Home » Samsung Galaxy S21 vs. S22 vs. S23: save 45% with the previous smartphone?

Samsung Galaxy S21 vs. S22 vs. S23: save 45% with the previous smartphone?

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Samsung Galaxy S21 vs. S22 vs. S23: save 45% with the previous smartphone?

It should come as no surprise to anyone that smartphone successors are better than their predecessors. However, the new technology usually comes with higher prices – and if the new models do not cost more than the RRP of the predecessors, then at least more than the street price of the predecessors. The reason is simple: the older devices have been on the market for a long time and technology – with a few exceptions such as graphics cards in recent years – normally falls in price gradually as the market stays longer.

Some users may ask themselves whether it is worth buying a product that has just come onto the market or whether the cheaper predecessor from last year would do the same. This is exactly the question we answer in this article in relation to the three generations of the Samsung Galaxy S21, S22 and S23.

At first glance, little has changed in the display medium of the three smartphone generations. In fact, the S21 generation with 120 Hz, OLED and resolutions of 2400 × 1080 pixels for the Standard and Plus versions and 3200 × 1440 pixels for the Ultra version was excellent in terms of display quality. Advances such as variable Hz numbers from the S22 and even more brightness with each newer generation are almost secondary in everyday life.

This also applies in a similar but stronger form to the camera. Samsung has turned the megapixel screw in the S22 generation and selected 50 instead of the previous 12 megapixels for the main and wide-angle cameras. The main camera of the Ultra model, however, remained at 108 megapixels. That only changed with the S23 Ultra, where the number of megapixels grew to a whopping 200. With the increase in pixels, the image quality also increased from generation to generation. While it was great with the S21 generation in good light, the image quality improved, especially when taking pictures with little light and at night. Samsung also worked on (digital) zoom and wide angle. In addition, the quality of the front camera has steadily improved – but it wasn’t all bad even two years ago.

Probably the biggest advance is in the chipset. Although the Exynos chipsets of the S21 and S22 generation were able to keep up with the respective Qualcomm competitor chips in terms of performance, the situation was different in terms of energy efficiency. It is therefore not surprising that the current S23 generation made a significant leap in battery life, which resulted in almost 50 percent longer runtime in everyday use. The Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G (test report) is the only model of the older generation in Germany to offer a Snapdragon chipset from Qualcomm.

The software is constantly evolving, which affects both Samsung’s OneUI and the Android operating system. While the S21 models were still on the market with Android 11, thanks to the update promise from Samsung that the company made with the presentation of the S22 generation, they now have Android 13, just like the S22 and S23 models board. The biggest disadvantage of the older models: The promise, which has also been extended retrospectively to the S21 generation, includes four major Android updates and even five years of security patches for all three generations. Logically, however, these expire in two/three years for the S21 models, in three/four years for the S22 models and in four/five years for the current S23 devices. So if you still buy an S21 now, you will of course have the shortest support.

When it comes to storage, there is hardly any noticeable progress in everyday use. Yes, the S23+ and S23 Ultra now use even faster UFS 4.0 instead of UFS 3.1 storage, but what is more striking here is the increased storage size from at least 128 to 256 GB. The main memory is at least 8 GB in all three generations. An exception is the cheaper Galaxy S21 FE 5G (test report), which only comes to the customer with 6 GB.

It has already been indicated: Thanks to the better efficiency of the Snapdragon chips in the new S23 models, the increase in everyday battery life compared to the S22 generation is sometimes serious. In addition, there is a slight increase in the battery capacity of the S23 and S23+, after the S22(+) surprisingly decreased compared to the S21(+). The S21 generation also lags behind in terms of charging speed, with the S22 and S23 the Plus and Ultra versions charging with 45 instead of 25 watts.

The rest of the equipment is largely the same or at least very similar. The S21 generation also has 5G and water and dust resistance according to IP68, the smartphones charge other devices wirelessly with a lame 4.5 watts, there is USB-C 3.2 and all models have stereo speakers. Differences are only in the details, so Samsung offers its customers Wifi 6E instead of Wifi 6 from the S22 models and the S22 models come with Bluetooth 5.2 instead of 5.0, with the latest smartphone generation it is even version 5.3. But the same applies here: Hardly any user will notice this in everyday use.

As mentioned at the beginning, it is not surprising that there are technical advances in the younger generations of the S series from Samsung. But the real question is: are they worth the extra cost?

S21 S21+ S21 Ultra S22 S22+ S22 Ultra S23 S23+ S23 Ultra

street price

484

670

620

540

779

730

792

1019

1125

Savings compared to the predecessor

10%

14%

15%

32%

24%

35%

Saving S21 to S23

39%

44%

45%

Basically, the answer for us is: yes, especially with the three current models Galaxy S23 (test report), S23+ (test report) and S23 Ultra (test report). Because they not only offer more power, updates for a longer period of time and an even better camera, but above all a noticeably longer battery life. But what if you want to have Samsung’s S-Class as cheaply as possible?

Then we recommend the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G (test report). At 471 euros (at the time of the article), the device is just about the cheapest way to buy an S model of the devices with the long update promise, it offers a display and camera more or less at the S21(+) level and beyond slightly better battery life. Otherwise, we currently advise against the Plus models of the S21 and S22 generation. The reason is simple: at 620 euros (Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra) and 730 euros (Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra), the Ultra models are surprisingly around 50 euros cheaper than the Plus versions with the same memory – so why go for the Plus?

In general, if you can do without the absolute maximum in technology, you also save 24 to 45 percent with the S21 models and can still call a (former) top model your own. If you like a large display and maybe even want to use the pen of the Ultra models, you should definitely grab this top model of the respective years. This is also where the biggest savings are, namely 45 percent when buying the S21 Ultra (test report) instead of the S23 Ultra (test report).

Undoubtedly, a lot of money can be saved with the older S smartphones from Samsung, savings of up to 45 percent are possible. Technically, the S23 models are clearly the best devices – especially in terms of battery life. But even the S21 models aren’t bad, and if you don’t have to have the best of the best all the time, you’ll get your money’s worth for the next few years. How good the price-performance ratio of the individual models is depends heavily on personal taste.

It doesn’t have to be a top model from Samsung? Then it’s worth taking a look at our top 10 best smartphones up to 300 euros, up to 400 euros, up to 500 euros or up to 750 euros. All leaderboards are updated regularly.

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