Rating: 4.5/5
Samsung’s Galaxy S series launch events have generally showcased new hardware, better cameras, improved displays, enhanced performance, and cutting-edge technologies. However, at Unpacked 2024, the introduction of the Galaxy S24 series shifted the focus away from hardware upgrades and placed a prominent emphasis on Galaxy AI. Samsung dedicated more attention to this aspect than the latest generation of components, such as the chipset, camera, and battery.
AI is in trend these days and Samsung leveraged it to offer a host of features clubbing them together under a single umbrella called “Galaxy AI”.The deal here is how much of those Galaxy AI features are actually useful or they are merely a gimmick that Samsung is using to set their flagship apart from the crowd and the competition.
Samsung hasn’t shied away from the hardware updates either. The Galaxy S24 Ultra has gone through some small and big changes. The phone has now got a titanium frame, a new bright and flat display, topped with Corning’s new Gorilla Glass Armor for reduced reflection and added durability.
There’s this new 5X 50MP telephoto sensor, a bigger vapour chamber that’s targeted to keep the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 calm and composed.
It looks all bright and shiny on paper and feels like this is the phone. But is it actually that good? Let’s find out.
Design and display
What’s new is the frame. It’s titanium instead of aluminium. This adds to the premium touch, smooth feel and flattened-out sides add to the grip as well as durability of the phone. The Titanium Grey colour variant feels fresh and is also brand new for that added freshness and professional feel.
In terms of the overall design of the phone, it’s not a huge departure from the previous-generation Ultras. And, we are not complaining. It’s a good and functional design and in all these years, Samsung has improved it to add that added feel-good factor.
The curved display is no longer the staple of Galaxy S Ultra phones. Galaxy S24 Ultra features a 6.8-inch completely flat display which makes the phone feel slimmer and more robust. Bezels are now a lot slimmer even at the chin making it symmetrical on all sides. And, we have to say it looks nice.
More than that, it solves the screen guard and cover problem for Galaxy S Ultra buyers. Another major change is the 2400-nits from 1750-nits on the S23 Ultra. This may not seem like big, but makes a big difference. Things are clearer, sharper and thanks to the Gorilla Glass Armour that S24 Ultra comes with, it is less reflective. All things combined make everything visible without any distractions in all sorts of situations. The biggest problem with most smartphone displays out there is that they are barely visible when using the camera outdoors in bright daylight and with that amount of brightness and fewer reflections, the viewfinder is clearly visible all the time.
The Dynamic AMOLED 2X QHD+ resolution panel is vibrant and has rich colours and Samsung has also added HDR support to make the videos and the content being viewed appear more accurate and true to the original.
Galaxy AI vs practicality
Samsung shipped the Galaxy S24 series introducing Galaxy AI aka a host of new AI-powered features. The good thing is that the feature distribution is well thought out, allowing apps and services to benefit from them throughout the device in one way or another.
Our favourite is Samsung Keyboard’s “Writing Assist”. It includes three features — Chat translation, Writing style and Spelling and grammar. It works across the device, given you stick to the keyboard. The generative AI-powered Writing styles are versatile and offer multiple options to choose from. It gives you different versions of the statement you’ve entered in the text field and comes in handy in situations where we can’t even imagine. The Translation and Spelling and grammar options, as their name implies, do their job well. The Translation feature also works with WhatsApp and a couple of other apps like Instagram.
AI extends to the Phone app in the form of Live Translate. It offers real-time translation for calls, a handy tool if you have clients speaking different languages. Another feature based on similar grounds is the Interpreter. It is a real-time translation app, but when you are talking to someone in person. Samsung has also updated the Galaxy Buds with the option to act as an additional microphone for both the features and offer real-time translation and interpretation.
We tried doing it with English and Hindi and while things are not perfect, they get the job done.
Another feature you’ll find is Galaxy AI’s summarise feature in Samsung Notes and Samsung Internet. In Notes, it can auto-format randomly written (including handwritten ones) notes, organise, summarise and even generate a cover for it to make it look more appealing in the list. Voice recorders with Galaxy AI can transcribe, translate and also summarise them for better understanding. AI in Samsung Internet can do a couple of things like summarising an entire website. For instance, you can open this review on Samsung Internet and ask it to summarise it.
