Samsung’s Galaxy S21 color schemes pop in newly leaked images

By now, we're all pretty much convinced Samsung is pushing up its schedule and prepping for a major smartphone launch in early 2021 -- maybe as early as January 14th, otherwise known as the last day of CES. Point is, we won't have long to wait for a proper Unpacking, but in the meantime, new images published by prolific leaker Evan Blass offers what might be our best looks yet at Samsung's latest flagship devices. (Well, unless you count that one, extremely early hands-on video that’s already live on YouTube.)

As previously reported, the standard Galaxy S21 will come in four colors: white, gray, purple and pink. This smaller model is expected to pack a flat 6.2-inch AMOLED display -- that's on-par with last year's S20 -- along with a 12MP primary camera, a 12MP ultra-wide and a 64MP telephoto shooter around back. And unlike what we saw with Samsung's most premium phone last year, the S21 series will ship with either a Snapdragon 888 or one of the company's new Exynos 2100 chipsets, depending on where you buy it.

Then there's the larger Galaxy S21 Plus, which shares most of its specs with its smaller sibling and unfortunately) comes in all the same colors minus that charming pink. Samsung has been fairly candid about the fact that last year's S20 Plus wasn't nearly as popular as it had hoped -- that year's UItra model ultimately garnered the most interest. Given the popularity of its more premium devices and the fact that budget-oriented S20 FE is selling like hot cakes may mean another year of soft S21 Plus sales, but we'll just have to see.

And then there's the S21 Ultras look the busiest of all, despite only being available in black and white. That's all thanks to its rear quad-camera array and its laser autofocus module, which frankly looks a little silly compared to the rest of family. Unfortunately, there are some angles these new images don't cover, which means we can't confirm the rumors that it will support -- but not internally house -- Samsung's S Pen. Otherwise, expect to see a 6.8-inch AMOLED screen with a power-sipping LTPO backplane like the one we got in the Note 20 Ultra, a massive battery, and super-fast WiFi 6E.

As usual, Samsung might have had all its smartphone surprises spoiled well in advance this year. Thankfully, we probably won’t have to wait very long before all of the company’s work is laid bare — stay tuned to see what the company gets up to on January 14th.