The Galaxy S21 Ultra will be Samsung's new ultimate phone when it goes on sale next year. But for better or worse, it will share a lot of photography hardware with Samsung's previous model.

Ice Universe, long known as a Twitter leaker, has made some interesting claims about Samsung's first 2021 flagship phone. Details are below, but the bottom line is that the rear camera could be the same as the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra.

The headline detail is that Samsung will again use a larger 108MP sensor on the Galaxy S21 Ultra. Samsung is actually working on an even larger camera sensor than this, but 108MP will still top the list in terms of total resolution.

This camera is also expected to be joined by an ultra-wide angle camera and a telephoto camera; we have heard that the S21 Ultra could have two telephoto lenses, one 3x and one 10x. However, that has yet to be confirmed.

The 108MP camera will have a laser focus sensor, but no time-of-flight (ToF) sensor; the Galaxy S20 Ultra's main camera had trouble focusing on subjects, but in the Note 20 Ultra Samsung solved this problem by employing laser autofocus. In fact, according to our tests, the camera did an excellent job.

IU also provided more technical details, but camera fans may be disappointed to hear that it is exactly the same as before: the 108MP resolution remains the same, and while we could have expected a different chip, it appears to be the same HM3 CMOS with 0.8 micrometer pixels.

The Note 20 Ultra is currently one of the best camera phones available, second only to the iPhone 12 Pro. Therefore, the similarity between the Note 20 Ultra and the S21 Ultra likely means good things for the S21's photo performance. However, Samsung needs more post-processing enhancements to keep up with the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro.

Another recent tweet from Ice Universe mentions minor improvements to the "next Galaxy" in the form of smaller display chin bezels. The first tweet in this thread praises Apple for making the iPhone 12 mini's bezel the smallest ever, but IU then mentions that the Galaxy S21 will also have ultra-slim bezels.

The size of the bottom bezel is a fairly minor consideration for most users. But, as IU said, it shows the engineering and design skills capabilities of the handset makers.

We already know that Samsung is thinking about this as well, with its recent patent for an ultra-thin "blade bezel"; combined with the possibility of QHD resolution and the return of 120Hz refresh rates, this could be a truly impressive display

Usually Galaxy S series phones debut around February, as the Galaxy S20 did. However, according to a recent Galaxy S21 release date leak, it will instead be announced on January 14, 2021. This is speculated to be in response to the iPhone 12 series, which is expected to be a big seller due to its late launch, the widest selection of sizes to date, and 5G support.