Samsung S24 Ultra Review - Goodbye iPhone
# Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Review: A Definitive Look at the Flagship Phone
## Design and Build Quality
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra has had a controversial launch, with debates swirling around its design, performance, and features. One of the standout aspects of this phone is its **build quality**. While Samsung swapped the aluminum frame for titanium, the overall durability remains questionable. Despite being careful with the device, the reviewer noticed several small scuffs on the sides, exposing the thin matte texture layer. However, the design itself has aged well over time. The flat screen, curved body, and sleek borders make it aesthetically pleasing, while the anti-reflective glass significantly reduces glare—an improvement that feels like a logical evolution in smartphone screens.
## Software Experience
Transitioning back to Samsung after years with an iPhone, the reviewer was pleasantly surprised by the **software improvements**. The new One UI is smoother and more visually appealing, with consistent animations and fluid app transitions. Voice notes are now crystal clear, and the phone feels snappier overall. The lock screen has also been revamped, offering more customization options, such as resizable clocks and themed styles. Dark mode, in particular, stands out, with its dark gray tone adding a modern touch without overwhelming contrast.
However, not everything is perfect. The face scanner is slow and lacks the reliability of infrared 3D scanning found on iPhones. Audio quality is slightly inferior to the iPhone, and the lack of MagSafe wireless charging feels like a downgrade. Additionally, Samsung’s push toward its own services, like Samsung Pass, can feel intrusive, with constant prompts to download apps or set up new features.
## Camera Performance
The Galaxy S24 Ultra’s camera system has been a hotly debated topic. While it doesn’t break new ground in terms of raw output, the improvements are notable. The camera feels more refined and enjoyable to use, with smoother animations and faster capture speeds. The screen’s brightness also helps in viewing what you’re shooting. However, some users might feel disappointed that the camera hasn’t reached the next level in detail or low-light performance.
One standout feature is the **generative image editor**, which allows for creative adjustments to photos. While it’s a powerful tool, it can feel more like digital art than traditional photography, which may not appeal to everyone. The AI-powered translation and summarization features are also impressive, especially for users who need to communicate in multiple languages or manage notes efficiently.
## Galaxy AI Features
The integration of **Galaxy AI** into the S24 Ultra is a mixed bag. On one hand, the instant translation feature works across messaging apps like WhatsApp, making communication easier and more inclusive. The AI summarization tool for web content and notes is particularly useful, helping to organize thoughts and save time. Circle to Search, which allows users to highlight objects or text on their screen and receive information about it, is a game-changer that feels like a glimpse into the future of search technology.
However, not all AI features are without flaws. Live call translation struggles with real-time accuracy, and the reliance on Samsung’s online servers for these features introduces potential costs and limitations. The company has clarified that these services will be free until 2025, but users may still feel uneasy about hidden charges.
## Processing Power and Gaming
The S24 Ultra packs a powerful chipset, making it one of the fastest Android phones on the market. While gaming performance is top-notch, prolonged use can lead to thermal throttling, causing a slight drop in performance during intensive tasks like emulation or gaming benchmarks. Despite this, the phone’s battery life impresses, lasting up to 9 hours on a single charge—much longer than previous Samsung flagships and its iPhone counterpart.
## Signal Concerns
A significant downside is the **signal quality**, which has been inconsistent for the reviewer. Outside, the phone often struggles with two to three bars, and indoors, it drops to one bar during storms. While this issue may vary depending on location and network conditions, it’s a notable flaw that could deter potential buyers.
## Conclusion
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is a significant upgrade over its predecessor, offering improvements in design, software, and AI features. While it doesn’t completely overhaul the smartphone experience, it fixes many of the long-standing issues users had with previous models. The decision to replace an iPhone with this phone comes down to personal preferences and whether the added features justify the cost.
For those already invested in the Samsung ecosystem, the S24 Ultra is a solid choice, especially if you’re looking for cutting-edge AI tools and long-term software support. However, users who prioritize raw camera performance or seamless gaming may want to wait for future updates or consider alternatives.
In summary, the Galaxy S24 Ultra feels like a next-generation device, but its true value will depend on how much of its features translate to older Samsung models with future software updates. Until then, it remains a top contender in the Android market.
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthe Galaxy s24 Ultra has had a controversial launch oh my God AI That's amazing wait did they just make the cameras worse 7 years of software support are you kidding this chipset is a thermal nightmare I've been seeing it I've been reading it while I have also been testing it this is my definitive review of Samsung's flagship phone of the year the s24 ultra and also whether or not I'm going to be permanently replacing my iPhone for it so let's start with the outside even though Samsung swapped out their phone's frame from aluminium to Titanium and even though they've now got this brand new four times stronger than the competition glass this phone is still not difficult to damage I've got a whole load of small scuffs over the sides and they expose the fact that this matte texture you see here is only a very thin layer wherever it's scratched it becomes glossy making it immediately obvious and the screen is still wearing and tearing just like every other phone now maybe this glass is stronger and maybe if the exact same things that had happened to this had also happened to other phones they might be worse off but the point is I have been very careful with this phone I've not dropped it I have not tried to damage it so basically it's not some sort of Miracle glass that's going to solve your durability problems like Samsung might want you to believe I tell you I would though if the company still pre-installed your screen protector like they used to now that said this design overall I actually like it even more as time's gone on every time I pick the thing up I do think wo this is such a pretty phone the texture feels great those even screen borders very aesthetically pleasing and I'm even coming around to the flat screen since the way that Samsung's curved the body of the phone it doesn't have the problems that normally come with flat screens but actually lowkey the biggest upgrade to the screen which Samsung has done an awesome job of implementing but an awful job at communicating is this reduction to screen glare the s24 ultra almost completely kills incoming Reflections which is something we've seen some phone screens do a little better than others over the years but this is the biggest standout that I can remember and as soon as you experience it once it becomes instantly clear that this is the obvious next logical step up for all screens cuz I mean companies spent so many years trying to make their screens more color accurate trying to make them brighter trying to make them more contrasty and now you canot just get that experience but you can actually retain that experience irrespective of whether you're sitting next to a window or whether there's bright sunlight casting over you it makes this my favorite screen on a phone full stop so the outside of the phone is A+ but it's living with the software that I assumed would be the difficult part for me you know when I permanently made the jump from Samsung 2 iPhone 3 and A2 years ago the reason I did it was all these little things little things that build up into what felt like a bigger thing that it didn't seem like would ever be fixed because they're little things like voice notes it used to sound so muffled that it was like I was trying to have a conversation with someone while wearing three face masks on top of each other animations which sounds like a really silly thing but I was getting tired of phones that kept bragging about how bleeding edge their processors were but that still didn't feel fluid and Instagram stories I kept thinking to myself what is the point having the best set of cameras if the moment I try to share the content from them it just gets compressed beyond belief it's this kind of stuff and I honestly came into the s24 ultra expecting none of it to have changed I was wrong for one voice notes they sound crystal clear now drisha has begrudgingly confirmed to me that even though she likes the idea of me using an iPhone that this does sadly sound just as good as the 15 Pro Max the fluidity of the phone has gone up multiple levels in a lot of ways this actually feels smoother to use than my iPhone 15 Pro Max like you can read tell with this new oneui software that Samsung has gone all in on the little things like the scrolling acceleration to make things feel truly like they are gliding underneath your fingertips and the way the apps open and close now it is consistent continuously smooth animations and it's not just that it feels quick it looks nice too I was never a massive fan of Samsung's theming but in just a couple of generations they've gone a long way to completely flipping that narrative this is the first Samsung phone that I would say is right out of the box gorgeous you know the quick panel the way it's organized the rounded Corners the precise even spacing between every section like yes finally the lock screen and the fact that you can now add widgets you can change up the style you can scale your clock to the exact size you want and not have to conform to some arbitrary predefined options the fact that it gives you enough flexibility that you can very much make it yours while also building in enough structure that it's easy it's not overwhelming and whatever you do it's going to look good and also the new dark mode running through through the phone it's not actually black anymore it's a sort of dark gray which is one of those things that for me instantly made the whole phone look a lot better but I couldn't immediately place my finger on y I'm sure there will be people who don't like it but to me there's something really Pleasant about not feeling like you're in ultra high contrast mode all the time it feels less straining now there are problems with this software I'm getting to them but my prevailing feeling is that there's a lot to like for example when you're on a video call you just swipe down here and you've got video effects and microphone effects it actually works in a very similar way to the iPhone but it has a lot of options like you just tap here it instantly blurs the background very cinematic you can have a colored background you can pick an image for your background and you can also even adjust the smoothness of your face and because it works on a core software level it can persist across whatever app that you're calling on the haptics are awesome like typing has never felt better on any phone and while some past Samsungs used to have this tiny bit of lag every now and again while typing it seems to have been ironed out you've got the whole goodlock Suite of customization tools which is kind of the opposite of what I was saying for the lock screen this is where you go deep like since this is Samsung's first titanium phone I decided to use good luck to Kit mine with a titanium style animated volume rocker it's just fun oh and then the icing on the cake is 7 years of OS updates considering that just a few years ago the industry standard was 2 to three that is an absolutely insane promise and even if you're not going to use your phone for 7 years you still benefit because when you come around to selling it if your phone is still being supported it's likely going to retain more of its value but you saw this coming it's not all sunshine and rainbows as well as all the upgrades there are quite a few things that have felt like a downgrade coming from the 15 Pro Max like Instagram and Snapchat stories they looked subpar before they still look pretty subpar it's not really photos that are the issue it's just the videos it's like 50% of the processing and the stabilization that makes the cameras good disappears you can kind of get around it by recording in your native camera app and switching to 1080p instead of 4K to avoid being hit with Instagram compression but that definitely feels clunky Samsung's face scanner I mean they've tried like they give you an option to add an alternate appearance if say sometimes you wear glasses sometimes you don't or you can set your screen to brighten when scanning at night so that this front camera can actually see you but night is like the one time that you don't want to be blasted by light and in most middle lighting conditions it's fine but it's just