The Samsung Galaxy Note 21 Is Dead: Here's What It Could Have Been

As much as we would have loved to welcome the Galaxy Note 21, Samsung's phablet lineup has come to an end, replaced by their other devices that offer a large screen and built-in S Pen support, like the S22 Ultra. If this phone had arrived, it might have included an under-display biometric sensor, 5G, and an under-display camera.

Will the Samsung Galaxy Note 21 Ever Come?

For months, rumors doubted the reality of another Note. Some were hoping for a release, and others claimed the Note 21 was still alive since the S22 Ultra sort of took its place with its built-in S Pen slot.

As reported by Engadget in early 2021: Samsung co-CEO said, "The timing of Note model launch can be changed, but we seek to release a Note model next year."

Then, a later update (late 2021), according to ET News, stated that it had been confirmed that "the Galaxy Note series was excluded from the annual smartphone production plan in 2022."

In January 2022, Samsung hinted that the Note was dead, when president TM Roh said this:

At Unpacked in February 2022, we’ll introduce you to the most noteworthy S series device we’ve ever created. The next generation of Galaxy S is here, bringing together the greatest experiences of our Samsung Galaxy into one ultimate device.

Finally, the last few words that cemented the death of the Galaxy Note was, again, from Roh. Commenting to reporters at MWC 2022, he said the "Galaxy Note will come out as Ultra" in the future.

The Note 10 and Note 20 arrived in August 2019 and 2020, so a similar timeframe would have made sense for 2021. But considering those official comments and the fact that there wasn't a new Note in 2021, the obvious conclusion is that the phone is dead, replaced by larger devices like foldables and future Galaxy S phones. The 2020 Galaxy Note 20 Ultra and Note 20 are Samsung's last Note-branded phones.

What the Galaxy Note 21 Might Have Cost

$999.99 is what the latest Galaxy Note launched at, so we would have expected the same for the Note 21 base model. The larger, Ultra model is $300 more and would have most likely been how Samsung priced the newer Note Ultra if they released a premium model.

For comparison, the lower-end S22 launched at $799, while the 1 TB S22 Ultra was priced at $1599.

See Samsung's Galaxy Note Phones page for their offerings.

Samsung Galaxy Note 21 Features

The Note 21 isn't coming. Nevertheless, there are some things we can speculate about what the phone's features would have been given Samsung's other devices and our expectations on emerging tech at the time.

That said, we didn't expect tons of changes. The line separating the Galaxy S and Note phones was known to be blurring to the point that there wouldn't be a reason to keep releasing a new Note.

Beyond the obvious fact that it would have supported the S Pen, this Note could also have featured an in-display, Ultrasonic Fingerprint scanner. That's how the latest Note read your fingerprint, so we can only assume that's exactly how it would work in this phone.

The most significant change would have been an under-display camera. Modern front-facing cameras that rest outside the phone's screen require punch hole designs, which is how the Note 20 does it. The way around that is to embed the camera under the display, which according to LetsGoDigital, is something we could have seen with this phone.

Samsung Galaxy Note 21 Specs and Hardware

All new phones and tablets (yes, even phablets) are moving in the direction of 5G. It's faster than older networks, and it's only natural for new tech to jump on board, so just like the S22, we would have for sure seen a 5G version of the Galaxy Note 21.

The Note 20 and 10 base models came with 8 GB of RAM, and the higher-end versions with 12 GB. We expected this to remain the same for the Note 21. As for storage, we hoped to see a 1 TB option, which would have been twice as much as the current models' support. Samsung removed the microSD card slot with the S21 series, so we expected they might do the same with the Note 21.

Android 12 or Android 13 was a given, depending on when the phone would have been released.

If it came with a charger, rumors said it might have been a 65W adapter, which would support faster charges than the current 25W adapter.

LetsGoDigital created some renders of how a new Galaxy Note Ultra would look. Their vision is a 108MP camera head with an f / 1.8 lens, a 12-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera, and a pair of 10MP telephoto cameras.

Here's another that features a small screen on the back:

News About Samsung Galaxy Note 21

You can get more smartphone news from Lifewire. Here are other news stories and earlier rumors about this phone: