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14-day lock
Offer holds when description matches.
48-hr processing
Two business days from arrival to confirmed offer.
Free shipping
Prepaid USPS label in your inbox.
BBB 4.69
Ten years. Same Phoenix team.
SELL YOUR GALAXY S21 ULTRA 5G
A Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G pays between $17 and $115, and the table below fills in everything between the two. This phone cost $1,199 in 2021, so those are small numbers now and we are not going to dress them up. They are still real money, paid in cash, for something sitting in a drawer doing nothing.
One word before the table. A carrier trade-in is a clause inside a contract you are signing for something else, so its terms live in that contract and move when the contract moves. A Buyback is a standalone deal with nothing behind it. One price, one box, one payment. If you change your mind before you post the phone, nothing has happened.
Now the part that decides which row of the table you land on. Turn the phone over and count the lenses.
There are four, and one small black square next to the flash that is not a lens at all. The Galaxy S21 Ultra was the first phone Samsung built with two telephoto cameras. In Samsung's own words it has "Samsung's first-ever Dual-tele lens system, one optical 3x and one optical 10x". The 10x is a periscope: the lens lies on its side inside the body and a prism turns the light through ninety degrees, which is the only way to fit that much reach into an 8.9mm phone. The black square is the laser autofocus sensor.
That gives this phone more moving optics than any other Galaxy S21, and it is worth five minutes before you pick a grade, because on a Samsung anything that has stopped working makes the phone Faulty. It is a principle rather than a list. If a part of the phone does not do its job, the grade is Faulty, whatever the rest of it looks like.
So open the camera app and tap through the zoom buttons in order. 0.5x, 1x, 3x, 10x. Each one should snap to a genuinely different view, and 3x and 10x should settle into focus within a second. A 3x or a 10x that only softens and crops the picture instead of jumping is a telephoto that is not engaging, and that is a fault. A periscope is the part most likely to have given up on a phone this age, because a hard drop can knock the prism assembly out of true.
One thing that is not a fault, so nobody grades themselves down for it. Zoom past 10x and the picture goes soft and painterly. Samsung called it 100x Space Zoom and everything beyond the 10x optical step is the phone enlarging and guessing. It looked like that on day one. Leave it out of your decision.
Then the cosmetic half. Run a fingernail across each of the four glass rings and across the laser window. A mark your nail glides over is a scratch and it costs you nothing. A line it drops into is a chip, and a chip in glass is Faulty even on a phone that photographs perfectly. That single call moves you several rows down the table, so make it under a light rather than in your lap.
Cracks anywhere else do the same thing, front or back, and so does burn-in. This screen is a 6.8-inch Dynamic AMOLED and OLED panels wear unevenly where the same shapes sit for years. Burn-in grades a phone Faulty, and the full walkthrough for finding it lives on the Galaxy S21 FE page rather than being repeated on all four.
The table is unlocked. On this model unlocked is never beaten, though AT&T matches it dollar for dollar on most rows, so an AT&T phone loses nothing. T-Mobile, Verizon and the smaller networks pay less. Pick your real carrier in the quote box and the number you see is the number we honor.
One piece of history that helps people work out which phone they are holding. The Galaxy S21 Ultra was the first S Series phone Samsung ever made that responded to an S Pen at all. The pen was a separate purchase and there is no slot in the body to keep it in, which is why the plain Galaxy S21 and Galaxy S21+ do nothing when you touch a pen to them.
Sell my Galaxy S21 Ultra brings back a wall of buyers and most of them quote high and grade low. Where to sell a Galaxy S21 Ultra is really a question about whether the first number survives the box being opened. We check every phone by hand, we tell you what we found, and if you do not like the answer we mail it straight back at our expense. That is what makes this the best place to sell a used Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G rather than the cheapest sounding one.
LIVE PRICES
The used resale value of a Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G runs from $17 for a cracked 128GB to $115 for a sealed 512GB. Most phones land in the middle of that.
