The Galaxy S24 Extremely is a hell of a telephone. As at all times, Samsung has jammed it filled with extra high-end {hardware} than you’ll be able to shake an S Pen at, and this yr it’s additionally filled with cutting-edge AI options. However it’s costly, and most of my favourite issues about it have little or no to do with the AI elements, which aren’t even unique to the Extremely.
It comes with a show that’s really easy to make use of exterior in shiny gentle that I need each different producer to repeat it. Its digicam system is without doubt one of the finest within the sport and comes with a incredible portrait mode. The built-in stylus stays one of many nicest and fanciest methods to make a grocery listing.
A few of the AI options actually are spectacular: reside translation for telephone calls could possibly be actually useful for somebody who makes a number of calls in an unfamiliar language. Voice recording summaries are surprisingly good and provides my beloved Pixel Recorder an actual run for its cash. And turning any video into gradual movement is simply plain enjoyable. Are the outcomes at all times nice? No, however they’re often pleasant.
However battery efficiency is simply okay, and whereas I recognize the brand new flat-screen design, it leaves some sharp corners that may be uncomfortable in your hand. Above all, the Extremely is dear — now beginning at $1,299, a $100 improve from final yr’s mannequin. Samsung’s everything-but-the-kitchen-sink gadget continues to be probably the most feature-packed telephone cash can purchase, however I’m simply not seeing an additional $100 price of enhancements, particularly contemplating that the AI options will all be ported to the S23 collection in a future software program replace.
Ever attempt to use your telephone in direct daylight and discover it turns right into a mirror? Reflections bounce proper off the glass, and no matter you had been attempting to take a look at is immediately invisible. It’s an actual ache within the buns, though it’s been much less of an issue as OLED screens have gotten brighter over the previous few years. The S24 Extremely goes an additional step and introduces a brand new anti-glare coating that does a incredible job of chopping these reflections down.
The 6.8-inch display peaks at 2,600 nits in shiny gentle, which makes an actual distinction once you use your telephone exterior. I ready myself to squint on the show after I used it in some shiny sunshine, so it was an actual deal with to comprehend I may see the display nearly in addition to I may indoors. There’s a brand new Gorilla Glass Armor defending the display, and it purports to be far more scratch-resistant than earlier variations of Gorilla Glass. It’s laborious to evaluate that in simply over per week of testing, however thus far, so good.
Samsung adopted Apple’s lead on one other display characteristic: dimming the wallpaper on the always-on show. You too can add a handful of widgets that can proceed to show on the AOD even with the telephone locked. It’s a straight-up Apple clone, and I’ve zero issues with that as a result of I crave info and love widgets. Answering “What’s subsequent on my calendar?” is so simple as glancing at my telephone display.
The always-on show is useful, but it surely does appear to take a major toll on battery efficiency. On the finish of every day I examined it, diagnostics reported that it was liable for about 7 % of my battery use all through the day. General, battery life on the S24 Extremely isn’t nice, but it surely’s not a catastrophe by any means — on days of sunshine use, I obtained to bedtime with round 50 % within the tank. Heavier days with nearer to 5 hours of screen-on time pushed my overview unit’s battery all the way down to 30 %. Truthfully, that’s about common for a flagship telephone nowadays, and I want efficiency had been a bit of higher throughout the board.
In any case, loads of individuals will get by a full day on the S24 Extremely simply positive, although it’s price remembering your mileage will dwindle over time because the battery ages. In case you’re an influence consumer — as I think lots of people on this telephone are — you would possibly want a day recharge to keep away from late-day battery anxiousness.
There’s 45W wired and 15W wi-fi Qi charging accessible however no Qi2, which is an actual disappointment. If you wish to reside the MagSafe life with the S24 Extremely, you’ll want to select up a third-party magnet case — simply don’t use the stylus with a magnetic accent hooked up — and a MagSafe-suitable (not MagSafe or Qi2) charger.
The S24 Extremely comes geared up with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset regardless of the place you purchase it — not true of the usual S24 and S24 Plus, which include Exynos chips exterior of the US. I can’t discover something mistaken with efficiency on the Extremely. It didn’t get excessively scorching in my testing, and with 12GB of RAM, it dealt with every part I threw at it with out a drawback.
