Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Review: The AI Secret Ingredient to Reclaim the Best Android Spot.The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra has arrived, and it's making waves with its cutting-edge features and AI enhancements. This flagship device from Samsung is poised to be the best Android phone of 2024. Building on the success of the Galaxy S23 Ultra, the S24 Ultra introduces significant upgrades, including a titanium frame, an improved telephoto sensor, and a flat screen. Let's dive into the comprehensive review of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and explore why it stands out in the competitive smartphone market.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Review: The AI Secret Ingredient to Reclaim the Best Android Spot
Design: A Refined Titanium Body
Samsung has opted for a more refined and continuous design with the Galaxy S24 Ultra. The back of the device is minimalist, with the camera lenses protruding directly from the body, eschewing a separate camera module. This design choice gives the phone a sleek and premium look, maintaining a consistent design language across generations.
The S24 Ultra features a glass back with titanium bezels, offering both durability and a premium feel. While the titanium frame does not significantly reduce the weight compared to the previous model, the overall build quality is exceptional. The device feels solid in hand, with no noticeable flex or creak. The flat screen is a welcome change from the slightly curved display of its predecessor, enhancing durability and usability.
Key Design Highlights:
- Dimensions: 162.3 x 79 x 8.6mm
- Weight: 233g
- Material: Glass back with titanium bezels
- Colors: Similar to the iPhone 15 Pro Max
Display: Spectacular Visuals with Enhanced Brightness
The Galaxy S24 Ultra boasts a 6.8-inch Quad HD+ AMOLED LTPO display, offering a refresh rate that adapts between 1 and 120Hz. This adaptive refresh rate ensures smooth visuals while optimizing battery life. The display is protected by Gorilla Glass Armor, which is three times more resistant to drops and four times more resistant to scratches compared to previous models.
One of the standout features of this display is its peak brightness of 2,600 nits, significantly higher than its predecessor. This makes the screen highly readable even in bright sunlight. Additionally, the screen has a PWM dimming frequency of 492Hz, reducing eye strain during prolonged use.
Display Specifications:
- Size: 6.8 inches
- Resolution: Quad HD+
- Refresh Rate: 1 - 120Hz
- Protection: Gorilla Glass Armor
- Peak Brightness: 2,600 nits
- PWM Dimming: 492Hz
Camera System: Versatile and Powerful
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra comes equipped with a versatile quad-camera setup, featuring a 200MP main sensor, a 50MP telephoto lens with 5x zoom, a 10MP telephoto lens with 3x zoom, and a 12MP ultra-wide lens. The front-facing camera is a 12MP sensor with an f/2.2 aperture, perfect for selfies and video calls.
The camera system leverages AI enhancements to improve photo and video quality. Features like AI-powered image processing, scene recognition, and real-time adjustments ensure that you capture stunning images in various lighting conditions. The improved telephoto sensor delivers sharper zoomed-in shots, while the ultra-wide lens captures expansive landscapes with minimal distortion.
Camera Specifications:
- Main Camera: 200MP, f/1.7, OIS
- Telephoto Camera 1: 50MP, f/3.4, OIS, 5x zoom
- Telephoto Camera 2: 10MP, f/2.4, OIS, 3x zoom
- Ultra-wide Camera: 12MP, f/2.2
- Front Camera: 12MP, f/2.2
Performance: The Power of Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3
The Galaxy S24 Ultra is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, ensuring top-tier performance for any task. This processor is paired with 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and up to 1TB of UFS 4.0 storage, providing ample space and speed for all your apps and media.
The device handles demanding games like "Genshin Impact" and "PUBG New State" with ease, maintaining high frame rates and smooth gameplay. The improved vapor chamber cooling system helps manage heat, though the phone can get warm during extended gaming sessions.
Performance Benchmarks:
- Geekbench 6 (Single/Multi): 2,248 / 6,987
- 3D Mark Wild Life Unlimited: 20,281
- PCMark Work: 20,467
Software: One UI 6.1 with AI Enhancements
One UI 6.1, based on Android 14, brings numerous enhancements and features to the Galaxy S24 Ultra. Samsung has incorporated several AI-powered features to improve the user experience. The new "adaptive color tone" adjusts the display's colors and white balance based on ambient lighting, ensuring accurate color representation in any environment.
The Always On Display has also been upgraded, allowing users to keep their background and widgets visible in a dimmed mode, similar to iOS. This feature can be customized to activate under various conditions, such as when the phone is tapped or when notifications arrive.
Notable Software Features:
- Adaptive color tone
- Enhanced Always On Display
- Improved battery management options
- Seven years of software updates
Battery Life: Long-lasting with Fast Charging
The Galaxy S24 Ultra is equipped with a 5,000mAh battery, supporting 45W fast charging and 15W wireless charging. The battery life is impressive, easily lasting a full day with heavy use. The adaptive refresh rate and efficient processor help conserve battery during lighter use, while the fast charging ensures that you can quickly top up the battery when needed.
Battery Specifications:
- Capacity: 5,000mAh
- Fast Charging: 45W
- Wireless Charging: 15W
Connectivity: Cutting-edge Technologies
Samsung has equipped the Galaxy S24 Ultra with the latest connectivity options, including 5G, WiFi 7, Bluetooth 5.3, and NFC. The device also features Ultra-Wideband (UWB) technology and USB Type-C, ensuring fast and reliable connections for all your devices.
