Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Review: Brought Back The Smartphone Charm

Samsung on 17th January 2024 launched 3 flagship devices Samsung Galaxy S24, Samsung Galaxy S24+ and Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra globally. We had the chance to witness the amazing launch. Also, we have been testing the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra for quite some time now. Here are our initial thoughts.

Design:

We have been testing the Titanium Grey variant of the phone and it looks absolutely stunning. Rear camera module compliments the color. Titanium frame not only makes the phone light but also feels premium.

Moreover, the anti reflective coating is winning praises across social media and is truly phenomenal. The coating by Corning minimizes the reflections compared to predecessors and competition. Great while using the device in the sun and also while watching OTT to avoid self reflections.

The symmetrical bezel is more pleasing especially for people with OCDs. The glass used at the front is the Gorilla Glass Armor, one of the strongest glass available in the market.

The only downside which we feel is that the phone feels lot rectangular on the edges due to flat screen. Samsung could have figured out way to keep the edges curved while maintaining the flat screen for better grip.

Some other color options are: Titanium Black, Violet, Yellow, Orange, Green and Blue with last 3 as online exclusive.

Display:

Samsung has switched from curved display in S Ultra series to a flatter one this time. The curved display is difficult to maintain plus the screen protectors are expensive. Also, the replacement cost of curved screen is more than the flat one. One more thing, the S Pen works better on a flat display. We believe it’s a good move taking usability into account.

The display is Dynamic LTPO AMOLED with 120Hz refresh rate. The peak brightness is 2600 nits compared to 1750 nits in S23 Ultra. The device is bright enough to use in day light. The display gives great scrolling feels. Great display coupled with refresh rate and One UI 6 makes the overall experience amazing.

Battery:

The device has a 5000 mAh Li-Ion battery and supports 45W wired as well as 15 W wireless charging. 5 star praises for the battery of Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. We tested it and in low to moderate (towards low) use, it lasted around 2 days. On normal usage, it can easily last more than a day.

Galaxy AI:

Samsung Galaxy AI is actually a great move. What's new which Samsung did? Significant, we would say.

Here's an answer.

1. True, lot of AI stuff was there on web but there was hardly any smartphone which had curated things the way Samsung did it in the latest series. Giving you the analogy of the app ecosystem on phones. There were already hotel booking, ecommerce and social media websites available. Users could have directly accessed them and get things done leaving lot of free storage on device. Still people install these apps for ease and apps were considered a great move.
2. The AI websites are there, agreed, but the reliability factor which Samsung brought matters. We can't trust every second website for security issues. Samsung has gained trust over time and has also talked about the security aspect being covered.
3. There are some reliable AI websites and companies. But most of the stuffs from those companies were paid or on some prime subscription. Samsung as of now is giving these services for free till 2025. It may or may not make it premium going forward.
4. On device AI: The online AI tools need internet to perform task while in Samsung Galaxy S24 series one can do some of the AI stuff on phone itself without the need of the internet.
5. Samsung has come up and cherry picked use cases of AI that fits smartphones. So the overall package looks good.

Some of features which we liked about the Galaxy AI are:

1. Interpreter: Translates from one language to other that too offline. Doesn’t work perfect but decent for having a conversation. Interpreter illustration here.
2. Circle to search: Simply circle the object in image and you get Google results.
3. Generative AI wallpapers: There’s an option to generate customized wallpapers. Here is an illustration.
4. Chat Assist: Helps in formulating a message according to different tones like formal, social media, casual, etc.
5. Transcript Assist: Based on the conversation it can generate transcript and also differentiates between different speakers.

One of the best things I liked about the launch of Samsung Galaxy S24 series was "AI and security" being talked together. It is very nice of Samsung to talk about the AI capabilities and at the same time focussing on security being taken care of, which gives an assurance that the "double edged sword" AI is safe on Samsung devices. This is something very few vendors do in their presentation.Extra brownie points to Samsung for this.

Processor:

The device is powered by 高通 Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy on all variants across globe. The SoC is based on 4nm technology and is arguably the best Android smartphone processor. Team Qualcomm has customized the generic 8 Gen 3 especially for Samsung by overclocking it. As an end user, it provides great experience in gaming, scrolling, camera and other aspects of using the smartphone including AI.

Camera:

The rear camera setup on the device is 200 MP+50 MP+12 MP+10 MP while the selfie camera resolution is 12 MP. Based on our experience, we would say that the camera module is amazing and is more natural compared to predecessors. Fine tuning has been done to reduce the extra vibrancy which we saw in previous models. Interestingly, the 10X optical zoom has been replaced with 5X optical zoom due to change is periscope camera. This will be getting mixed reactions but we believe the usage of 5X is more compared to 10X and Samsung with its excellent image processing has kind of cracked great quality 10X digital zoom. The video quality is pretty decent however I still feel the shutter lag while recording the video. We have done a detailed camera review of the device on X (formerly Twitter) and you can have a look there for different sample. Overall pretty decent setup.

You can access it here.

Verdict:

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra feels like one of the most complete phone in today’s time. Ranging from powerful processor to camera setup to professional work to gaming and scrolling experience, it can do all things pretty nicely. The inbuilt S Pen and large enough screen makes it capable to do most of the tasks. Of course there are some limitations like squared edges making the grip difficult, Galaxy AI being amazing but still not perfect, shutter lag, etc., but overall the device is awesome to fulfill most of the requirements. Not to forget that this device with the help of Galaxy AI has brought back the smartphone charm back in the industry. 0.25 million of Samsung Galaxy S24 series got pre-booked in 3 days compared to 3 weeks for same amount of S23 series. For 3 weeks to 3 days, its amazing.