The integration goes deep enough. For instance, if you receive a message in Hindi on WhatsApp, you’ll get a popup notification to translate it into English or one of those 13 currently supported languages. Sure, there’s a small curve of learning, but it takes a couple of days to rewire the brain to get used to them.
The Galaxy AI appears to be that one big thing, one big change that we’ve been waiting for in the smartphone segment.
There’s one more thing – On-device processing – at least for the most part of it. Apart from features that rely on generative AI, what happens on the device, stays on the device. That said, Samsung has tucked all these options under “Advanced Intelligence” settings along with the on-device processing option.
Software and improved integration
One UI has always been that polished custom user interface in the entire Android ecosystem that’s fully loaded with features and offers the simplicity that people expect from their phones.
One UI 6.1 follows the same concept. The redesigned notification toggles to smooth animations and added features are all there.
Samsung has also made the animations linear which makes them fly fluid and that enables the smoothest Android experience with Galaxy S24.
Apart from this, the Samsung Galaxy S24 series is also the first to get Google’s new Circle to Search feature. It’s a party trick, but a useful one. So, you liked someone’s shoes on Instagram and don’t know the brand or where to get one. Press and hold the home button or the bottom bar to trigger the circle to search, tap on the shoes and voila. You have all the answers. It also allows users to extend the search by entering more context in the text format. The best part is that it works everywhere, anywhere and for all sorts of stuff, with a simple gesture.
The elephant in the room is seven years of software support with the entire Galaxy S24 series which sets a new benchmark in the smartphone industry. That means the Galaxy S24 series will be updated to Android 21 (or whatever Google will call it seven years later). Now, this ensures that the phone stays relevant for long and users don’t have to worry about the security or new features down the line.
Performance and battery
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy. Which is a custom-tuned version of the 8 Gen 3 that offers slightly boosted performance. Also, the handset defaults to 12GB LPDDR5X RAM and up to 1TB UFS 4.0 storage.
With Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, Qualcomm has talked a lot about improving the on-device AI processing and that clearly shows on the Galaxy S24 Ultra. The handset, when processing on-device, is fast and responsive. In fact, this has also brought overall processing up to the speed.
Apart from the AI performance boost, the Galaxy S24 Ultra, in general, is a snappy smartphone as a daily driver. Apps and games load faster, multitasking is smooth like butter, the apps remain running in the background and the bigger vapour chamber helps it maintain the cool.
As a powerhouse, it renders videos faster with the UFS 4.0 and LPDDR5X RAM. Plus, the chipset’s relatively efficient nature keeps the battery life in check too.
Gaming performance is also managed well. Genshin Impact, Shadow Fight 4: Arena, and Call of Duty, all run at impressive frame rates. Also, the performance is sustained well during long gaming sessions thanks to the bigger vapour chamber.
Overall, the Galaxy S24 Ultra offers a power-packed performance that can handle all the things one can think of without breaking any sweat.
And yes, the magic wand – S Pen – is still there with all the features we’ve known and loved for years.
Camera
There are four cameras at the back, like the Galaxy S23 Ultra. The camera sensors are largely unchanged. It has the same 200MP f/1.7 main sensor with OIS, the 12MP f/2.2 ultra-wide and a 10MP f/2.4 telephoto with 3x optical zoom. The fourth camera has changed from the 10MP 10x telephoto to an all-new 50MP 5x telephoto that captures pixel-binned 12MP shots to retain more details.