Connectivity Options:
- 5G (2xNano + eSIM)
- WiFi 7
- Bluetooth 5.3
- GPS
- NFC
- UWB
- USB Type-C
CA Top Contender for Best Android Phone
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is a remarkable device that builds on the strengths of its predecessor while introducing significant improvements. The flat screen, enhanced camera system, powerful performance, and AI features make it a strong contender for the best Android phone of 2024. With a starting price of $1,499, it offers excellent value for those seeking a premium smartphone experience.
Key Takeaways:
- Premium design with a titanium frame
- Spectacular 6.8-inch AMOLED display with high brightness
- Versatile and powerful quad-camera system
- Top-tier performance with Snapdragon 8 Gen 3
- Enhanced software with AI features
- Long-lasting battery with fast charging
If you're in the market for a new flagship smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra should be at the top of your list. Its blend of design, performance, and features makes it a standout choice in the competitive Android landscape.
Galaxy AI
The One UI 6.1 update introduces "Galaxy AI," a suite of artificial intelligence features in collaboration with Google. Both companies have agreed to implement the Gemini models in Samsung devices, connecting to Google Cloud to power AI functions. Gemini is the successor to PalM, a multimodal model capable of understanding various types of information like text and audio.
This allows the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra to enjoy the following features:
Phone: Get real-time translations and transcriptions during calls. It works in both directions. Samsung Keyboard: Change the tone of conversations, real-time translation, spelling and grammar suggestions, etc. Interpreter: Simultaneous translation of spoken conversations, available in voice or text output. Samsung Notes: Automatic generation of summaries, corrections, or translations of handwritten notes. Voice Recorder: Voice-to-text transcriptions with speaker identification. AI-generated summaries. Samsung Internet: Web page content summaries, translations. Photo Editor: Intelligent suggestions and generative editing via AI. Circle to Search: AI-powered searches through contextual screen analysis. Generative Wallpaper Creation: Create wallpapers using generative AI. To avoid making this analysis too long, I recommend visiting the post where I detail each and every AI feature of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. Similarly, in the video above, I show the most special feature: call translation.
Although these features are detailed in the text, I want to share my experiences with the AI over time.
Circle to Search
"Circle to Search" is one of the most practical "AI" features. My first thought is that, aside from "Circle to Search," which is essentially a modification of Google Lens's contextual search applied to a specific screen area we've drawn, I had to force myself to use the AI features.
Samsung's AI mainly focuses on translations. If we don't frequently translate content, it will be difficult to find use cases. The most notable features are translations: of calls, websites, keyboard inputs, notes. These native solutions are mainly aimed at very specific user profiles who work with different languages daily. These features have tremendous potential but are not used daily unless you fit that specific profile.
After thoroughly testing these new features, I noticed that there is significant room for improvement in the translation model itself. It does not understand the context of conversations as well as other applications like DeepL.
For instance, in a conversation about plans, it translates "I am free this afternoon" to "soy libre" instead of "estoy libre." Or simple phrases like "That's alright" as "eso está bien" instead of "está bien," "vale," etc. It's also quite curious that WhatsApp translations do not match those from the keyboard. Here's what I mean:
- We write in the Samsung keyboard "momento perfecto para ayudarme..."
- The keyboard correctly translates it to "Perfect time to help me."
- The translation that appears in WhatsApp ends up being "Tiempo perfecto para ayudarme."
This might be because the model analyzes the conversation's context while typing. It can even suggest the tone. However, the translation we receive once the message is sent differs, as described.
Translations
The translations are still somewhat immature. They are mostly literal translations, good enough for communication but far from natural language. This is also true for calls, where the translation quality is poor due to its literal nature.
Coloring Black and White Images
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra can colorize black and white images, but not all of them. When it does, the results are spectacular.
Apart from translations, there are other integrated features, such as AI in the gallery. This includes options like colorizing black and white photos, adding portrait mode to photos that didn't have it, removing reflections or shadows from photos. On one hand, there are intelligent suggestions that allow activating the previously mentioned features.
If we want to go further, there is a replica of the Google Pixel 8's "Magic Editor." This editing tool, in collaboration with Google Cloud, can remove, move, or rescale elements. Samsung's main advantage in this aspect is that the photo doesn't need to be stored in Google Photos; it can work with any file in the gallery.
Whenever we generate an image with AI, a small watermark will appear. This is a transparency exercise by Samsung to indicate that the image has been modified.
The AI Capabilities of the Galaxy S24 are Impressive, but Integrating Them into Daily Use Depends on the User Profile
In summary, the AI's potential is unquestionable. It summarizes web pages, translates whatever we want, creates wallpapers based on word combinations. These are correct, useful, and practical approaches. However, as someone who spends their life testing phones, I've rarely felt the need to use these features.
One thing to keep in mind is that Samsung's AI will be free until 2025. The company has not stated that it will be paid in 2026, but it seems likely that this will happen in a couple of years. Although some features can be executed locally (without sending our data to Google's server), this does not mean the phone is not connected to Google Cloud, as confirmed by Samsung. In fact, a Samsung account and an internet connection are required to use the AI features.
