From the Pixel 8 Pro and the iPhone 15 Pro Max at the end of last year, to the OnePlus 12 this January, it’s been a great time to be in the market for a new smartphone. And despite stiff competition, one phone has managed to stand out above the rest, at least as far as how it blends performance, style, and features: the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. It’s a strong enough contender that I’d be willing to ditch my iPhone and make the jump to Android.
Design and display
Credit: Joshua Hawkins
One of the first things you used to notice about a Samsung were its curved “infinity edges.” These edges are gone now. I didn’t mind them on the OnePlus 12, but I’ve never been the biggest fan of the design, so I applaud the S24 Ultra’s return to a flat panel—for no other reason that it makes the phone look absolutely gorgeous.
Samsung has also taken the titanium plunge this year, bringing the lighter metal to the body of the S24 Ultra. It leaves the phone feeling light despite its large size, and the overall look of the device is sleek. The back does tend to attract fingerprints, but that’s something many smartphones struggle with these days.
Beyond the display’s form, its function is pretty darn impressive too. Samsung has delivered a beautiful AMOLED 6.8-inch display, with a resolution of 3120 x 1440 pixels and an adaptive refresh rate of 1-120Hz. Samsung has also upped the display brightness to a peak of 2,600 nits, making it brighter than last year’s S23 Ultra, though not quite as bright as the OnePlus 12’s 4,500-nit peak. Still, that’s more than bright enough to view the display in bright sunlight, and I never experienced any issues seeing what I was doing on the screen, or even watching videos while outside or under bright lights.
Overall, the design and display blend together to create something that feels good in the hand and delivers consistent visuals, no matter what you’re doing or the viewing conditions.
Specs
Credit: Joshua Hawkins
How do the specs of the Galaxy S24 Ultra stack up against the other flagship devices released over the past six months? Here’s a look at the complete specs:
SoC: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3
RAM: 12GB
Storage: 256GB, 512GB, 1TB (No expandable storage)
OS: Android 14 with OneUI
Display: 6.8-inch AMOLED at 3,120 x 1,440 pixels, with a 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate
Battery: 5,000 mAh
Charging: 45W wired, 15W wireless
Rear Camera: 200-megapixel (wide), 12-megapixel (ultra-wide), 10-megapixel (3x telephoto), 50-megapixel (5x telephoto)
Front Camera: 12-megapixel
Battery and performance
Credit: Joshua Hawkins
The Galaxy S24 Ultra is running on a version of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor. This one has been optimized for Samsung devices, and it feels snappy whether I’m playing games, browsing the internet, or just moving between apps like Discord, Messages, and my email. The onboard AI (more on that in a bit) is responsive, including instant translations, one of the flashy AI features Samsung has brought to the Galaxy S24 series.
As benchmarks go, my own tests in Geekbench 6 revealed the S24 Ultra performs on par with other flagship devices, scoring 2139 in single-core and 7092 in multi-core. For those not familiar with benchmarks, these systems essentially simulate a series of real-world activities to see how fast the phone can process them. The higher the score, the faster it processed those tasks.
For some additional context, the S24 Ultra performed faster than the OnePlus 12 did when using its high-performance mode, despite the two running similar Qualcomm chips. The iPhone 15 Pro Max still scored slightly higher, especially in multi-core, than the S24 Ultra, but I personally experienced smoother gameplay on the S24 Ultra when playing intensive apps like Genshin Impact.
The S24 Ultra has ray tracing capabilities, which generates more realistic lighting in games. While shadows do pop a bit more in some games, this isn’t something that’s going to sell more phones in the long run. Like ray tracing on computers and gaming consoles, it’s a nifty feature, but not quite a game changer just yet.
All that performance typically comes at a cost to battery, but the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s 5,000mAh battery is more than up to the task. Throughout my time testing, I was often able to use the phone for over a day without charging it. However, if I spent an unusual amount of time watching videos, listening to music, or playing games while out and about, I found it helpful to carry an extra charger around to top things off so I didn’t run out of charge before I got back home. For most typical usage, you shouldn’t have any issue getting two days out of the device; if you watch a lot of TikTok or YouTube, or play a ton of games—or dig into the AI features a lot—you’ll probably max out at a day to a day-and-a-half.
