Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
From RM6,299.00
Pros
- Galaxy AI is excellent
- Titanium body is lighter, stronger
- Great camera
- Flat display is better than curved
- Powerful performance
Cons
- Heats up on long camera use and gaming
- That is all...
Another year, another Android phone of the year made by Samsung. There is no doubt that Samsung is the current king of the Android world. And for a good reason. No other phone makers can even come close to what Samsung has achieved in the past decade. They were even the first makers to come up with a foldable phone, and they have revolutionised the whole foldable phone arena.
From the time of the first S series, it has become a flagship for Samsung. I still remember my first S1, and that was aeons ago. It was probably the best Android device at the time but they were still making their way up the hill with strong contenders from other makers. Today, they are sitting comfortably at the top, and I do hope they will stay there.
Fast forward to 2024, Samsung’s new powerhouse is back. This time, with Galaxy AI. The new Samsung Galaxy S24 series is ploughing through 2024 with a bunch of cool AI features that blows everyone’s mind. Mine included. And I had a really great time reviewing and testing Samsung’s new flagship, the new Samsung Galaxy S24 UItra.
So hold on to your guardians, we are checking out a whole new Galaxy in this review.
First Look and Design
The new Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is made beautifully. With a new titanium body and a much squarer design, the whole aesthetics is rigid and better than the predecessor. The screen for the display is totally flat, as opposed to a curved edge on the S23 Ultra. I loved the design of the S23 UItra, but the S24 Ultra feels, almost perfect. The flat display made it more premium and better, in my opinion. And the clean, squarish feel around the edges made it nicer to hold.
First up, the front display stands at 6.8” in screen size with Dynamic LTPO AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate to ensure smoother scrolling animation. No doubt, Samsung is still the best when it comes to displays. The 2600 nits peak brightness on the display shines bright even under sunny conditions, with colours popping out vibrantly, all thanks to the HDR10+ feature. The display is also protected by Corning Gorilla Armor, the strongest Gorilla glass so far.
Looking at the right side of the titanium body, there’s the volume rockers and the power button. Nothing much going on the left and top side other than the microphone, but you can find the SIM tray, USB-C port and the bottom firing speaker at the bottom. The Galaxy S24 Ultra comes with a stereo speaker, with the second speaker doubling up as the earpiece for making calls that sits at the top under the display, just above the 12MP front facing camera.
The ultrasonic under display fingerprint sensor is located near the bottom of the front display. Good thing it is located higher up than most other under-display fingerprint sensor phones because now, it is easier to reach and unlock. Some phone makers tend to place the under-display sensors near the bottom edge of the display, making it a little harder to reach at times.
Around the back, we see the flagship cameras placed neatly in line that is now a standard for Samsung devices. It looks flush and neat, in my opinion, without having any camera bumps at the back. The camera system has improved vastly from the previous generation and it has now been upgraded with the AI touch. The 200MP main wide angle camera is the star of the show for taking high resolution photos and videos. But the 50MP periscope telephoto camera with 5x optical zoom is really fun to use. More on the camera later on.
The overall design of the new Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra feels much better and I do prefer it being more “squarish”. The flat display is a welcome feature as I have gotten bored with curved displays over the years. The titanium body made the whole device feel stronger, yet lighter, which is a big win for me.
Performance and Daily Use
This year in 2024, we are beginning to transition into AI for most of the flagship and essential devices. AI technology has become a norm and we can see it everywhere in our daily lives nowadays. It is no surprise that the new Galaxy S24 Ultra is all about AI, making it the first smartphone with full AI support for simple tasks like searches, calls and real-time speech translation. I am going to dive a little more into the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s AI features, so let’s go.
First of all, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is powered by the latest and greatest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, a chipset that is made with AI in mind. It is supported by 12GB of RAM and up to 1TB of storage space, so that you can have ample space for all your photos and videos. The Galaxy S24 Ultra is no child’s play. It is a device made for professionals and gamers alike. With an added AI technology, this Galaxy smartphone becomes smarter.
So what can you do with the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s Galaxy AI technology?
Have you ever had to take notes on your phone before? As you may already know, the Galaxy S series comes with the S-Pen for quick note taking. You can scribble away on your Galaxy S24 Ultra in the Samsung Notes app but not having a proper formatting. It is just a bunch of scribbles, right? With their new AI feature, your “scribbles” can be turned into proper text and you can format your note beautifully with Galaxy AI. And you will have a few options on how the formatting will look like. Awesome!
Circle to search is another one of my favourite features on the Galaxy S24 Ultra. Using the S-Pen, you can do some magical things with the Galaxy S24 Ultra. Think of it as your very own magic wand. If you have a random photo of an object or a photo of an object without any known details, and you want to find out more about that object, you can take out your “wand” and circle the object. Just like magic, you will be shown all the details regarding that object. If it is a product, you will be shown the product details along with links on where you can purchase the product. Super cool!
Another Galaxy AI feature that can be useful is the live translation for text and voice. Do you have a friend who doesn’t speak your language or is having trouble with English? You can now chat with your friends from another part of the world in your own native language. For instance, you are typing your text in Mandarin, and your friend is typing in Korean. Both languages will be translated automatically in your own language in real-time! The power of AI is strong in this one.
For live speech translation, it works similarly to the text translation. Only this time, your speech will be translated automatically in your recipient’s native language. For this instance, you’re speaking in English, and your friend who can only speak Mandarin will hear your speech in his/her native language. It goes both ways. Your friend will reply in Mandarin, but you will hear it in English. This is probably the coolest feature on the Galaxy S24 Ultra, and on any mobile devices for that matter.
I give my hats off to Samsung for having all these AI features on their new Galaxy S24 Series. This is one of their biggest leap forward for the future and the future of AI in mobile devices.
As for the normal day to day usage, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is nothing short of excellent. You can have multiple apps running in the background for multitasking and yet, it doesn’t break a sweat. The most used feature (by me at least), is the Samsung DeX. With the Galaxy S24 Ultra, I don’t actually need a laptop or a PC to continue my work remotely. All I need to do is connect the Galaxy S24 Ultra to a monitor or TV via the HDMI to USB-C adapter, and I will have my “computer” ready for me to work on. All I need is just a Bluetooth keyboard as the Galaxy S24 Ultra can also be turned into a trackpad mouse. Very easy and convenient if you’re always on-the-go.
I don’t need to talk much about the performance of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. With Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, most of us will know that it is a performance beast. If you’re into gaming, the Galaxy S24 Ultra will perform way above average. Thanks to its punchy stereo speakers, you will have an immersive gaming and entertainment experience, all the time.
I connect my Samsung Galaxy Buds2 Pro to the Galaxy S24 Ultra for gaming. It has a much lower latency in terms of connectivity between the two devices and it is a very pleasant earbud to use while gaming. As usual, I will have my PUBG Mobile installed on the Galaxy S24 Ultra and I made sure that I set the graphics setting to the highest possible. With its large 6.8” AMOLED LTPO display, gaming on the Galaxy S24 Ultra feels like I’m on another level of fun. Gameplay is very smooth and fluid. The responsiveness on the touches are great. Every movement is quick and accurate. I don’t remember when was the last time I had so much fun playing games on a phone. But the Galaxy S24 Ultra feels just right this time.
Another performance test I did was on the Antutu 3D benchmark. The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra managed to secure a total of 1812882 points on Antutu 3D, closing up to the 2 million mark. This is an impressive score, sealing the deal on the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s real-life performance.
To power it all up, the Galaxy S24 Ultra comes with a 5000mAh battery. For the battery endurance, I can go close to 2 days of usage. It went down to 25% after 24 hours of using the device from 100% capacity. Battery life is definitely better this time around and to charge it up to 100% again, it took just under an hour.
Camera System and Photography
Samsung has always had their focus on the camera systems. It goes back to the days of S4 series, where smartphone cameras became a necessity for social users. Every year, new features are added to make the camera as good as possible. Fast forward to 2024, Samsung has almost perfected the camera. I said almost because nothing is perfect. So I’ll say, it is close to perfection. Much better.
Let’s recap on the new Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra’s camera system:
- 200 MP, f/1.7, 24mm (wide), 1/1.3″, 0.6µm, multi-directional PDAF, Laser AF, OIS
- 10 MP, f/2.4, 67mm (telephoto), 1/3.52″, 1.12µm, PDAF, OIS, 3x optical zoom
- 50 MP, f/3.4, 111mm (periscope telephoto), 1/2.52″, 0.7µm, PDAF, OIS, 5x optical zoom
- 12 MP, f/2.2, 13mm, 120˚ (ultrawide), 1/2.55″, 1.4µm, dual pixel PDAF, Super Steady video
- Video: 8K@24/30fps, 4K@30/60/120fps, 1080p@30/60/240fps, HDR10+, stereo sound rec., gyro-EIS
- Selfie camera: 12 MP, f/2.2, 26mm (wide), dual pixel PDAF
My go-to camera will be the main 200MP camera. It is a versatile camera that can capture anything that I point to with great details. Colours are accurate and punchy. The HDR feature managed to balance out between the dark and the light areas. Details on a subject are on point, with seamless transition between the background and foreground subject, and creating a nice bokeh effect for portrait shots.
When you’re using a Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, you can’t go wrong when it comes to the camera. The 50MP periscope telephoto camera is great for portrait shots and thanks to its 5x optical zoom, you can also capture a photo of a full moon with ease. Too bad during the time I was testing the Galaxy S24 Ultra, there was no full moon at night. But I had the chance to capture a photo of the full moon with the Galaxy S23 Ultra in the previous year.
As we all know, Samsung’s camera system has vastly improved over the years. Same can be said about the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s camera system. I can only show you the results, you have to be your own judge when it comes to the real-life performance and results. Have a look at the photo gallery below, taken with the new Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.
Conclusion
One of the main features of the new Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is the AI capabilities. With Galaxy AI, it changed the way we use our smartphones and it is only going to improve moving forward. Whether we want it or not, AI is going to take over our daily task management and ease our burden on the extra work that we need to do. At least, this AI technology is not going to take over our whole life like “Skynet”.
Samsung’s AI features are very intuitive, easy to use and it does make our lives easier, especially when it comes to searching the web and formatting our notes. The S-pen has also improved, becoming easier to manage and use for most of our daily tasks. My personal favourite, the Samsung DeX. It’s like having a full blown computer in my pocket, all the time. I wonder why other companies or brands have not come out with something like DeX, for 2024 and beyond? Samsung wins this one in my book.
Performance wise, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is simply wonderful. No matter if you’re an avid gamer or a professional who multitasks all the time, the Galaxy S24 Ultra will do everything to throw at it with ease. It is the phone of the year for most of us tech geeks. Nothing beats the features and functionalities of a Samsung flagship in a very long time. And they will remain the best of Android for years to come.
If you’re thinking of getting a spanking brand new Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, you can head over to Samsung’s official online store and it is retailing starting from RM6,299.00.