slow it's actually quite surprising to me that such a big company with such successful products still has such a gaping hole cuz there's no doubt that face scanning is definitely the more automatic alternative to fingerprint scanning it's the future but until Samsung adds in some sort of infrared 3D scanning Tech like the iPhone you're not really going to want to use this for much and there's a few more things the audio quality is not quite as good as the iPhone it's a tiny bit less loud and a tiny bit less full not having mag safe is actually a massive downgrade since being able to charge wirelessly while still being able to have your phone prop up so that you can see the screen is very useful to me Samsung software while very pretty is definitely a little more aggressive than it used to be in an annoying way now more than ever it really pushes you towards Samsung services like Samsung pass to store your passwords So eventually you just get fed up of it so you click okay but then it's like oh you need to download the latest version of pass so you download it and then it's like oh you need to set up pass and I'm like go away I'm just trying to play a game of Bloons the company knows that the best way to lock users in is long-term Samsung is to get them using as many Samsung services as possible and you definitely feel it getting shoved down your throat a bit and then the last gripe which is a little alarming signal I seem to spend all my time with this phone on either two to three bars while I'm outside and then literally 0 to one when I'm inside and we did actually have a storm last week and my Wii went so I was hotspotting from this I was barely getting anything speed wise now that is serious if there's actually a persistent issue but signal is one of those very subjective things everyone has a slightly different signal experience mine's been bad but it's totally worth checking out some other reviews too to see if it is a trend or if I just got particularly unlucky the high level takeaway for software should still be the fact that Samsung has improved a lot to the point where this might just be now my favorite Android skin we'll get to the Galaxy AI stuff in a minute cuz I have thoughts but I want to touch on cameras because it's been a bit of a hotly debated topic as you might have seen in my camera comparison the s24 ultra cameras are a pretty big Improvement to the s23 Ultras but just not in the way that we've come to expect we're pretty used to each year phones getting a bit more detailed getting a bit better in low light zooming a bit further Samsung's not really done much of that at all and that's a little sad I feel like the purpose of an Ultra phone should be to break new ground to be a spectacle and to showcase the most Cutting Edge Tech that the company has to offer whereas this time around I'm not pulling it out excitedly on the street to just see what it can do and I don't get that brand new toy to play with feeling because its output is quite similar to last time but two things one that doesn't mean it's a bad camera it's building on what was already a very strong foundation and two what they have done this time as part of this massive software overhaul is made the camera nicer to use it looks better it's organized better the animations are smoother and it captures faster oh and the screen is so bright that you will never ever have a problem seeing what you're shooting again do I wish they'd also improve the output with a brand new 400 Apel main sensor yeah of course but was this a much needed Improvement nonetheless and has the company made enough improvements in other parts of the phone for me to forgive them also yes and the editing the editor on this phone is one of the things that constantly reminds me that we're working with powerful technology you can do something as obtuse as taking a photo of another photo yes this is me the phone will understand that photo and still be able to instantly apply the portrait mode effect to make it feel like it is popping out of your screen and these instant effects of actually ended up being a much bigger deal to me than what Samsung is tting as the key new thing the generative image editor well that one obviously is the cooler feature the better party trick it's actually very rarely after I've taken a shot do I think to myself yeah it would actually be great if this person was here instead of here I'm glad it exists and I'm curious to see how it evolves but there is something that does feel a little inauthentic about it like it's different to normal photo editing where you feel like you can still be proud of a photo that you took here it's it's almost bordering on digital art which is cool but it's not as rewarding in a way plus the feature is still a bit of effort to use if it was as simple as you're just browsing in your gallery you see a person you pick them up and you move them and then that's it I probably use it quite a lot to make subtle adjustments to things that aren't quite right but as it is where it's like you hit the editor then you hit the generative editor you do your tweaks you confirm your tweaks you wait for about 10 seconds and then you hit done it's still a bit long considering that in a big day out you might take 30 photos you're not going to do that 30 times and that is actually a pretty good segue into Galaxy AI in general what I've been really trying to work out over the last few weeks is are these AI features actually groundbreaking or are they just gimmicks I'll start with the good news all of this instant translation stuff that actually has me buzzing I've never mentioned this before but part of my extended family is Italian and I mean like proper Italian so it's often not the easiest to communicate but check this out this is what I do now when I enter the chat it already knows that I'm wanting to talk in Italian so it's got the Italian translator preloaded I type my message into that translator wait a couple of seconds and then the translated text appears in my WhatsApp chat window ready to hit send and the fact that it is just set it and forget it the fact that it knows in which chats you want the translation and in which chats you don't the fact that it works across all your different messaging apps like SMS WhatsApp Instagram is absolutely amazing it means you're going to talk more with people you otherwise might not it means you're going to be able to express yourselves better and also people like being talked to in their own language it's funny actually my sister-in-law was so taken aback by my sudden Italian fluency she genuinely thought someone had hacked my phone and called my mom to check now it isn't perfect the translation isn't instant and Samsung's quality of translation is definitely not as good as Google's like if I type in is this Italian working BTW Samsung gets very confused whereas Google understands that BTW means by the way and then makes the translation accordingly and can also better understand if something is a question even if you've not explicit added a question mark and you are still going to run into dialect problems current translation tools are good for simple requests but actually trying to have a conversational tone is still not quite possible because a lot of things don't translate literally but as a first stab this is pretty awesome because Samsung has now set the precedent for what one day absolutely will be a game changer the other thing that's been surprisingly useful is the AI summarization features like while I'm on Android I've always been a Google Chrome user I'm now active choosing to use the Samsung browser because of the summaries I don't use it all the time but let's say you hop onto a forum discussion post this AI can actually read everything that every single person has written and then give you a 30-second summary of all the key opinions and that same AI technology also helps you out with your notes I've mentioned this before but my notes used to be a big old mess because of the chaotic nature of thoughts and my notes being the way that I keep track of those thoughts they're the one part of my digital life that's had no trace of organization but this phone changes that for starters while every