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Samsung officially announced the new Galaxy S24, Galaxy S24+, and Galaxy S24 Ultra today, Jan. 17 at Unpacked 2024. New phone announcements are always intriguing, and these devices add some fresh features to the Galaxy lineup.
Galaxy AI
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Credit: Samsung
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Samsung is all about AI with the S24 series. Specifically, Samsung is referring to their tech as “Galaxy AI.”
Live Translate was one of Samsung’s focuses with Galaxy AI: The feature works during phone calls to translate both text and voice using on-device AI. If you’re chatting in-person, Samsung wants you using Interpreter, which splits your Galaxy’s screen in half—one part translating your side of the conversation, while the other translates your friend.
Chat Assist is a new feature that, like ChatGPT and other chat assistants before it, can attempt to edit the tone of your messages to match the intended audience. Android Auto will use Galaxy AI to summarize incoming messages and suggest responses. Note Assist in Samsung Notes will summarize notes and create templates, while Transcript Assist can transcribe, summarize, and translate your voice notes.
I’m most interested to try “Circle to Search:” Long press your Galaxy’s home button, then write on any part of the screen to search that element with Google. While many AI features range in usefulness, I could see this one catching on.
Powering some of this text and visual AI processing is a new partnership between Samsung and Google. The S24 lineup will be the first smartphones to use Google’s new Gemini Pro and Imagen 2 on Vertex AI, powered by Google Cloud, as well as Gemini Nano’s on-device processing, which no doubt fuels many of the features Samsung is announcing today.
Galaxy S24 specs
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Samsung’s phones are always powerhouses, and this year is no exception. The entire S24 lineup uses the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy chipset. Samsung particularly touts the improved NPU (neural processing unit) for AI processing.
All new phones come with displays with an adaptive refresh rate of 1–120Hz, and can reach 2,600 nits of peak brightness. On the Ultra, the display is made using Corning Gorilla Armor—Samsung claims it reduces reflections and is more durable to scratches.
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Galaxy S24: 6.2-inch display
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Galaxy S24+: 6.7-inch display
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Galaxy S24 Ultra: 6.8-inch “flatter” display
The Ultra has a 1.9x larger vapor chamber than before, which should help keep temperatures cooler during more demanding tasks, like gaming. The Ultra also uses a titanium frame, like the iPhone 15 Pro.
While some of Samsung’s new AI processes occur only on-device, others require internet access. You can use Advanced Intelligence settings to block this info leak if you want to make your Galaxy S24 experience more private.
Galaxy S24 cameras
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Again, it’s all about AI this year, and photography is no exception. All of the new Galaxy S24 phones use have a “ProVisual Engine,” which is the catch-all for Samsung’s AI photography tools.
Unsurprisingly, there are AI editing tools, as well, similar to the AI features seen on Google’s Pixel phones. The S24 will suggest edits for your photos, such as erasing irrelevant subjects, re-composing the shot, and remastering the image. If you do decide to alter your image, you can fill in the blanks with generative AI, and can even artificially add slo-mo to a video by generating new frames. We’ll have to see how well Samsung’s AI does here: It’s certainly a hit-or-miss feature.
One good step is that Samsung will generate a watermark whenever you edit a photo with AI, so it won’t be misinterpreted as an original image.
But it’s not just about the software for Samsung. The company added a new 5x optical zoom lens to the Galaxy S24 Ultra, part of its “Quad Tele System,” which uses the 50MP sensor to allow zoom from 2x, 3x, 5x, and 10x. There’s also a new enhanced digital zoom to lets you get up to 100x zoom with “crystal clear results,” if Samsung is to be believed.
All S24 devices have updated Nightography tools for Space Zoom. The Ultra has a larger pixel size (1.4 μm) and upgraded OIS, which should help eliminate shake.
S24 colors
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Like other companies, Samsung offers different color options for the different S24 tiers.
The S24 and S24+ come in Onyx, Black, Marble Gray, Cobalt Violet, and Amber Yellow, as well as Samsung.com-exclusive colors including Jade Green, Sapphire Blue, and Sandstone Orange.
The S24 Ultra, on the other hand comes in Titanium Gray, Titanium Black, Titanium Violet, and Titanium Yellow. If you buy on Samsung.com, you’ll have the option to choose Titanium Green, Titanium Blue, and Titanium Orange.
Environment and sustainability
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Like all tech companies these days, Samsung has a focus on sustainability and the environment in its announcement. These phones are made with recycled cobalt and rare earth elements. The S24 Ultra’s battery is made with a minimum of 50% recycled cobalt, while the speakers have 100% recycled rare earth elements and a minimum of 40% recycled steel.
The entire lineup is the first in the S series to use recycled steel and thermoplastic polyurethane, and the boxes each comes in are made with 100% recycled paper material.
S24 support
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Samsung is following Google in offering much longer software support than in previous phones. While the S23 has four years of OneUI support and five years of security updates, the S24 lineup gets seven years of support in both categories.
When is the Galaxy S24 available?
The Galaxy S24 series will be available starting Jan. 31, 2024, with preorders starting today, Jan. 17 through Jan. 30. If you preorder through Samsung, you can get a free storage upgrade, so you can go from 512GB to 1TB on the Ultra for the same base cost. You’ll also receive a $100 Samsung Credit.
How much does the Galaxy S24 cost?
Samsung is keeping prices mostly in line with other OEMs, although perhaps leaning on the more expensive side. The Galaxy S24 starts at $799.99, with 128GB and 256GB options. The Galaxy S24+ starts at $999.99 with 256GB and 512GB options. Finally, the Galaxy S24 Ultra starts at $1,299.99, with options for 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB.
Samsung is currently offering Samsung Care+ with Theft and Loss for 20% off with the purchase of a Galaxy S24 device.
Preorder a new S24 device through Samsung: