The New Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra May Make You Rethink AI

The Samsung Galaxy S24 is here, and Samsung is giving its flagship mainstream Android smartphone a healthy dose of AI. Before you roll your eyes and accuse the South Korean company of jumping on the artificial intelligence buzzword bandwagon, Galaxy AI isn't some nebulous marketing ploy. Instead, it helps the Galaxy S24 Ultra oust unwanted people and objects from photos, tweak your tone to not upset your boss in emails, and do real-time translation in calls and messages.

As we've seen in previous years, Samsung's improvements are evolutionary, not revolutionary. Even now, 2023's Galaxy S23 Ultra is a more-than-capable Android flagship: to expect a complete reinvention would be missing the point. Even in foldable phones, there's no escaping the feeling that Samsung has a working formula and is now focused on refining it.

Samsung

For the Galaxy S24 Ultra, that means polishing its photography talents, adding on-device AI — with actually useful applications — and making small but potentially meaningful tweaks to the overall hardware. Meanwhile, for the Galaxy S24 and S24+, it's a case of similar fettling, filling in the more mass-market price points.

At first glance, the Galaxy S24 Ultra looks much like its predecessor. In reality, it's thinner — at 0.34 inches — and, for the first time in a Galaxy device, uses a titanium frame (yes, just like a certain Apple smartphone). Total weight is 8.22 ounces, despite Samsung still including an in-phone silo for the bundled S Pen stylus.

The body is now textured for better grip, while there's Corning Gorilla Armor glass on the front for reduced reflections. The bezels around the 6.8-inch QHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X display — with a 1-240Hz variable refresh rate — are 42% slimmer than before, while peak brightness has increased. The Galaxy S24 Ultra can now crank up to 2,600 nits peak for a claimed 40% bump in outdoor visibility.

Samsung

Inside, too, things are more potent. Qualcomm's customized Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy will be inside U.S.-spec phones, with 12GB of RAM and 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB of storage. Samsung says the new chip should be better at things like ray tracing in games and run cooler thanks to a larger vapor chamber. There's still space for a 5,000 mAh battery inside the IP68 water and dust-resistant casing, plus fast wireless charging, 5G, and Wi-Fi 7.

Photography has long been a key selling point for Samsung, and the Galaxy S24 Ultra is no different. While the camera bulge is smaller than last year — protruding 11% less, the company says — there's now a 200-megapixel wide camera, 12-megapixel ultra-wide, 50-megapixel 5x optical zoom, and a 10-megapixel 3x optical zoom. All but the ultra-wide have optical image stabilization (OIS). The front camera is 12-megapixels, with an 80-degree field of view.

The raw specs don't reveal the improvements, however. For example, the OIS' corrective angle has been doubled over the Galaxy S23 Ultra, Samsung says, while night photography should show much more detail and less noise from both the front and rear cameras. The S24 Ultra can better distinguish between the movement of the photographer and that of the subject for stabilization purposes, while colors should be more natural, too.

However, it's the AI-powered processing of the ProVisual Engine where things get really interesting. There's better object recognition and improved photo and video enhancement; the phone can now suggest context-appropriate edits based on the frame's content, with the S24 Ultra learning your preferences over time and using that knowledge to improve its tweaks.

Previous models could remove unwanted details from the frame, but the Galaxy S24 Ultra's Generative Edit can now extract objects, move, and resize them, automatically smoothing the area left behind. Photos can be reframed and have their orientation changed with AI-powered refill (Samsung will add a watermark to the image and its metadata to make clear it has been AI-manipulated), while normal videos can be switched into slow-motion with AI creating additional frames to avoid jerkiness. 

It's all part of what Samsung is calling Galaxy AI, a blend of on-device and — optionally — cloud-based processing for multimedia and more. Write messages with the onscreen keyboard or S Pen, and Galaxy AI can suggest tone changes whether you're talking to a colleague or a friend. Samsung Notes now has Note Assist, with summaries, translations, and auto-formatting in notes, along with corrective fixes like straightening for handwriting.

Samsung

The voice call app supports two-way, real-time translation in up to 13 languages and 17 dialects, and there's language translation for text for up to 13 languages. Since that — like the Chat Assist tone adjustment — is built into the keyboard, it'll work across both Samsung and third-party apps. An Interpreter app does live voice translation into text, all carried out on-device with no data connection required. 

Voice Recorder can transcribe, translate, and differentiate text between different speakers, while Browser Assist can whip up instant AI-powered summaries and translations for the site you're viewing. Circle any part of the screen after long-pressing the home screen button, and you can instantly image search with Google.

The Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ may lack the S Pen, but they still have the same processor and Galaxy AI features. The S24 has a 6.2-inch Full HD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X display, and the S24+ a 6.7-inch Quad HD+ version; both have the same 1-120 Hz variable refresh rate, 2,600 nits of peak brightness, and Corning Victus 2 glass. Rounded edges on the Enhanced Armor Aluminum frames should also make them easier to grip.

On the back, both phones have a 50-megapixel wide camera, 12-megapixel ultra-wide, and a 10-megapixel 3x optical telephoto. There's a 12-megapixel front camera, too. The S24 has a 4,000 mAh battery (100 mAh more than last year's phone) and 8GB of RAM with either 128GB or 256GB of storage; the S24+ gets a 4,900 mAh battery (up 200 mAh) and 12GB of RAM, with either 256GB or 512GB of storage.

Samsung

As for connectivity, there's 5G and Wi-Fi 6E, plus Bluetooth 5.3. All three phones run Android 14 with Samsung's One UI 6.1; the phone-maker is promising seven years of security updates and seven generations of Android OS upgrades.

Pre-orders of all three phones kick off today and run through January 30, 2024. The Galaxy S24 Ultra is priced from $1,299.99 and will be offered in Titanium Black, Yellow, Violet, and Gray. Samsung's pre-order perk includes upgrading the 1TB version of the phone when you order the 512GB model.

As for the Galaxy S24+, that starts at $999.99, while the Galaxy S24 starts at $799.99. Both will come in a choice of Cobalt Violet, Amber Yellow, Marble Gray, and Onyx Black.

Samsung will also have a range of new accessories for the S24 family. That'll include a new Standing Grip case with a kickstand, a Clear Gadget case that's transparent, and a redesigned Silicone case made from a variety of recycled or ecologically sound materials. There'll also be a Smart View Wallet, which promises to fill its preview window with more contextually relevant information.