Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra review – The era of AI Smartphones has arrived

If you have not read our unboxing article, click here to find out. With that said, this will be the full review covering the remains of the experience and performance, and some features of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.

A Recap Before we start

3 phones were introduced during Galaxy Unpacked 2024, the Samsung Galaxy S24, Galaxy S24+, and S24 Ultra. The S24 Ultra is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen3 for Galaxy while the Galaxy S24 and S24+ is powered by Exynos 2400 5G SOC with RDNA 3 from AMD driven by the latest XClipse GPU. Galaxy AI is the main highlight and soon will be available on selected previous Galaxy S and Tab S series phones and tablets. All Galaxy S24 series will be receiving Android updates, OS upgrades and security patches up to 7 years from the first day of unveiling.

Design

From the outlook perspective, if you are looking it from a far, it may look the same, but there is still key differences. First off is the new material on the body frame, the Titanium frame is the new take on the phone, where it stands out looking at the frame, bringing in two tone color on the overall device looks. Despite that, the colors brings changes to it as well, where all of the colors are not too bright when looking at it, kind of muted, but the approach is still pleasing on the eye, a flagship class phone that is built on the right material with quality in it. Weight wise, it is 232 grams and in comparison, not that too far off compared to the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. The floating camera placement remains the same which we will talk about it in the camera segment.

From the protection perspective, it uses the latest Corning Gorilla Glass Armor which is the latest you can get from Corning, and this one is several times tougher and improved. Another thing that is retain, that is the ever IP68 water and dust resistant is present too in this phone along with the new designed flat panel instead of curved on the screen, which honestly, still handles ergonomically well with good slight rounded edges on the body. The screen to body ratio this time is rated to close to 89%, making it among the closest gap towards the end of the screen.

Suffice to say, the rest of the placement, button, SPen stowing area, speakers location and charging ports remains pretty much the same, however if you are using your existing Galaxy S23 Ultra casing, its not gonna fit, as the dimensions are slightly different, hence you might wanna consider getting a proper casing that fits.

Display & Audio

The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra has a big, sizable 6.8 inch, LTPO Dynamic AMOLED 2X, 120Hz refresh rate screen which can dynamically go down to as low as 10Hz when static or idle. In addition to that, the new flat screen design is one of my favorite aspect, which is better grip and held, as well as fluidity over touching and tapping quite easily without worrying about mistouch over the edges of the screen. Speaking of which, the glass is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Armor, I suppose that is the one of the top glass you can find in a flagship level phones with better protection, better scratch resistance and able to withstand some light accidental drops. The Display is HDR10+ compatible, along with brightness that peaks up to 2500nits, as well as certified for L1 Widewine for DRM streaming apps.

I do notice some improvement over the audio, and that is much fuller with better vocal and music separation allowing better listening experience and from the interface/UI side, everything remains pretty much the same, which allows you to toggle Dolby Atmos, adapt sound features (which allows user to set hearing preferences according to age) and customized equalizer for those who wanted to tune things further.

Camera

Rear : Wide : 200MP OIS
(F1.7, 0.6µm)
Telephoto : 50MP AF
(F3.4, 5x, 0.7µm)
10MP AF
(F2.4, 3x, 1.12µm)
Ultrawide : 12MP AF
(F2.2, 1.4µm)
Depth Sensor : Laser AF sensor
Front : 12MP AF
(F2.2, 1.12µm)

Close up Shots

One aspect that this phone has improved from the previous S23 Ultra that it has better stabilization now, this applies to both photo and video taking modes, where this time the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is been able to capture objects intelligently within the frame and focuses better. Distance shot is better as well, whether is day or night, while I did praised before that the S23 Ultra is good enough, this one is way improved with better sharpening and clarity when zoomed, we took a 5X zoom test and most of the imagery element and details are still retained. If you are a fan of close up shots, this phone does it exceptionally well with good focusing and color reproductions are close to accurate. In a nutshell although the overall camera configurations may seem similar to last year, but the AI, Software and the SOC combined is pushing all the goodness it has to process images and videos better, faster and cleaner.

Portrait and Selfie camera is capable of crop/zoom up to 5x too, and it is still ever remarkable with better foregrounder and background identification, thus creating an excellent bokeh selfie though zooming in is in cropped mode, but then as long you don’t lose much of the details, the clarity and accuracy still remains as one of the major improvement.

