How to Unlock Bootloader on Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G

Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is a huge, powerful Android phone with some big upgrades over the Galaxy S20 Ultra. The device comes with a 6.8-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display, Contour Cut Camera, and Corning Gorilla Glass Victus. It is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 or Exynos 2100 (Global).

Have you bought the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra handset or planning to get one? If yes then you should be one of the active Android users who love to customize their devices a lot due to the facility of bootloader unlocking, third-party firmware flashing, rooting, etc.

To recall, it’s the first and the most important thing to unlock your device bootloader so that your handset becomes eligible to go through system-level customizations. Sounds great? Here you can check out how to unlock the bootloader on Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra very easily.

Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra Device Overview

The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra features a 6.8-inch Dynamic AMOLED panel with a refresh rate of 120Hz. It has a resolution of 1440 x 3200 pixels and an aspect ratio of 20:9. The brightness is also quite high, with maximum peak brightness reaching up to 1500 nits, making outdoor visibility no issue at all. As for the protection, we have the industry best Gorilla Glass Victus protection in the S21+, and we also have the HDR10+ certification for HDR video playback.

For processing power, we get the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 for the Chinese and American market, while the rest of the world gets the Exynos 2100 chipset. Both these processors are built on a 5nm manufacturing process. The Snapdragon 888 is an octa-core processor consisting of one Kryo 680 core clocked at 2.84 GHz, 3 Kryo 680 cores clocked at 2.42 GHz, and four Kryo 680 cores clocked at 1.8 GHz. The Exynos 2100 is also an octa-core processor with one Cortex-X1 core clocked at 2.9 GHz, three Cortex-A78 cores clocked at 2.8 GHz, and four Cortex-A55 cores clocked at 2.2 GHz.

In terms of optics, we have a quad-camera setup at the rear and a single high megapixel camera at the front. The quad-camera setup consists of a 108MP primary sensor paired with an f/1.8 lens, a 10MP periscopic telephoto lens paired with an f/4.9 lens, a 10MP telephoto sensor paired with an f/2.4 lens, and a 12MP ultrawide sensor paired with an f/2.2 lens. The rear setup is capable of capturing 8K videos at 24 fps. We also have stereo sound recording and HDR10+ video recording. Coming to the front, we have a 40MP lens paired with an f/2.2 lens. This is capable of capturing 4K videos at 60 fps.

The smartphone is available in three storage options: 12GB of RAM with 128GB of internal storage, 12GB of RAM with 256GB of internal storage, and 16GB of RAM with 512GB of internal storage. The top option is definitely an overkill for a smartphone. The phone comes with Android 11 out of the box, with OneUI 3.1 running on top. In terms of connectivity, we have Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6, Bluetooth 5.2, GPS, NFC, and USB Type-C 3.2.

For sensors, we get the under-display ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass, and barometer. Again, we get the Samsung exclusive Samsung DeX, Samsung Wireless DeX, Bixby natural language command and dictation, and Samsung Pay with the S21 Ultra, too, just like the S21+. The smartphone is available in five color options: Phantom Black, Phantom Silver, Phantom Titanium, Phantom Navy, and Phantom Brown. The base variant of the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra starts from 105,999 INR or 1,178.95 USD.

Pre-Requisites

Now before we go ahead and unlock the bootloader on your Galaxy S21 Ultra, let us make a list of pre-requisites that are required to unlock it:

Charge your phone

You need to make sure that your Galaxy S21 Ultra is charged to about 60% before operating it for unlocking the bootloader to avoid any boot loop issues during the unlocking process.

You need a PC or Laptop

We would be running certain ADB and Fastboot commands that can be executed via PC or a laptop. So, we would need a computer in order to unlock the bootloader.

Take a complete backup

Before unlocking the bootloader, one of the most important things that you need to do on your phone is to take a complete backup of your phone. For that, you can follow the guide by clicking the link below:

• How to Backup Your Data on an Android device

Download USB Drivers

In order to make your Galaxy S21 Ultra get recognized by your PC, you need to have proper USB Drivers appropriate to your phone installed on your computer. And for that, you can follow the link below to download the correct Samsung USB Drivers on your PC.

• Samsung USB Drivers

Steps to Unlock Bootloader on Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra

1. Make sure that your device is connected to a Wi-Fi network with internet access and have enough charge.
2. Now, go to the device Settings menu > Wi-Fi > Connect to the network.
3. Go back to the main Settings menu > Check for firmware update from the Software update option and then download and install.
   
4. If an update is available, install it first.
5. Once done, you’ll need to enable the Developer Options on your device. To do this, go to the Settings menu > About phone > Software information > Tap on Build number 7-8 times until it shows ‘You’re now a developer’.
6. Go back to the main Settings menu > Scroll down and tap on Developer Options > Enable OEM Unlocking [If prompted, allow it].
7. Now turn off your device completely.
8. Press and hold the Volume UP and DOWN button on your Galaxy S21 Ultra and connect it to your PC
9. This will boot your device into Download Mode.
10. Once in the Download/Recovery menu, press and hold the Volume Up key until you can see the “Unlock Bootloader” screen.
11. Press the Volume Up key again to confirm the bootloader unlock process.
12. If prompted that all of the device data will be deleted, just proceed.
13. Wait for the process to complete and your device will reboot.
14. Enjoy!

Now, you’re good to go for full-fledged customization on your Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra. If you’ve any queries, let us know in the comment below. Till then stay tuned for more info.