The S24 Extremely is the primary Extremely with a flat display, and I recognize it — not do I worry operating the S Pen over the curved edge. The titanium exterior end is gorgeous, however this stays an unapologetically massive, heavy telephone. After the primary few instances it slipped out of the pocket of my joggers and onto the wooden ground with a thud heard ’spherical the home, I stop carrying it round with me and left it on the eating room desk.
Additionally, this telephone is form of sharp? The corners the place the flat elements of the telephone meet the curved edges are pointy, and if you happen to don’t get it located in your hand excellent, they’re fairly uncomfortable. I’m not a case individual, however I’d take into account one with the S24 Extremely for that reason.
The S24 collection ships with One UI 6.1, which is Samsung’s tackle Android 14. Like Android 14 itself, One UI 6.1 is a comparatively gentle replace, and the issues that irritate me about Samsung software program persist: a push notification urging me to take a look at the brand new Galaxy S24 (lol); a number of proprietary apps and options that I don’t have a use for (I refuse to consider International Objectives has impressed anybody to do something besides uninstall International Objectives); and clickbait hyperlinks stuffed on the backside of the climate app (“Vacationer Finds Massive Diamond at State Park,” actually?).
You possibly can de-Samsung a number of these things and reside a peaceable existence with One UI, and there’s some excellent news this yr: the corporate is promising seven years of OS upgrades, together with seven years of safety updates. That’s an awesome proposition for ROI and anybody who desires to get absolutely the most years out of their telephone.
That’s the gist of the common telephone stuff — a large display, okay battery life, and efficiency becoming of a 2024 flagship. So how in regards to the marquee characteristic: Galaxy AI? Settle in, as a result of there’s quite a bit to cowl.
The quick model is that this: the S24 Extremely has a formidable assortment of AI options. However it’s simply that — a group. It doesn’t really feel like a unified set of instruments with a collective function; it seems like a handful of capabilities scattered all through the system which are wonderful at instances and baffling at others.
Take reside translation: it occurs on-device, and it might act as a real-time interpreter on telephone calls. I attempted it with my colleague Victoria Music, a fluent speaker of Japanese, and she or he thought it did an sufficient job translating our alternate. It’s finest suited to quick transactional conversations as a result of it will get impatient with pauses. It doesn’t fairly get issues proper when speaking extra casually, both — I requested how Vee’s cats had been doing, and the translator by some means interpreted her Japanese for “Petey is consuming my chair” as “I’m consuming my chair.” Hilarious, however not supreme!
But when you should name and ask for some info or make a reservation, it might serve the aim. And that’s form of superb — if you happen to reside in a rustic the place you don’t communicate the language, I can see this being a vastly great tool. It’s the form of scenario the place AI that’s good sufficient is best than nothing.
Computerized be aware and voice transcript summaries are in the identical class. I put the S24 Extremely’s new voice recorder options up towards my beloved Pixel Recorder by studying them each a passage from the closest ebook I had readily available, Treasured Little Sleep, aka the newborn sleep Bible. General, I used to be shocked by how properly Samsung saved up with the Pixel. It doesn’t transcribe in actual time just like the Pixel does, but it surely’s on-device, and it’s comparatively fast after the very fact; a six-minute recording took about 90 seconds to transcribe in my testing.
After getting your transcript, you’ll be able to generate an in depth abstract in just some seconds, full with subheads and timestamps. It’s not one thing I’d belief with out double-checking the supply materials, however like name translation, it provides you a place to begin — one thing helpful once you’d in any other case don’t have anything. Samsung’s translation summaries occur within the cloud, not on-device, in order that they do require an web connection. Summarization looks as if it’s an excessive amount of to ask of a telephone processor: the Pixel 8 Professional I examined on the similar time tried to summarize its recording of the identical textual content, produced one bullet level, after which gave up after chugging for a couple of minutes.