note would normally be whatever grammar my keyboard spits out in the moment the AI grammar checker here actually makes those notes feel like way more composed deliberate thoughts which then in turn makes you want to look after them and organize them the way it formats your notes too like if I'm writing a list of holiday destinations the thing will actually categorize them based on continent which is exactly how I would have done it but it just would have taken me like 10 times as long and then to finish the whole thing off the phone even generates AI powered covers for your notes which kind of packages each one into what feels like its own distinct novel almost it'll even go through and read through the handwritten writing on those notes for info about what to title the note now I do think the phone should just do this automatically as opposed to you having to click generate but still compare this to my iPhone Notes Library there is a world of difference and on that note yes there is still an S Pen inside of this phone and for me it's one of those things that I completely forget exists 99% of the time and some part of me wishes Samsung had just swapped it out for an even bigger battery until the 1% of time is where I really need it and I count my lucky stars that it's right there in front of me there's something that feels very free form about writing as opposed to typing which is why whenever I'm ideating I'll always use my remarkable tablet but do you know what this has kind of absorbed the functionality of that too being able to just whip this Spen out and write even when my phone's locked so I'm not getting distracted it pretty much ticks the same box my only complaint is that I really feel like it should be on this side given that I imagine most people are going to be writing with their right hands and so would want to take it out from here I imagine the reason they've done this is the cameras now take up a little bit too much space to put it on that side but Samsung didn't want to move the cameras because that's become their branding all right so then we've got Circle to search which is basically hold the bottom part of your screen and you enter this new mode this mode where you can take whatever is on your screen zoom in zoom out move around and when you're ready Circle something and Google will tell you what it is and for the first 5 days of using this phone I actually completely forgot this feature existed cuz you know your default is to use your phone the way you already know how to use your phone Circle to search requires a very conscious shift in how you think about searching but when it clicked for me it clicked hard this feature is absolutely incredible you see a photo of a cool product and you want to know what it is circle you see a photo of a phone you don't recognize Circle you want to Reby whatever flowers are in the house Circle to find out exactly what they are you see a photo of the most beautiful hotel View Circle it to find out exactly which hotel it is and I am continuously surprised at how accurate it is it's very easy for a feature like this to just be a gimmick this is actually based on something Google made years ago called now on tap where you hold down your home button and your phone tells you exactly what's on your screen it was a gimmick then but the seamlessness how it doesn't exit the app you're currently in meaning you can find out what you want to find out and with one swipe be back where you were the fluid it how you can Circle you can scribble you can just tap and the phone always seems to get what you're trying to highlight and then the intelligence of the results makes this I'm going to say GameChanger category like just yesterday this is going to sound like one of the most first world situations ever we got this snack in my kitchen on the opposite side to where I was sitting I just remembered we were running out of that snack and I wanted to top up but I couldn't remember what they were called so pulled out my Samsung zoomed all the way into that snack entered Circle to search and within about 5 Seconds that exact product was in my Amazon basket now obviously that's a dumb example but I think it kind of illustrates how Circle to search almost opens the floodgates to what becomes searchable it makes your phone genuinely feel like your own personal interactive interface with the world and now picking up my iPhone which doesn't have it it feels old school and then the final AI feature that I like is the instant slow-mo it's a top tier idea with good execution it just needs a bit of Polish sometimes when you use it the video video will either lag at the start till the phone catches up or create weird artifacts as it's not quite able to insert the perfect in between frames when slowing videos down okay all that said there is some stuff that I don't like like the live call translation which is significantly worse than the text message translation basically because it's the same thing but all of a sudden has to happen in real time to be clear I'm really glad Samsung's made this it just needs to get better let me give you an example I'm trying to decide between pineapple on pizza and pinea on pasta what do you think I should go for I think you should go to jail oh yeah and uh if you're enjoying this video then a sub to the channel would be jeans Waits a moment oh yes jeans you could just use my mom maybe what no that's not what you were trying to say right so do you have a sub to the channel word fantastic wonderful the best YouTube channel yes we got there however there's also some more General caveats Worth bearing in mind for all of this AI stuff one that a lot of Samsung's AI is actually based on Google tech and so even some of the things that Samsung made seem like an exclusive almost definitely will not stay that way for very long two that a lot of these AI features aren't actually going to require you to buy the s24su not being made clear so you feel like you need to buy the new thing and then three is the fine print the little disclaimer that we all knew would pop up as soon as we found out that a lot of these AI features are relying on Samsung's online servers that the online AI features are only going to be free until the end of 2025 I don't like it cuz you know the company comes on stage and they say our new phone does this amazing thing and like these s24 phones they're expensive so naturally most people are going to assume that price is your price of Entry to use those features that's how it's worked with every single up until this point so having this hidden charge to use the headline feature you're launching your phone with doesn't sit well with me and yes Samsung is taking on extra cost from the servers they're going to have to use to host these AI requests I get that but then either don't release the feature till it can run without that or don't sell it as a feature of the phone because it's not then it's a feature of your servers and yes they're saying the AI will be free till the end of 2025 but if anyone buys this phone now then even if you're just on a short 24-month plan you will still just enter the period where you will have to hand over your credit card details for what could well be yet another monthly subscription on top of the monthly fees you're already paying for your data on top of the price of the phone okay I've had my moan so final couple of things before we bring this all together in case I didn't already make this clear this is also the fastest Samsung I've ever used but what happens when you push it well I have recently come to the realization that the PlayStation 2 can finally be properly emulated on Android phones and bear in mind emulation is a very resource intensive task cuz it's not just that your phone has to run a game it's actually that it has to use its power to simulate a completely different set of Hardware that the game was originally designed to run on but this thing can do it this phone is powerful enough that I was plain sailing through my entire childhood library of PS2 games including upscaling them to run in HD and that is about as demanding a thing as you can ask a phone to do now that in itself is kind of a sore spot too cuz I do