Camera
Credit: Joshua Hawkins
Samsung has always delivered solid camera systems, though they tend to be a bit more saturated in color than some of the other options out there (like the Pixel 8 Pro and the iPhone 15 Pro Max). Provided you like that more saturated look, the S24 Ultra delivers a pleasing camera experience.
One thing that people are likely to be interested in is Samsung’s move from a 10-megapixel sensor with 10x zoom to a 50-megapixel sensor with 5x zoom. The change is a good one, and ultimately you aren’t going to see a huge difference between the photos taken with the S23 Ultra’s 10-megapixel sensor and the 50-megapixel sensor at 5x zoom. There are definitely some improvements to the overall detail captured in the photos, but it isn’t something everyday users are going to notice. The S24 Ultra still delivers smoother and more detailed zoom photos than any other smartphone on the market right now, and that 50-megapixel sensor is putting in a good bit of work to make that happen.
Low-light photos provide plenty of detail, though I did notice they aren’t as bright as those taken by the Pixel 8 Pro or the iPhone 15 Pro Max. This isn’t a big issue for me personally, as I feel those two devices often brighten the photos a bit too much; for me, the S24 Ultra is certainly winning in that regard.
The new AI features that let you magically erase and edit photos work well, though I will say I noticed a few more hiccups with Samsung’s AI eraser feature than I have with Google’s comparable Magic Eraser on the Pixel.
But what about the AI features?
It’s becoming more and more common for smartphone to push AI features, and Samsung’s latest is no different. The S24 Ultra ships with a ton of new AI features of varying impact, including the new Circle to Search, which lets you circle items on the screen to trigger an intelligent Google search.
Another new AI feature is Live Translate, which takes advantage of real-time translations during voice calls. It’s a great feature you’ll get a lot of use out of, provided you talk with people who speak other languages. The feature is processed natively on the device, which is great for convenience and security. You won’t need an internet connection to use it, and your data isn’t going through some Samsung or Google server.
If you’re talking in person, you can make use of the new Interpreter option, which builds off Live Translate to transcribe conversations in-person in real-time. Again, it works well and operates on-device as well. The translation function also expands to the keyboard, so you can type messages then translate them in real-time.
AI also powers summarizations in the Samsung Notes app, and helps you create custom emojis from photos. Samsung has also added Magic Compose—a feature already on Google phones—to help you create and edit your messages. Then there are the aforementioned AI photo editing features, which include one-tap prompts to edit photos, remove unwanted items, and more. The prompts are cool in theory, as they allow you to completely change how a photo looks by adjusting entire elements of it at once (for example, removing all shadows), but in practice, this is pretty hit or miss in my experience. Like anything AI, it doesn’t always play out the way you want it to, and requires some finagling to get it to the right spot.
There are also new video editing effects, including Instant Slow-mo, which creates a slow-motion video without jarring stutters or frame drops. Samsung has also included a transcription assist feature in its recorder app, so you can start transcribing your recorded conversations right on your phone.
While all of these features are cool, and certainly add some nice qualities to the phone, many of them are also available on Google-made phones like the Pixel 8.
The bottom line
Put all of that together, and the Galaxy S24 Ultra is easily Samsung’s strongest phone to date, blending great features with some of the best performance I’ve seen on a smartphone. It doesn’t have many exclusive AI features, but what’s there is generally impressive. If you can stomach the high price, it’s a great Android phone that will serve you for years to come. It might even be enough to get me to make the switch from Apple.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is currently available to preorder and costs $1,299.99 for 256GB, $1,419.99 for 512GB, and 1,659.99 for 1TB. For thee best deal, you can preorder it on Amazon using the code “FEA7SP3UFDJN” and get a $200 Amazon gift card.
