With the Galaxy S24 Ultra, Samsung has made several improvements to what was already the ultimate Android smartphone package.
Summary
Design and build
This year, you get a new 5x zoom camera on the back, a brighter and flatter screen, and a revamped design. The appearance remains quite similar to before, with separated camera rings and squared-off corners, but this year the screen is flat, not curved. The frame is made of titanium instead of aluminum on the S24 Ultra, and the back has a smooth satin-like finish. As before, Stylus support is present, and you can store the stylus within the phone itself.
There doesn’t seem to be anything new about the S Pen this generation, and both the S Pen and the phone itself have IP68-rated ingress protection against dust and water submersion, similar to last year’s model.
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Display on Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
Screen specs
The S24 Ultra features a 6.8-inch QHD AMOLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate. With its flat display, the S24 Ultra is now better suited for screen protector use, eliminating sloped edges that could interfere with navigating interfaces or doodling with the S Pen. The display is quite sharp at 505 PPI, and it has even slimmer bezels this time around. Both the screen and the back are protected by a new glass called Corning Gorilla Armor, known for being up to four times tougher against scratches and impact. This glass also provides a 75% reduced glare for improved visibility.
Features
This year, the phone can use HDR while you’re browsing through your gallery or Google photos. The 120Hz refresh rate is extra adaptive, able to dial down while idling to save energy, ranging from 24 Herz to 1 Herz with certain content. The Galaxy flagships have received a brightness boost this year. On the Ultra, it maxes out at over 750 nits with the manual brightness slider and can boost to nearly 1,450 nits in auto mode when needed. It’s worth mentioning that at very low or minimum brightness, you may notice a bit of graininess when looking closely, a minor detail that didn’t exist in last year’s model.
Audio and storage
The S24 Ultra boasts a pair of stereo speakers with very good loudness, and the sound quality is great, including noticeable low-end presence. You can wake up and unlock the phone with the under-display fingerprint reader, which is quite snappy. The phone comes with storage options of 256GB, 512GB, or a whole terabyte on board.
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Android 14 and UI
The S24 Ultra runs on Samsung’s new software package, One UI 6.1, based on Android 14, bringing refinements and new AI-based features specific to the new flagships. Additionally, the S24 lineup gets a whole 7 years of software support from Samsung.
Chipset: SnapDragon 8 gen 3
Unlike the other S24 models, the Galaxy S24 Ultra comes with the same chipset, no matter where you buy it – Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. It’s a customized version of the chipset with a slightly higher-clocked Prime CPU core, providing better overall performance than last year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, especially in ray tracing for games. The chipset also brings advanced support for AI processing. In benchmarks, the S24 Ultra sits in the same ballpark as other top flagships, with significantly better scores than last year’s model.
The S24 Ultra is slightly more powerful than the Exynos 2400 versions of the Galaxy S24 and S24 Plus, but the difference may not be noticeable in real-world use. The S24 Ultra features a more advanced passive cooling system than last year, with a larger vapor chamber. However, there was still significant thermal throttling during stress tests, though it occurred gradually without abrupt dips.
Battery life and Charging
Powering the Galaxy S24 Ultra is a 5,000mAh battery, the same as the previous generation. The new model performed slightly better, exhibiting small improvements in screen-on tests and achieving an overall active use score of 13 hours and 49 minutes. Like last year, the S24 Ultra supports 45W charging, providing decently fast charging with a proper adapter and 5-amp cable. Charging from 0 to 69% takes half an hour, while a full charge requires 65 minutes. The device also supports wireless charging and reverse wireless charging.
Cameras
Similar to last year, it includes a 200-megapixel main camera, a 10-megapixel 3x zoom camera, and a 12-megapixel ultra-wide camera. However, instead of a telephoto with 10 times zoom, there’s a new 50-megapixel, five-times zoom camera, designed to deliver optical-level quality at 10 times as well.
Main camera
It captures appealing photos with vibrant colors and excellent, relatively natural-looking details. While there’s a bit more sharpening than in the other S24 models, it seems to strike a better balance. In low light, the main camera excels, producing well-balanced exposures, wide dynamic range, and accurate color rendition. It maintains nice fine detail with conservative sharpening, and though there is some noise in the shadows, it’s an acceptable trade-off. The new model performs slightly better with fine detail than the S23 Ultra, showcasing more relaxed noise reduction and leaving a bit more grain but finer textures.
Zoom capabilities
Starting at 3x, this camera consistently performs well, delivering solid results with very good detail and fine grain. Moving on to the new telephoto, the 5x zoom shots exhibit impressive detail and minimal noise, along with great dynamic range and likable color rendition. This camera also excels at capturing close-ups in Pro mode. Comparing it to the S23 Ultra’s 3x telephoto, the S24 Ultra maintains good detail levels and noise performance, although the S23 Ultra’s 10x photos from its dedicated telephoto offer slightly better definition.
Ultra-wide camera
Shifting focus to the ultra-wide camera, it remains unchanged from the previous generation, with photos that are similar in many ways. There might be a slightly improved rendition of detail compared to the S23 Ultra. The ultra-wide remains the only Galaxy with an ultra-wide camera featuring autofocus, enabling sharp focus on nearby subjects.
Selfie camera
The selfies continue to be among the best, featuring great detail, controlled noise, true-to-life skin tones, pleasing color rendition, and wide dynamic range.
Records video
The Galaxy S24 Ultra records video in up to 8K at 30 FPS, with both its main camera and five-times telephoto. All rear cameras consistently deliver accurate colors and excellent detail in videos. Video stabilization is superb on the S24 Ultra, effectively eliminating walking shake and ensuring smooth panning.
In low light, you can expect high-quality 4K footage from the main camera, showcasing accurate exposure, wide dynamic range, and maintained colors.
Conclusion
The Galaxy S24 Ultra stands out as a fully premium package, meeting the expectations of Samsung’s top flagship. It introduces commendable upgrades this year, including new build materials, a flat and brighter display, a new telephoto camera, and improved camera processing. The faster chipset and extended software support further contribute to its appeal. While there are a couple of minor issues, the S24 Ultra deserves a wholehearted recommendation.