really want to start seeing phone companies not just dropping a load of big numbers in our lap and saying here you go have fun but actually helping to create reasons for that power to exist like I don't know work with Rockstar to bring GTA 5 to the phone and show how your phone can run it that would be exciting but as for where this sits on the smartphone performance ladder I would say top three phones in the market right now if you pull up a synthetic stress test you can see how the performance does not maintain its peak level it does get hot and the performance does dip after prolonged stress and this isn't negligible I wouldn't write it off to the people who are looking at getting the extra four or five frames per second when gaming for over an hour at a time you will be able to tell the difference between this and a dedicated gaming phone but me personally I've only actually been able to see those thermal issues when using benchmarks none of my normal use my gaming use or my emulator use has caused any noticeable dip at all and the phone does that while lasting for ages this is the best battery life ever in a Samsung Flagship the battery isn't bigger they've just found ways to get more out of it I want to slightly caveat that by saying I definitely with this phone notice a higher difference than normal between its high drain States and its low drain States like when I'm playing a big game even for 30 minutes and I come out I will have dropped 5 to 8% I would guess because this chip has such a high performance ceiling that it can go to but then equally when I'm browsing on YouTube and Instagram the phone feels like it's going to last forever and so what that means is the average for me is 8 to 9 hours of screen on time per charge I'm reaching evenings with at least 25% left in the tank but sometimes even 50 which is quite a lot more than I can say for my iPhone so with all of this in mind at least until something big happens on the Apple end the iPhone is now being relegated to a secondary phone and this is the one that I'm going to be keeping my Sim in mostly because I think Samsung's fixed a lot of their longer running issues this time around the software looks great it feels great the camera feels smooth and in fixing the fundamentals it also gives you the space to appreciate the extras the gorgeous anti-reflective screen the updated materials and the inhand feel and the AI features a lot of which actually do make it feel like I am holding something next Generation although what isn't clear at this point is how much of the stuff that I've Loved about using this phone will also apply to last generation Samsungs when they too also inevitably get the latest software update like if they get a lot of the same AI features and the same level of Polish and efficiency then the need to Spring for the absolute latest is drastically diminished so I would say if you're on an s23 right now hang on to find out now you might have also noticed right there on my phone's home screen the surf shark VPN icon there's a reason that with surf shark it's not just about having a VPN this is your entire internet toolkit in one like for example it can create you an alternative ID an entire name address postal code email address and you can permanently have access to those details and copy them with a single click it can change your GPS location as well as your internet location which means let's say you're playing Pokémon go and you want to catch a Pokémon that's on the other side of the planet you can do that from your bedroom and save yourself $11,000 in flights it has a kill switch which means if you want to make sure that you're secure at all times you can set surf shark up to automatically cut the internet connection if the VPN connection ever drops not to mention servers that are specifically designed to wipe themselves every single time they're turned off so none of your data is kept so when you combine that with the fact that when you use the code boss it's less than $3 a month for an unlimited number of accounts with an extra 6 months for free and a 30-day money back guarantee it's a bit of a no-brainerthe Galaxy s24 Ultra has had a controversial launch oh my God AI That's amazing wait did they just make the cameras worse 7 years of software support are you kidding this chipset is a thermal nightmare I've been seeing it I've been reading it while I have also been testing it this is my definitive review of Samsung's flagship phone of the year the s24 ultra and also whether or not I'm going to be permanently replacing my iPhone for it so let's start with the outside even though Samsung swapped out their phone's frame from aluminium to Titanium and even though they've now got this brand new four times stronger than the competition glass this phone is still not difficult to damage I've got a whole load of small scuffs over the sides and they expose the fact that this matte texture you see here is only a very thin layer wherever it's scratched it becomes glossy making it immediately obvious and the screen is still wearing and tearing just like every other phone now maybe this glass is stronger and maybe if the exact same things that had happened to this had also happened to other phones they might be worse off but the point is I have been very careful with this phone I've not dropped it I have not tried to damage it so basically it's not some sort of Miracle glass that's going to solve your durability problems like Samsung might want you to believe I tell you I would though if the company still pre-installed your screen protector like they used to now that said this design overall I actually like it even more as time's gone on every time I pick the thing up I do think wo this is such a pretty phone the texture feels great those even screen borders very aesthetically pleasing and I'm even coming around to the flat screen since the way that Samsung's curved the body of the phone it doesn't have the problems that normally come with flat screens but actually lowkey the biggest upgrade to the screen which Samsung has done an awesome job of implementing but an awful job at communicating is this reduction to screen glare the s24 ultra almost completely kills incoming Reflections which is something we've seen some phone screens do a little better than others over the years but this is the biggest standout that I can remember and as soon as you experience it once it becomes instantly clear that this is the obvious next logical step up for all screens cuz I mean companies spent so many years trying to make their screens more color accurate trying to make them brighter trying to make them more contrasty and now you canot just get that experience but you can actually retain that experience irrespective of whether you're sitting next to a window or whether there's bright sunlight casting over you it makes this my favorite screen on a phone full stop so the outside of the phone is A+ but it's living with the software that I assumed would be the difficult part for me you know when I permanently made the jump from Samsung 2 iPhone 3 and A2 years ago the reason I did it was all these little things little things that build up into what felt like a bigger thing that it didn't seem like would ever be fixed because they're little things like voice notes it used to sound so muffled that it was like I was trying to have a conversation with someone while wearing three face masks on top of each other animations which sounds like a really silly thing but I was getting tired of phones that kept bragging about how bleeding edge their processors were but that still didn't feel fluid and Instagram stories I kept thinking to myself what is the point having the best set of cameras if the moment I try to share the content from them it just gets compressed beyond belief it's this kind of stuff and I honestly came into the s24 ultra expecting none of it to have changed I was wrong for one voice notes they sound crystal clear now drisha has begrudgingly confirmed to me that even though she likes the idea of me using an iPhone that this does sadly sound just as good as the 15 Pro Max the fluidity of the phone has gone up multiple levels in a lot of ways this actually feels smoother