB OTG C to female USB A/C port for USB flash drives
- USB OTG sd card hub/ports with sd card readers and USB A/C ports.
- 4/5 TB hdd drives are still having reasonable pricing with only small increased in pricing. I am lucky to keep up with the news to buy 8TB to 16TB drives before scalpers took over the market. S21 ultra has the ability to read exFat/fat32 by default and ntfs for small usb flash drives. For large drives like 2/4/5 TB or larger in NTFS format you need other special software to read the NTFS. NTFS format has better storage efficient and security than exFAT and fat32. I am using paragon software to read the ntfs ($9.99) and total commander. For the usb hub station I am using, without a pd power delivery I could not read/write to ntfs hdd drives. I haven't try it on smaller OTG (USB 2.0/3.0) to see if it is working on hdd drives. Will update on that later.
- Buy UHS-II readers to get faster reading/writing speed even if you are not using UHS-II sd cards.
Buy one of the USB 3.1 gen 2 cable or gen 2x2 USB C to USB C to reap the 10/20 Gbps (theoretical) speed. I will update more once in the future especially the camera part.
Update:
I bought a hub station with 5 USB ports (2 x 2.0, 2 x 3.0, 1 x C 3.0) 2 x hdmi, 1 x dp port, ethernet, USB c powered port (100w), UHS II regular sd and micro card reader. This thing has one usb c cable attached which you can connect to your phone. This thing is simply awesome. It is better than my old Samsung Dex which doesn't come with extra USB ports , extra display ports and sd card readers. With 100w to power this hub station, I can connect to several usb devices without the worry of connection loss issue. Since I am doing a lot of reading I don't have to use my desktops or laptops. I probably will buy a small battery powered monitor to turn this thing into a "laptop".
Using my hub station, my wireless speed is
~478.82 to ~480 Mbps Download from Ookla. Upload is not provided but I assume it is above ~22 Mbps
~380 to ~438 Mbps Download from Google. Upload is ~23 Mbps
However, this is my router and ISP dependable and not the phone. I should have test the phone using the 5g speed on clear and country side. Will update later on that.
Next month or so I am going to use a lot of the photography so I could evaluate the camera performance. I know that from few shots, the default auto camera is a lot better than S20 Ultra (which I used only for few days). The autofocus is fast and photo taken is not blurry. The HDR processing makes the photo looks better too. I could see the clouds contour enhancement and colors look a lot better too. What I wanted to know now is the nightime shooting. I did take few snapshot in a darkroom and so far it seems to run perform better than S20 Ultra (which takes 5 to 10 seconds) or something not even getting anything during the autofocus.
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