Though I have not really been in a rush to upgrade my Samsung Galaxy S9, the deal to get a free Galaxy S21 5G with pre-order plus trade in of my nearly 3 year old phone is too good to pass up

I find it funny that the bigger phone comes in a significantly smaller box. Of course, I find out why immediately after I open it. This is the first phone I have bought to not include a charging plug or headphones. And I am a little sad that this is the last photo I will take with the S9.

As I said, the S21 is a bigger phone. This base model is not significantly larger than the S9, but this is definitely a trend.

One reason the S21 did not come with headphones is because Samsung decided to follow Apple's lead and eliminate the headphone jack. As I use my phone for music while running and am always concerned with battery life, this is definitely disappointing. I am not sure I will risk trying wireless pods as I would constantly worry about them slipping out of my sweaty ears...plus I have accumulated quite a few headsets over the years, the one that came with my S9 has never even been worn. My best bet now is to get a USB-C to 3.5mm plug adapter.

The S21 has multiple lenses and multiple sensors, including one that has a significantly higher megapixel count than the S9. That said, it records the same size images...presumably with more detail and better quality in low-light situations. The S21's lack of a microSD card was almost a bigger dealbreaker than ditching the headphone jack. Even with an added 128GB card, I was consantly moving files around to free up space on the S9, but I also never once swapped cards to gain additional space. Since the S21 is also capable of recording 8K video, I decided I should pay the extra $50 for the 256GB model.

For some reason, T-Mobile did not offer the base S21 5G in black...but ultimately color does not matter since I usually encase my phones in a matte black protective case.

First photo I take using the S21 is after midnight. As usual, the subject is my previous Galaxy phone...or should I say phones. I kept Valerie's Galaxy S7 as a backup device , mainly so I could continue to use it with GearVR (which could not support newer phones because it used micro USB). As you can see here, the size difference between the S7's 5.1 inch screen and S9's 5.8 incher was even more obvious because Samsung ditched physical buttons for additional screen real estate. It's funny that I have owned only odd-numbered Galaxy phones (starting with the S3)...because, due to Samsung's naming-scheme change, their last two models were both even numbered (S10 and S20). While Samsung's Smart Switch app continues to make transitioning from Galaxy phone to Galaxy phone far easier (and quicker over wifi) than before, there are still many things that require intervention. Yes, all of my data (including from the microSD card) made the jump to the new phone (I backed up the microSD card to my computer because I wasn't sure it would). Most of the apps carried over, but some (like Nova Launcher) required manual exporting and importing of settings...which is why I am glad I can take my time and make sure everything is working before I send in my old phone. Various two-factor authentication methods also add to the challenge as not all methods simply call the phone number. Note that I made the mistake of removing the microSD card from the S9 before exporting my music playlist. And to think, I switched from Google's music player to Samsung's specifically because I could transfer playlists from one phone to another...

One of the two rear facing cameras is ultra-wide...ridiculously wide angle with fixed focus that really can't capture items sharp closer than a foot to the lens. My guess is Samsung included this lens option to compete with action cameras like the GoPro...and the phone benefits from being able to shoot RAW stills. I will have to see how well the S21 handles high speed motion because previous phones really suffered badly from rolling shutter artifacts. Compared to my GoPro Hero 7 Black, the S9 can shoot at higher frame rates and higher resolutions (up to 8K)! I am looking forward to an official Adobe camera profile for the S21's multiple lenses as there is a bit of unwanted barrel distortion present in this photo.

This is not a RAW photo, but a JPG captured from the S21's 8K 24fps video mode. I am not sure how often I would do this, but it does suggest that shooting 8K video may actually be a reasonable way of capturing decent quality photos.

There are many times I have debated whether I should focus on capturing video OR stills...so this could be a potential game changer if I want to focus on capturing action. An 8K image is equivalent to 33.2 megapixels, so theoretically I can use this mode to capture more detail than in any other...higher than even my 5D Mark II. I will have to test this outside once I get a case and screen protector for my phone.

The 21x9 mode simply crops the 16x9 shot, so I probably won't use this mode often other than perhaps previewing composition. BTW, I figured out how to use Photoshop smart objects to make a wallpaper template for my irregular monitor configuration. Now I can simply drop any panorama into the smart object and it will produce a single image that spans all three panels, compensating for differences in size and resolution (even includes offsets for the gaps). On this, my primary workstation, I use custom destkop wallpaper to indicate which project I've conformed my system for...though I have not yet set one up for my current project. Though I used to just use the portrait configured panel for coding, I started needing it for previewing games designed for portrait mode on modern mobile devices...and I had to up its resolution beyond HD to facilitate capturing footage of a project I worked on last summer. In other words, my smallest panel is actually set to a higher resolution than the two wide screen panels.