to use than my iPhone 15 Pro Max like you can read tell with this new oneui software that Samsung has gone all in on the little things like the scrolling acceleration to make things feel truly like they are gliding underneath your fingertips and the way the apps open and close now it is consistent continuously smooth animations and it's not just that it feels quick it looks nice too I was never a massive fan of Samsung's theming but in just a couple of generations they've gone a long way to completely flipping that narrative this is the first Samsung phone that I would say is right out of the box gorgeous you know the quick panel the way it's organized the rounded Corners the precise even spacing between every section like yes finally the lock screen and the fact that you can now add widgets you can change up the style you can scale your clock to the exact size you want and not have to conform to some arbitrary predefined options the fact that it gives you enough flexibility that you can very much make it yours while also building in enough structure that it's easy it's not overwhelming and whatever you do it's going to look good and also the new dark mode running through through the phone it's not actually black anymore it's a sort of dark gray which is one of those things that for me instantly made the whole phone look a lot better but I couldn't immediately place my finger on y I'm sure there will be people who don't like it but to me there's something really Pleasant about not feeling like you're in ultra high contrast mode all the time it feels less straining now there are problems with this software I'm getting to them but my prevailing feeling is that there's a lot to like for example when you're on a video call you just swipe down here and you've got video effects and microphone effects it actually works in a very similar way to the iPhone but it has a lot of options like you just tap here it instantly blurs the background very cinematic you can have a colored background you can pick an image for your background and you can also even adjust the smoothness of your face and because it works on a core software level it can persist across whatever app that you're calling on the haptics are awesome like typing has never felt better on any phone and while some past Samsungs used to have this tiny bit of lag every now and again while typing it seems to have been ironed out you've got the whole goodlock Suite of customization tools which is kind of the opposite of what I was saying for the lock screen this is where you go deep like since this is Samsung's first titanium phone I decided to use good luck to Kit mine with a titanium style animated volume rocker it's just fun oh and then the icing on the cake is 7 years of OS updates considering that just a few years ago the industry standard was 2 to three that is an absolutely insane promise and even if you're not going to use your phone for 7 years you still benefit because when you come around to selling it if your phone is still being supported it's likely going to retain more of its value but you saw this coming it's not all sunshine and rainbows as well as all the upgrades there are quite a few things that have felt like a downgrade coming from the 15 Pro Max like Instagram and Snapchat stories they looked subpar before they still look pretty subpar it's not really photos that are the issue it's just the videos it's like 50% of the processing and the stabilization that makes the cameras good disappears you can kind of get around it by recording in your native camera app and switching to 1080p instead of 4K to avoid being hit with Instagram compression but that definitely feels clunky Samsung's face scanner I mean they've tried like they give you an option to add an alternate appearance if say sometimes you wear glasses sometimes you don't or you can set your screen to brighten when scanning at night so that this front camera can actually see you but night is like the one time that you don't want to be blasted by light and in most middle lighting conditions it's fine but it's just slow it's actually quite surprising to me that such a big company with such successful products still has such a gaping hole cuz there's no doubt that face scanning is definitely the more automatic alternative to fingerprint scanning it's the future but until Samsung adds in some sort of infrared 3D scanning Tech like the iPhone you're not really going to want to use this for much and there's a few more things the audio quality is not quite as good as the iPhone it's a tiny bit less loud and a tiny bit less full not having mag safe is actually a massive downgrade since being able to charge wirelessly while still being able to have your phone prop up so that you can see the screen is very useful to me Samsung software while very pretty is definitely a little more aggressive than it used to be in an annoying way now more than ever it really pushes you towards Samsung services like Samsung pass to store your passwords So eventually you just get fed up of it so you click okay but then it's like oh you need to download the latest version of pass so you download it and then it's like oh you need to set up pass and I'm like go away I'm just trying to play a game of Bloons the company knows that the best way to lock users in is long-term Samsung is to get them using as many Samsung services as possible and you definitely feel it getting shoved down your throat a bit and then the last gripe which is a little alarming signal I seem to spend all my time with this phone on either two to three bars while I'm outside and then literally 0 to one when I'm inside and we did actually have a storm last week and my Wii went so I was hotspotting from this I was barely getting anything speed wise now that is serious if there's actually a persistent issue but signal is one of those very subjective things everyone has a slightly different signal experience mine's been bad but it's totally worth checking out some other reviews too to see if it is a trend or if I just got particularly unlucky the high level takeaway for software should still be the fact that Samsung has improved a lot to the point where this might just be now my favorite Android skin we'll get to the Galaxy AI stuff in a minute cuz I have thoughts but I want to touch on cameras because it's been a bit of a hotly debated topic as you might have seen in my camera comparison the s24 ultra cameras are a pretty big Improvement to the s23 Ultras but just not in the way that we've come to expect we're pretty used to each year phones getting a bit more detailed getting a bit better in low light zooming a bit further Samsung's not really done much of that at all and that's a little sad I feel like the purpose of an Ultra phone should be to break new ground to be a spectacle and to showcase the most Cutting Edge Tech that the company has to offer whereas this time around I'm not pulling it out excitedly on the street to just see what it can do and I don't get that brand new toy to play with feeling because its output is quite similar to last time but two things one that doesn't mean it's a bad camera it's building on what was already a very strong foundation and two what they have done this time as part of this massive software overhaul is made the camera nicer to use it looks better it's organized better the animations are smoother and it captures faster oh and the screen is so bright that you will never ever have a problem seeing what you're shooting again do I wish they'd also improve the output with a brand new 400 Apel main sensor yeah of course but was this a much needed Improvement nonetheless and has the company made enough improvements in other parts of the phone for me to forgive them also yes and the editing the editor on this phone is one of the things that constantly reminds me that we're working with powerful technology you can do something as obtuse as taking a photo of another photo yes this is me the phone will understand that photo and still be able to instantly apply the portrait mode effect to make it feel like it is popping out of your screen and these instant effects of actually ended up being a much bigger deal to me than what Samsung is