Another improvement aspects is the video recording, although Dual Video is available on S23 series, this time you can adjust the resolution from 1080P 30FPS to 4k 30FPS, giving it better resolution on dual video recording. For normal video recording, you can do that up to 8K at 30FPS although over day to day usage, 4K at 60FPS seems nice enough with smoother motion and better stabilization .

Expert RAW, Pro Mode, Night Mode, Hyperlapse, Panorama, Slow Motion is available under the more section allowing more options on your photo and video taking style while the Gallery side is upgraded allowing smarter AI object removal, faster fill in and one tap remaster mode.

Galaxy AI Features

So these are the Galaxy AI features notably you can get from the Galaxy S24 series, I will be doing a separate guide on a few notable features that one may use on the phone. Some of the features require the internet/cloud to process thing, while some does it locally.

Circle to Search : By long pressing the HOME key, users can now activate circle to search by circling on object sighted on camera, or on your screen on your applications including the browser to initiate search that gives you the results from descriptions to shopping listings including price over the web, or information of the item, object, or subject in general.

Call Assist : This option enables calls to be translated live with voice two ways up to 13 languages almost an instant without internet/data connectivity and Samsung will still be adding new languages along the way. Among the notable languages supported : English, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Korean, German, Italian, Chinese(Simplified), Japanese, Hindi, Polish, Thai, and Vietnamese.

Chat Translation : Enables on device direct translation on 13 languages including sending messages, replying messages and receiving messages two way, with only a single party using any of the S24 series phone. Major 3rd party apps including WhatsApp is supported.

Style & Grammar : Uses AI to determine a line of sentences and changes draft sentences or messages to 5 different tone of writing, Professional, Emoji, Casual, Social, and Polite.

Auto Formatting and Correction : Allowing handwriting and typed information including notes to the auto formatted and spelling fixed. Formatting can be selected if different options, with multiple language supported with translation.

Web Translation and Summarize : This feature can be used independently or combined with Samsung Internet browser, allowing a part or the whole webpage to be translated, summarize, or both at the same time with easy readable text format. Text translated or summarized can be copied and pasted to another app, such as Samsung Notes.

Performance, Software, Benchmarks

It’s no surprise that it gets some of the substantial upgrades from the internal. The Galaxy S24 Ultra comes with the latest flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen3 for Galaxy (a slightly overclocked version) along with up to 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and to up 1TB of internal fast UFS 4 storage. This provides one of the top in gaming and multitasking, while this essentially gave an upper edge when it comes to AI processing as well.

Driven by Android 14 and OneUI 6.1, the overall interface bring the major Galaxy AI features in, along with some of the minor updates and fixes that houses several key favorites such as the Gaming Hub, RAM expansion up to another extra 8GB of virtual RAM, Samsung DeX, Bypass Charging while gaming, multi window, Edge Panel and split screen just to name a few.

Based on the usage, the Galaxy S24 Ultra houses a 5000MAh battery which will get you around a full day of use and slightly more if you are just using moderately over some calls, browsing, a full 2 hour movie and a few gaming sessions. Playing Genshin Impact this time holds longer towards the 60FPS mark before getting throttled after 40 minutes, this is because the vapor chamber is improved with the added titanium body that helps heat dissipation faster. Recharging with a 45w charger will get you back to full about one hour.

SPen is now more useful than ever, although specifications are similar to the one that the S23 Ultra has, but because of the flat screen, it felt more natural writing and drawing on it, apart from that you can use the SPen button to initiate command such as camera shutter or Circle to Search.

Last but not least, here are the benchmark scores, which indicate top marks and definitely a monster flagship at the point of this writing.

Technical Specifications

Verdict & Conclusion

The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is putting more focus on software this time, particularly over the heavy pack Galaxy AI features, but that is just one part, the hardware gets some of top of the line specifications that you can get in a phone today. For the price you are paying for, it is worth a shot especially if you are looking at performance, work and play all together in a phone that accompanies you with great longevity support of updates and improvements. This is just the beginning only as Samsung exemplify what Galaxy AI can do, and this will just get better from time to time.

Pricing & Availability

All of the mentioned Samsung Galaxy S24 Series will be available on or after 18th January onwards on Pre-Order. For more information, CLICK HERE to find out on the Galaxy Unpacked offers.