Samsung's first 2021 flagships are shaping up to be rather unremarkable in the battery department, with newly emerged certificates suggesting no notable improvements in terms of raw capacities. More specifically, China's telecom authority CCC just certfied a pair of batteries believed to belong to the Galaxy S21 and Galaxy S21+, identified as the EB-BG991ABY and EB-BG996ABY, respectively. We'd already learned about the latter several weeks back, and today's 3C certificate gives more credibility to that earlier sighting as it once again points to a cell with a rated capacity of 4,660mAh.
As for the EB-BG991ABY, the same certification points to a 3,880mAh rating, which would suggest a typical capacity in the ballpark of 4,000mAh. In other words, the base Galaxy S21 (SM-G991) model will likely offer no changes in terms of battery capacity over this year's Galaxy S20.
Similar battery capacities don't necessarily equate to identical battery life
The Galaxy S20+ successor, on the other hand, will seemingly deliver a more meaningful upgrade as far as raw figures are concerned, because the now-twice-confirmed 4,660mAh rating should amount to a typical battery capacity of about 4,800mAh. For added context, the integrated cell of the Galaxy S20+ offers 4,500mAh of typical capacity.
Of course, minor capacity improvements don't necessarily mean the upcoming Android flagships won't offer significantly better battery life in real-world scenarios. But they do make that possibility less likely, especially for the international models expected to utilize the Exynos 1000 SoC, as most recently illustrated by Samsung's struggles with the Exynos 990 over the course of this year.
In any case, it's worth remembering that Samsung still hasn't firmly decided how it's going to call the successors to the Galaxy S20-series devices. Besides “Galaxy S21,” another obvious candidate for the name of the upcoming lineup is “Galaxy S30.” The company is likely to make a final decision on the matter by the end of the year, around the time its new flagships have their first trial production run. As always, the Galaxy S21/S30 family is expected to launch in the first quarter of 2021, most likely in February.