tting as the key new thing the generative image editor well that one obviously is the cooler feature the better party trick it's actually very rarely after I've taken a shot do I think to myself yeah it would actually be great if this person was here instead of here I'm glad it exists and I'm curious to see how it evolves but there is something that does feel a little inauthentic about it like it's different to normal photo editing where you feel like you can still be proud of a photo that you took here it's it's almost bordering on digital art which is cool but it's not as rewarding in a way plus the feature is still a bit of effort to use if it was as simple as you're just browsing in your gallery you see a person you pick them up and you move them and then that's it I probably use it quite a lot to make subtle adjustments to things that aren't quite right but as it is where it's like you hit the editor then you hit the generative editor you do your tweaks you confirm your tweaks you wait for about 10 seconds and then you hit done it's still a bit long considering that in a big day out you might take 30 photos you're not going to do that 30 times and that is actually a pretty good segue into Galaxy AI in general what I've been really trying to work out over the last few weeks is are these AI features actually groundbreaking or are they just gimmicks I'll start with the good news all of this instant translation stuff that actually has me buzzing I've never mentioned this before but part of my extended family is Italian and I mean like proper Italian so it's often not the easiest to communicate but check this out this is what I do now when I enter the chat it already knows that I'm wanting to talk in Italian so it's got the Italian translator preloaded I type my message into that translator wait a couple of seconds and then the translated text appears in my WhatsApp chat window ready to hit send and the fact that it is just set it and forget it the fact that it knows in which chats you want the translation and in which chats you don't the fact that it works across all your different messaging apps like SMS WhatsApp Instagram is absolutely amazing it means you're going to talk more with people you otherwise might not it means you're going to be able to express yourselves better and also people like being talked to in their own language it's funny actually my sister-in-law was so taken aback by my sudden Italian fluency she genuinely thought someone had hacked my phone and called my mom to check now it isn't perfect the translation isn't instant and Samsung's quality of translation is definitely not as good as Google's like if I type in is this Italian working BTW Samsung gets very confused whereas Google understands that BTW means by the way and then makes the translation accordingly and can also better understand if something is a question even if you've not explicit added a question mark and you are still going to run into dialect problems current translation tools are good for simple requests but actually trying to have a conversational tone is still not quite possible because a lot of things don't translate literally but as a first stab this is pretty awesome because Samsung has now set the precedent for what one day absolutely will be a game changer the other thing that's been surprisingly useful is the AI summarization features like while I'm on Android I've always been a Google Chrome user I'm now active choosing to use the Samsung browser because of the summaries I don't use it all the time but let's say you hop onto a forum discussion post this AI can actually read everything that every single person has written and then give you a 30-second summary of all the key opinions and that same AI technology also helps you out with your notes I've mentioned this before but my notes used to be a big old mess because of the chaotic nature of thoughts and my notes being the way that I keep track of those thoughts they're the one part of my digital life that's had no trace of organization but this phone changes that for starters while every note would normally be whatever grammar my keyboard spits out in the moment the AI grammar checker here actually makes those notes feel like way more composed deliberate thoughts which then in turn makes you want to look after them and organize them the way it formats your notes too like if I'm writing a list of holiday destinations the thing will actually categorize them based on continent which is exactly how I would have done it but it just would have taken me like 10 times as long and then to finish the whole thing off the phone even generates AI powered covers for your notes which kind of packages each one into what feels like its own distinct novel almost it'll even go through and read through the handwritten writing on those notes for info about what to title the note now I do think the phone should just do this automatically as opposed to you having to click generate but still compare this to my iPhone Notes Library there is a world of difference and on that note yes there is still an S Pen inside of this phone and for me it's one of those things that I completely forget exists 99% of the time and some part of me wishes Samsung had just swapped it out for an even bigger battery until the 1% of time is where I really need it and I count my lucky stars that it's right there in front of me there's something that feels very free form about writing as opposed to typing which is why whenever I'm ideating I'll always use my remarkable tablet but do you know what this has kind of absorbed the functionality of that too being able to just whip this Spen out and write even when my phone's locked so I'm not getting distracted it pretty much ticks the same box my only complaint is that I really feel like it should be on this side given that I imagine most people are going to be writing with their right hands and so would want to take it out from here I imagine the reason they've done this is the cameras now take up a little bit too much space to put it on that side but Samsung didn't want to move the cameras because that's become their branding all right so then we've got Circle to search which is basically hold the bottom part of your screen and you enter this new mode this mode where you can take whatever is on your screen zoom in zoom out move around and when you're ready Circle something and Google will tell you what it is and for the first 5 days of using this phone I actually completely forgot this feature existed cuz you know your default is to use your phone the way you already know how to use your phone Circle to search requires a very conscious shift in how you think about searching but when it clicked for me it clicked hard this feature is absolutely incredible you see a photo of a cool product and you want to know what it is circle you see a photo of a phone you don't recognize Circle you want to Reby whatever flowers are in the house Circle to find out exactly what they are you see a photo of the most beautiful hotel View Circle it to find out exactly which hotel it is and I am continuously surprised at how accurate it is it's very easy for a feature like this to just be a gimmick this is actually based on something Google made years ago called now on tap where you hold down your home button and your phone tells you exactly what's on your screen it was a gimmick then but the seamlessness how it doesn't exit the app you're currently in meaning you can find out what you want to find out and with one swipe be back where you were the fluid it how you can Circle you can scribble you can just tap and the phone always seems to get what you're trying to highlight and then the intelligence of the results makes this I'm going to say GameChanger category like just yesterday this is going to sound like one of the most first world situations ever we got this snack in my kitchen on the opposite side to where I was sitting I just remembered we were running out of that snack and I wanted to top up but I couldn't remember what they were called so pulled out my Samsung zoomed all the way into that snack entered Circle to search and within about 5 Seconds that exact product was in my Amazon basket now