Then there’s Circle to Search, which is simply actually an AI characteristic by affiliation, however spiritually, it feels at house in a dialogue in regards to the S24 Extremely’s AI options. It’s a Google characteristic that’s debuting on the Galaxy S24 and Pixel 8 collection and can reportedly come to extra high-end Android telephones sooner or later. Principally, it’s Google Lens however in all places in your telephone — any app, anytime. You long-press the house button or navigation deal with to interact it, after which a immediate seems to circle the factor you need to know extra about. A web page of Google outcomes will comply with, and you’ll faucet round to study extra or dismiss the entire thing and go about what you are promoting. It’s easy, however it seems like how our telephones ought to have been working all alongside.
Google’s enhancements to multisearch actually make this characteristic stand out. After you’ve circled one thing to seek for it, you’ll be able to make clear your search with extra questions utilizing the picture as a place to begin. Beforehand, multisearch may solely work with fundamental modifiers, like “blue” to seek for a pair of footwear in a selected coloration. Now, you’ll be able to ask extra difficult questions, and the search outcomes will provide up a solution utilizing generative AI. And that’s the place I discovered the reply I used to be after most frequently.
There are some apparent conditions the place Circle to Search makes quick sense — a pal texts the title of a restaurant, you spotlight the title, and with out ever leaving the messages app, you’ll be able to test the place it’s. I needed to type of unlearn doing this the good distance whereas utilizing the S24 Extremely, and now that I’m used to Circle to Search, I don’t need to return to the previous manner.
However after I was in search of extra details about one thing, the primary set of outcomes didn’t at all times clear issues up. Looking for a mural I photographed in San Jose introduced up a web page of similar-looking murals — useful if you happen to’re making a Pinterest temper board, much less useful if you wish to know precisely what you’re taking a look at. However asking “The place is that this?” in multisearch (shh, I knew the place it was, I used to be simply testing the pc) obtained me to the fitting reply shortly.
There are extra AI options — naturally there are extra — however I received’t go into depth about each one in every of them. You possibly can have generative AI boost your textual content messages with emoji or summarize webpages. They work fairly properly however don’t strike me as being fairly as helpful because the others. After all, there’s yet one more place you’ll discover AI at work: the Galaxy S24 Extremely’s digicam.
First, the numbers. Per typical, there are a boatload of cameras on this telephone:
- Foremost digicam: 200-megapixel f/1.7 with OIS
- 3x telephoto: 10-megapixel f/2.4, OIS
- 5x telephoto: 50-megapixel f/3.4, OIS
- Ultrawide: 12-megapixel f/2.2
- Selfie: 12-megapixel f/2.2
They’re the identical cameras which are on the S23 Extremely apart from one notable substitution — the 10x lens is gone, swapped for a 5x lens coupled with a much bigger, higher-res sensor. That is horrible information for me personally as a result of I like that ridiculous 10x lens. You possibly can take photos of planes! Within the sky! It’s such an awesome occasion trick.
The brand new model makes use of crop zoom to get to 10x, and Samsung insists that the picture high quality is simply nearly as good because the 10x optical zoom on the earlier model. So far as I can inform, that’s principally true — element rendering appears about the identical. And the S24 Extremely positively appears higher at 5x for the reason that S23 Extremely was utilizing digital zoom at that focal size. I do see extra chromatic aberration on among the S24 Extremely’s 10x photographs in comparison with the S23 Extremely’s, which may make sure topics seem a bit of fuzzier — this appears to be much less of an issue with distant topics, like the highest of a skyscraper. The swap to a 5x zoom hasn’t been a very victimless crime. However general, it’s a transfer that is sensible. The 5x focal size has much more sensible makes use of, and Samsung claims it’s used extra typically than 10x. Truthful.
In any other case, there aren’t any drastic adjustments yr over yr. Samsung continues to be leaning on the saturation slider, embracing these vivid reds and blues it’s identified for. It often appears good and sometimes appears bananas. The corporate made a number of tweaks to the tech behind its portrait mode, which continues to be wonderful. Skilled RAW now produces 24-megapixel photographs with information from 50- and 12-megapixel captures. Extra information, extra higher, as they are saying.
And I’m thrilled to see Samsung totally embrace Extremely HDR — that’s the excessive dynamic vary picture format supported in Android 14. You’ll see the Extremely HDR tone mapping within the reside picture preview as you are taking your picture, and the S24 collection are the primary gadgets that allow you to add Extremely HDR photographs to Instagram. These are true HDR photographs that look extra vibrant than the washed-out “HDR” photographs we’re used to seeing, that are actually simply makes an attempt at displaying a wider dynamic vary on an SDR show. I’m already impatient for third-party app help to come back to extra telephones.
