NEW 2024 Samsung Galaxy S24 Series! First Hands-On Experience | Galaxy S24, S24+ & S24 Ultra

This is the new Samsung Galaxy S24 series, and not only do they have some great hardware updates, but the software has some really HUGE updates because Galaxy AI is here, and it’s all on this new phone.

 

Build Quality & Design

So, the significant design changes come to the S24 and the S24+, where they have a more overall boxier design and a more rounded edge to the point where the phone can even stand on its own. Yes, it did feel good in the hands during my first hands-on experience. 

As for the S24 Ultra, the screen is slightly changed too, with a flatter screen build overall, making the phone easier to grip, even with a phone this huge in size. The Ultra also comes with not only a brand-new Titanium color but also a Titanium finish with a matching Titanium S Pen. 

Speaking of the S Pen, yes, that is here to stay, and one thing I’ve noticed is that the S Pen gestures have been heavily improved. It was way more responsive this time compared to the S23 Ultra, which was my current daily Android smartphone.

However, this titanium finish is only for the S24 Ultra, as the other two siblings still have the aluminum finish. Based on me owning the S23 Ultra, holding this new titanium finish was great, but there’s no significant difference in weight since the previous S23 Ultra was in aluminum, and there’s only a 2 grams difference between the two. So, if you’re wondering about a difference in weight, that’s your answer.

A very interesting update is that all of the S24 variants, whether it’s the regular, the Plus, or even the Ultra, have a matte finish. It is the first time that Samsung has done this for the entire series. 

Then there’s also the new introduction of the Corning Gorilla Glass Armor, which is stronger than the previous versions and also reduces light reflection by 25%. Also, the first smartphone to have this brand new Corning Gorilla Glass Armor. 

 

Display

The screen sizes have slightly increased, where the S24 is now 6.2 inches from 6.1, and the S24+ is 6.7 inches, up from 6.6. Impressively, all models now feature the adaptive refresh rate ranging from 1 to 120Hz, a step up from the previous 48 to 120Hz, which was on the S24 and the S24+. 

Then the resolution on the base Galaxy S24 is FHD Plus (2340 x 1080), and the S24+ has been upgraded to the similar high QHD resolution (3210 x 1440) like the S24 Ultra. 

The bezels are the slimmest ever on any Samsung smartphone, and paired with the Dynamic AMOLED 2X Display that offers up to 2,600 nits of peak brightness makes this the best smartphone display currently available.

 

Camera

The cameras on the S24 and the S24+ are also identical, but the S24 Ultra comes with a brand new telephoto camera that is capable of up to 5x optical zoom, also known as the Quad Tele Zoom Lens

This brand-new 50MP lens is capable of recording up to 8K resolution, even at this 5x zoom, and since it comes with OIS too, you can expect very stable video even at this level of zoom. 

The lens is also really good in low light, soaking up to 160% more light. Now, this means that even in dim places like concerts, your photos and videos won’t lose any detail, and it even works with Samsung’s Nightography feature even when zoomed in at 5x.

 

Battery

Battery-wise, the S24 Ultra has a 5,000 mAh battery, and the S24+ has 100 mAh less.

But both phones have the same quick charging capabilities up to 45W, compared to 25W on the S24, which has a smaller 4,000 mAh battery due to its smaller form factor. 

And, of course, all of the phones have fast wireless charging up to 15W

 

Processor

Now, the chipset selection was quite an interesting one, as the S24 Ultra comes with a 4nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 For Galaxy, which is once again the overclocked version tuned specifically for Samsung smartphones, and the other two siblings come with the Exynos 2400 chipset, which is also built on a 4nm process. 

Both chipsets support Ray Tracing and have better cooling capacity overall for all of these phone lineups. But of course, stay tuned for my further testing to find out how well these chipsets perform during my in-depth review. So, subscribe if you guys haven’t done so, and thank you very much in advance.

 

Galaxy AI

The biggest highlight, of course, is the software features, as Samsung has introduced a new Galaxy AI feature for all of these brand-new phones. 

First, there is Call Assist For Real-time Translation.

Now, imagine you’re in Korea and need to make a reservation but don’t speak Korean. Well, no problem because with Call Assist, you can just talk in your language, and it translates you in real-time. 

Now it works with 17 different languages, and you don’t even need the internet. The best part is that the other person does not even need a fancy new smartphone either, or maybe even a dumb phone is fine. Now, it uses Bixby voice, which you can either select a male or a female voice.

Next, there is Chat Assist For Text Translation, which is a real-time conversation translation in a text format. This works for apps like WhatsApp, Instagram DM, Facebook, Google, and Samsung Message, Kakao, Line, and even Tango as well. 

So what happens is that you type in your language and hit the translation button, and voila, it translates your text right there, and you can see both languages at the same time to make sure that it’s not misinterpreted. 

In the keyboard menu, you can also select the writing style for situations where you’re quickly writing particular info like maybe wedding dinner, at KLCC, bring flower, 9th Jan etc. You can change the writing style to Professional, Casual, Social, Polite, and Emojify. Imagine how fast you can type extremely quickly with this cool AI feature.

Then there is Note Assist, which comes in clutch for situations where you’re quickly writing notes on your keyboard or even on your S Pen. Convert them to text and even autocorrect the tone similar to the writing style. 

There’s also Auto Format for your notes to put them in point forms and even change the colors of the format too.

Then there is Auto Summarize, which is a fantastic tool for summarizing long articles. 

There’s also Auto Translate for entire web page articles, specifically for the Samsung browser. 

Next is the Advanced Photo Editor AI, which is similar to generative AI where it can manipulate the images by readjusting its orientation to fill in the extra spaces or background fill through the generative AI imaging, adding additional items or another picture into your shots taken, reorder, resize, or just remove them altogether. 

There’s also the Reflection Remover where if you take a photo that has a reflection, you can remove that accordingly without you specifically selecting where the reflection is, as AI will detect where the reflection or the shadow is in the image. It comes in handy when you take pictures of the window side of the plane where you usually see your reflection, and now that will be gone. It is really sweet to know.

If you want to take a regular photo and want to add in a blur after that but you forgot to use the portrait mode, well, you can blur the photo right after taking a shot thanks to this AI feature. 

Then the final AI feature is called Circle to Search With Google, and this was quite mind-blowing too. It’s like Google Lens on steroids! 

How this works is that if you’re watching a video on say TikTok or YouTube and you find out something that you want to know more about, just press and hold the home button and circle what you want to know. There will be a Google search results based on that object. How cool is that? You can do the same by selecting text or words too. 

Once again, this is something that I’ll be doing an in-depth review or how-to on this new AI features. So, stay tuned for that.

Of course, for the software front, these devices are on Samsung’s latest and greatest One UI, which is version 6.1 built on Android 14. I’ll do an in-depth look at this new UI as well when I get my hands on these review units. 

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