obviously that's a dumb example but I think it kind of illustrates how Circle to search almost opens the floodgates to what becomes searchable it makes your phone genuinely feel like your own personal interactive interface with the world and now picking up my iPhone which doesn't have it it feels old school and then the final AI feature that I like is the instant slow-mo it's a top tier idea with good execution it just needs a bit of Polish sometimes when you use it the video video will either lag at the start till the phone catches up or create weird artifacts as it's not quite able to insert the perfect in between frames when slowing videos down okay all that said there is some stuff that I don't like like the live call translation which is significantly worse than the text message translation basically because it's the same thing but all of a sudden has to happen in real time to be clear I'm really glad Samsung's made this it just needs to get better let me give you an example I'm trying to decide between pineapple on pizza and pinea on pasta what do you think I should go for I think you should go to jail oh yeah and uh if you're enjoying this video then a sub to the channel would be jeans Waits a moment oh yes jeans you could just use my mom maybe what no that's not what you were trying to say right so do you have a sub to the channel word fantastic wonderful the best YouTube channel yes we got there however there's also some more General caveats Worth bearing in mind for all of this AI stuff one that a lot of Samsung's AI is actually based on Google tech and so even some of the things that Samsung made seem like an exclusive almost definitely will not stay that way for very long two that a lot of these AI features aren't actually going to require you to buy the s24su not being made clear so you feel like you need to buy the new thing and then three is the fine print the little disclaimer that we all knew would pop up as soon as we found out that a lot of these AI features are relying on Samsung's online servers that the online AI features are only going to be free until the end of 2025 I don't like it cuz you know the company comes on stage and they say our new phone does this amazing thing and like these s24 phones they're expensive so naturally most people are going to assume that price is your price of Entry to use those features that's how it's worked with every single up until this point so having this hidden charge to use the headline feature you're launching your phone with doesn't sit well with me and yes Samsung is taking on extra cost from the servers they're going to have to use to host these AI requests I get that but then either don't release the feature till it can run without that or don't sell it as a feature of the phone because it's not then it's a feature of your servers and yes they're saying the AI will be free till the end of 2025 but if anyone buys this phone now then even if you're just on a short 24-month plan you will still just enter the period where you will have to hand over your credit card details for what could well be yet another monthly subscription on top of the monthly fees you're already paying for your data on top of the price of the phone okay I've had my moan so final couple of things before we bring this all together in case I didn't already make this clear this is also the fastest Samsung I've ever used but what happens when you push it well I have recently come to the realization that the PlayStation 2 can finally be properly emulated on Android phones and bear in mind emulation is a very resource intensive task cuz it's not just that your phone has to run a game it's actually that it has to use its power to simulate a completely different set of Hardware that the game was originally designed to run on but this thing can do it this phone is powerful enough that I was plain sailing through my entire childhood library of PS2 games including upscaling them to run in HD and that is about as demanding a thing as you can ask a phone to do now that in itself is kind of a sore spot too cuz I do really want to start seeing phone companies not just dropping a load of big numbers in our lap and saying here you go have fun but actually helping to create reasons for that power to exist like I don't know work with Rockstar to bring GTA 5 to the phone and show how your phone can run it that would be exciting but as for where this sits on the smartphone performance ladder I would say top three phones in the market right now if you pull up a synthetic stress test you can see how the performance does not maintain its peak level it does get hot and the performance does dip after prolonged stress and this isn't negligible I wouldn't write it off to the people who are looking at getting the extra four or five frames per second when gaming for over an hour at a time you will be able to tell the difference between this and a dedicated gaming phone but me personally I've only actually been able to see those thermal issues when using benchmarks none of my normal use my gaming use or my emulator use has caused any noticeable dip at all and the phone does that while lasting for ages this is the best battery life ever in a Samsung Flagship the battery isn't bigger they've just found ways to get more out of it I want to slightly caveat that by saying I definitely with this phone notice a higher difference than normal between its high drain States and its low drain States like when I'm playing a big game even for 30 minutes and I come out I will have dropped 5 to 8% I would guess because this chip has such a high performance ceiling that it can go to but then equally when I'm browsing on YouTube and Instagram the phone feels like it's going to last forever and so what that means is the average for me is 8 to 9 hours of screen on time per charge I'm reaching evenings with at least 25% left in the tank but sometimes even 50 which is quite a lot more than I can say for my iPhone so with all of this in mind at least until something big happens on the Apple end the iPhone is now being relegated to a secondary phone and this is the one that I'm going to be keeping my Sim in mostly because I think Samsung's fixed a lot of their longer running issues this time around the software looks great it feels great the camera feels smooth and in fixing the fundamentals it also gives you the space to appreciate the extras the gorgeous anti-reflective screen the updated materials and the inhand feel and the AI features a lot of which actually do make it feel like I am holding something next Generation although what isn't clear at this point is how much of the stuff that I've Loved about using this phone will also apply to last generation Samsungs when they too also inevitably get the latest software update like if they get a lot of the same AI features and the same level of Polish and efficiency then the need to Spring for the absolute latest is drastically diminished so I would say if you're on an s23 right now hang on to find out now you might have also noticed right there on my phone's home screen the surf shark VPN icon there's a reason that with surf shark it's not just about having a VPN this is your entire internet toolkit in one like for example it can create you an alternative ID an entire name address postal code email address and you can permanently have access to those details and copy them with a single click it can change your GPS location as well as your internet location which means let's say you're playing Pokémon go and you want to catch a Pokémon that's on the other side of the planet you can do that from your bedroom and save yourself $11,000 in flights it has a kill switch which means if you want to make sure that you're secure at all times you can set surf shark up to automatically cut the internet connection if the VPN connection ever drops not to mention servers that are specifically designed to wipe themselves every single time they're turned off so none of your data is kept so when you combine that with the fact that when you use the code boss it's less than $3 a month for an unlimited number of accounts with an extra 6 months for free and a 30-day money back guarantee it's a bit of a no-brainer\n"