Samsung is the corporate that gave us AI Moon, so naturally, there are a number of AI picture and video enhancing options right here. Generative AI edits can be found behind a star icon within the native gallery enhancing interface. You possibly can choose objects to maneuver across the body or erase completely, and you’ll regulate the horizon utilizing generative fill to pad out the picture slightly than cropping in. The edits occur off-device, so that you want an web connection and a bit of endurance.
That is similar to the generative AI enhancing instruments provided on the Pixel 8 Professional, which isn’t stunning — Samsung is utilizing Google’s fashions to energy nearly each AI characteristic on these telephones. However I truly discover Samsung’s object choice a lot simpler to make use of than the Pixel’s. On the S24, you simply circle an object you need to choose, and on-device AI makes the choice. It’s a bit of uncanny how good it’s. Choosing objects on the Pixel feels a bit of extra fiddly.
With an object chosen, you’ll be able to resize it, transfer it across the body, or erase it utterly. With a considerably predictable background like grass or a gravel path, generative AI can fill within the blanks convincingly. Predictably, issues get dicey with extra difficult edits. I chosen a lamp on a desk and tried to erase it from a photograph; the AI changed it with a unique lamp.
It’s the same story with slow-motion AI movies — spectacular if you happen to don’t problem it an excessive amount of or look too intently. The S24 Extremely can flip any video right into a 120fps slow-motion video — primarily utilizing body interpolation however leaning on generative AI to fill within the gaps. With the fitting topic and background, it’s completely convincing. However if you happen to begin introducing some complexity, it form of falls aside.
I slowed down the above 30fps video of my son on a swing, and you’ll see that the mulch on the playground and greenery within the background gave the AI some hassle. Is it nonetheless an cute video? Sure. Will his grandparents be delighted by it regardless of its flaws? Additionally sure. It seems like a characteristic proper on the sting between “adequate” and “too bizarre” to be enjoyable.
It’s laborious to explain why a tool that does a lot so properly feels prefer it falls flat. The Galaxy S23 Extremely felt like one thing really particular — a refinement of a well-balanced components. However with the S24 Extremely, the mathematics feels a bit of off.
It’s $100 dearer, but it surely’s laborious to see an additional $100 price of worth, particularly contemplating the brand new AI options are shared throughout the entire S24 collection. To be clear, I feel it’s a good factor that these options can be found on all three telephones. But when the Extremely actually is the quickest, bestest telephone in all of the land, shouldn’t it have the ability to do some extra?
The brand new anti-glare display coating is spectacular and really useful on a shiny day. The flat display is an enchancment, and the brand new titanium exterior appears and feels nice. However that’s kind of the extent of this yr’s Extremely-only enhancements. The AI options, Extremely HDR help, seven years of OS upgrades, up to date always-on show — they’re all accessible on the much less dear S24 and S24 Plus.
The feature-to-price ratio feels only a bit off-balance in a manner that it didn’t within the S23 Extremely
That leaves the Extremely with a much bigger display, an S Pen, and a 5x zoom to differentiate it. They’re all nice options and positive to please loyal Notice / Extremely followers. However the feature-to-price ratio feels only a bit off-balance in a manner that it didn’t within the S23 Extremely.
I want Samsung had spent a bit of extra time on the less-flashy stuff — enhancing battery life or making it lighter and extra comfy to make use of. Heck, I’d be thrilled if Samsung frolicked on a bit of housekeeping on the options which have piled up over time. Bixby Imaginative and prescient, Google Lens, and Circle to Search all exist on this telephone. What are we doing right here?
The Galaxy S24 Extremely stays absolutely the most telephone. Huge display, S Pen, the entire cameras, efficiency out the wazoo — it actually has no peer. I simply want that it felt a bit of extra worthy of its value bump when the MSRP was already sky-high earlier than. That is an Extremely telephone, alright. I simply want it got here with a bit of additional.
Pictures by Allison Johnson / The Verge