All three columns are unlocked and every figure comes off our live feed, not a monthly guide.
| Comparison row | 128GB | 256GB | 512GB |
|---|---|---|---|
Brand New | $95 | $105 | $115 |
Flawless | $95 | $105 | $115 |
Good | $85 | $95 | $100 |
Average | $77 | $86 | $90 |
Fair | $51 | $57 | $60 |
Faulty | $17 | $19 | $20 |
HOW IT WORKS
Choose 128GB, 256GB or 512GB, your carrier and your grade. Run the four lenses through 0.5x, 1x, 3x and 10x before you pick, because a telephoto that has stopped engaging moves you to Faulty and it is better to know now. The price you accept is locked for 14 days.
A prepaid USPS label lands in your inbox. Take your Google account off the phone first, then factory reset it, in that order. Send the phone by itself. Keep the cable and the case, they add nothing to the price and they are worth something to you.
A person here opens the box and checks your Ultra by hand within 48 hours of it arriving. If it matches what you told us the money leaves the same day, by gift card, PayPal, bank transfer or check. If it does not, we tell you exactly what we found and what it changes, and you can have the phone back at our cost.
SPEC SHEET
| Samsung's name for it | Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G |
|---|---|
| Announced | January 14, 2021 |
| On sale | January 29, 2021 |
| US model numbers | SM-G998U on carrier phones and SM-G998U1 unlocked. Both quote the same here. |
| Display | 6.8-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X, 3200 by 1440, adaptive 10Hz to 120Hz |
| Front and back glass | Corning Gorilla Glass Victus on both sides |
| Frame | Aluminum |
| Rear cameras | 108MP wide, 12MP ultra wide, 10MP 3x telephoto, 10MP 10x periscope telephoto, plus a laser autofocus sensor |
| Front camera | 40MP |
| Chip in US phones | Snapdragon 888 |
| Memory | 12GB or 16GB RAM |
| Storage we buy | 128GB, 256GB and 512GB. There is no microSD slot on any Galaxy S21. |
| Battery | 5000mAh, 25W wired and 15W wireless. No battery percentage is used in our grading. |
| S Pen | Supported, and this was the first S Series phone that was. The pen was sold separately and the phone has no slot to hold one. |
| Water and dust | IP68 |
| Weight | 227 grams, or 229 grams on the mmWave version |
| Colors | Phantom Black and Phantom Silver in stores, with Phantom Titanium, Phantom Navy and Phantom Brown sold direct. Every color pays the same. |
GALAXY S21 ULTRA 5G BUYBACK QUESTIONS
Three things set it: storage, carrier and condition. A 512GB unlocked in Good condition is $100. The same phone in Average is $90, and in Fair it is $60. A 128GB with a cracked screen is $17. Run yours through the quote box at the top for the exact figure.
Count the lenses. The Ultra has four and a small laser window. The Galaxy S21+ has three and no laser. The Ultra is also the only Galaxy S21 with a curved screen and the only one with a 512GB size, so a phone reporting 512GB is an Ultra.
The certain answer is Settings, About phone, Model number. SM-G998U or SM-G998U1 is the Ultra. SM-G996U is the S21+, SM-G991U is the S21 and SM-G990U is the S21 FE. It is worth checking, because we grade and pay on the phone that turns up rather than the one on the quote.
Almost certainly not. The Galaxy S21 Ultra has two telephoto lenses, an optical 3x and an optical 10x periscope. Everything past 10x is the phone enlarging what the 10x lens already captured, which is why 30x and 100x look soft and smeared. That is how the phone behaved when it was new.
The test that matters is the optical steps. Tap 0.5x, then 1x, then 3x, then 10x, and watch for a real jump in view at each one. If all four change properly your cameras are fine and blurry 100x shots cost you nothing.
Yes, and it prices as Faulty. On a Samsung there is no list of parts that count, because all of them count. If something on the phone has stopped doing its job, the phone is Faulty, so a dead 10x periscope sits in the same place as a dead speaker or a button that no longer clicks. A 256GB lands at $19 instead of $95 in Good.
Pick Faulty at the quote step and the number holds when we open the box. Pick a higher grade with a camera that does not engage and it will not.
