Originally Posted by
Mitsu3000gt
In the case of the Pixel 5, they re-positioned the phone mid-market rather than a flagship like the 4XL was, so if you had a 4XL you weren't really gaining anything in the Pixel 5 except for 5G which doesn't really matter yet in Canada, and you were losing a few significant features like face unlock, Soli, and an 8 series CPU/GPU. There was no reason to buy a Pixel 5 as an 'upgrade' if you had a 4XL as you lose more than you gain. I skipped it too.
Compared to the Pixel 4XL the S21 Ultra improves every area except Soli and Face Unlock (Google's implementation was the best/fastest by far but sadly now it's no longer available). Bigger/better/brighter screen, 10-120Hz dynamic refresh rate, enormous battery, under-display fingerprint reader (nice now that we all wear masks), easily the best camera setup on any mainstream flagship for both stills & video (see earlier post for details), Gorilla Glass Victus front & back, faster charging (both wired & wireless), reverse wireless charging, 2-generations faster CPU/GPU, double the RAM (6gb vs 12gb, 16gb available on 512GB model), faster RAM (GDDR4X vs 5), much faster internal storage (UFS 2.1 vs 3.1, ~2.5x faster read, ~5x faster write), arguably better design/build, WiFi 6/E, bluetooth 5.2, etc.
Whether any of that is important to you will obviously determine if it does anything your 4XL doesn't for your personal usage, but it's objectively a better phone than pretty much anything else out there right now. Early reviews are very positive but the full embargo will lift later this week.
If you are looking at the S21 Ultra, until the 28th you get Free Galaxy Buds Pro ($265), a free bluetooth tracker thingy, 500 airmiles, and $200 off the base price. They are also only charging $70 to double the storage to 256GB this year which is unusually cheap.
Also, now Google Messages is the default texting app and Google News Feed is built-in for the far left screen instead of Samsung's version, so with a few more default app changes you can essentially turn it into a Pixel phone with very little effort.