The new 5X telephoto lens is far more practical and usable than the previous 10x telephoto. Plus, the added resolution is welcomed. The new sensor paired with the all-new AI multi frame processing, AI Super Resolution and Quad tele system, makes S24 Ultra the perfect zoom machine with 2x, 3x, 5x and 10x bands where Samsung says, it uses the bigger sensors to crop in at the core level and add all-sort of required touches to make them look as good as the optically zoomed shots. And we aren’t complaining. The new telephoto lens is impressive with the details and dynamic range. Plus, it delivers rich photos. The good thing is that it works in regular mode as well as portrait mode for that added natural-looking background blur
10x telephoto is gone, but not the phone’s ‘ultra zoom’ capabilities. The phone can still zoom all the way to 100X for those moon shots and the quality difference between the 10x to 100x (S23 Ultra) and 5x to 100x (S24 Ultra) is marginal. The 50MP resolution compensates well for the lack of optical range on the phone and thanks to Samsung’s new algorithm, there’s not much of a difference.
The primary 200MP sensor is largely unchanged. It has got the same dynamic range, the same processing, you get the idea. However, the colours are tuned towards delivering more natural colour outputs. And, it is impressive. The colours and the skies are closer to what they look like in the real world. Also, the detail retention in daylight conditions is on another level.
When it comes to low-light photos, the wider OIS implementation helps the phone capture faster in night mode and even process better. The low-light photos are rich, have plenty of details and look colourful.
Videos have also improved and Samsung has used the same algorithm to improve the overall camera quality as well. The quality is on point with a good amount of details, focusing speed has improved too. Videos are now a lot less noisy in low-light conditions. The phone can do up to 8k videos at 30fps and the slow motion has been boosted to 4k at 120fps.
Samsung has partnered with Instagram and Snapchat to support the HDR10 output from the Galaxy S24 series phones. This allows users to post on Instagram and Snapchat without compromising on the quality.
AI in camera is no longer a concept. Galaxy S24 Ultra uses generative AI to slow down any video and even export it with the slow motion applied to it and it works for any video, recorded from any phone, or downloaded from any device. All it needs is more than 720p and less than 8k resolution.
The Samsung Gallery app also comes integrated with Galaxy AI. This includes the new object eraser, reflection eraser, and the AI-based custom suggestion for each photo to make them better.
But, the biggest one is the new “Generate” feature in the “Edit” option. It can create things for you. For instance, We used this to create an entirely new platform for Vande Bharat train using the Generate option. It was interesting to see what it can do. It can also be used to fuse two photos and create a new one, or simply remove the flower, a person or anything else one might want to use. The possibilities are endless here. Sure, it’s not perfect, but impressive for a first-generation product.
To keep things on the ethical side, Samsung also incorporates the Galaxy AI icon at the bottom left corner of the image as well as in the metadata.
Battery
Galaxy S24 Ultra comes with a 5000mAh battery with 45W fast charging support, 15W wireless charging and it also supports reverse wireless charging. We weren’t expecting the battery life to change much considering the battery capacity is the same. So, it’s easily a one-day phone with moderate to heavy usage. The phone also gets charged from 0 to 100 in around 1 hour 15 minutes.
To protect the battery health, Samsung has added a new Battery protection feature that has three modes — Basic, Advanced and Maximum. We liked the Adaptive mode which is a combination of Basic and Maximum. The mode charges the battery to 80% when the user goes to sleep and then switches the charging mode to Basic which prevents the battery from charging unless the battery level drops to 95%.
Verdict
Galaxy S24 Ultra is a package that takes premium smartphones out of those hardware boundaries that brands usually don’t want users to see through. So, beneath that new chipset, the design update or so-called “What’s new, what’s new”. The new here depends on ‘you’. There’s a new experience in every way you can think of. Whether you want to call the new suite of AI features new or the 50MP 5x telephoto camera, that beautiful titanium finish with a flat display, slimmer bezels and brighter panel with less-reflective coating. Your call.
But, it’s not only the experience that matters. Accessibility is important too. Sure, it isn’t cheap at Rs 1,29,990, but it certainly delivers what’s expected from a Samsung Galaxy S Ultra smartphone. That said, if you want a phone – a premium phone – with money to spare, the Galaxy S24 Ultra has everything you could ask for. From cutting-edge hardware to the practical array of AI features, it’s all packed within the sleek and enticing package that speaks “money well spent”.