Yes, at the Faulty price. Any crack or chip forces Faulty on its own, and it makes no difference that the phone works perfectly. That is $17 at 128GB, $19 at 256GB and $20 at 512GB.
The four lens rings are the part people miss, because they stand proud of the back and they hit the floor first. Take the case off and drag a fingernail over each ring. Gliding is a scratch. Catching is a chip, and a chip is glass damage.
It does. Screen burn-in makes a Galaxy S21 Ultra Faulty, and every Galaxy S has an OLED panel, so this is a live risk on a phone that has been on for five years. A ghost of the clock, the status icons or the navigation bar is the usual shape. The full test, and a list of things that look like burn-in but are not, is on the Galaxy S21 FE page, and it works the same on this panel.
There is not. We do not put a battery percentage anywhere in Samsung grading, so there is no health screen you need to go hunting for and no number that moves your grade. A five year old battery that no longer lasts the day is expected and it does not cost you anything.
A battery that has actually failed is a different thing, and it is caught the same way every other fault is. If the phone dies with charge still showing, refuses to take a charge, or the back has started to bow outwards, that is a broken part and the grade is Faulty.
That is the one we have to say no to. A phone that will not power up cannot be tested, so any price we gave you would be made up, and your photos, messages and saved passwords cannot be erased from it while it is dark.
Give it a good half hour on a wall charger with a cable you trust before you decide, because that revives more phones than anything else. If it stays dead, send it in on the free label anyway. We wipe it to Department of Defense standards and recycle it for nothing, or we post it back to you for nothing. Your choice.
No, not while the plan is running. A phone with a carrier installment balance or a lease against it is under a financial obligation and we do not purchase those. Settle it, wait until your carrier shows the phone as yours, and it quotes like any other Ultra on this page.
No. A lock stops the sale at every grade, and there are three separate ones to clear.
The Google account lock, sometimes called FRP, is the common one. Remove your Google account from the phone first and factory reset it second. Do it the other way round and the phone asks the next person for your password and comes back to you unpaid. There are step by step instructions on our erase your device page.
Knox is the second. Rooting the phone or flashing custom firmware trips the Knox counter permanently and we cannot buy a phone with it tripped. The third is the IMEI, which fails if the phone was reported lost or stolen, blacklisted, or blocked by a carrier. Dial *#06# to read yours before you commit.
It does, and unlocked is never beaten on this model. Take a Good 512GB. Unlocked pays $100. AT&T pays the same, $100, which is unusual and worth knowing. T-Mobile is $70, Verizon $68 and the smaller networks $50.
So an AT&T Ultra loses you nothing on most rows, and a T-Mobile or Verizon one does. If the phone is paid off it is worth asking your carrier to release it before you sell. Either way, choose your real network in the quote box and that is the price we pay.
No. Send the phone on its own. Samsung stopped putting a wall charger in the box with the Galaxy S21 generation, so most people never had one to lose, and none of it changes the number. The one thing worth taking off is the screen protector, because it hides hairline cracks from you and gets in the way of our inspection.
No. Phantom Black and Phantom Silver were the two on shelves, and Phantom Titanium, Phantom Navy and Phantom Brown came from Samsung direct. All five are worth exactly the same to us. Storage, carrier and condition are the whole sum.
No, and the difference is what you end up holding. A trade-in is credit. Samsung takes it off the price of a new Galaxy, a carrier spreads it across two or three years of bills and stops paying if you leave. Both need you to buy something first.
A Buyback is us buying the Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G and nothing else happening. Cash, spendable anywhere, no new line, no contract, and the price held for 14 days from the moment you accept it.
Four ways, and you pick at checkout. A gift card is emailed and comes out roughly 3 percent ahead of the others, because the brands add a bonus. PayPal is instant and PayPal takes 2.99 percent of it. A bank transfer takes 2 to 4 days and a check 3 to 5. All four leave the same day your phone clears inspection. The only restriction is that a sealed Brand New phone is settled by PayPal alone.
Pick your storage, your carrier and your grade. It takes about a minute and the number is held for 14 days. Run the camera through 3x and 10x before you choose.
FREE SHIPPING / 14-DAY PRICE LOCK / PAID SAME DAY