Okay, you’ve seen the gaming test of the Galaxy S24 Ultra, you’ve seen the benchmarks, and also took a glimpse at the battery life in our standardized battery life test. However, I have to highlight that everything we shown here is using this build version as shown on the screen, and it is said that Samsung will release another firmware update that will change how the phone performs. I’m not sure what Samsung will change, though.
We’re still proceeding with the review because Samsung is confident enough to send out the phone using this version of the software – and we shouldn’t rely on the potential of future updates to fix things.
But anyway, we’re not going to talk about the AI features and whatnot as we’re focusing on the phone only. I believe that the phone itself needs to be good first, and the AI features are “nice to have” additions.
Design
Starting with the design. The Ultra for this generation is using a titanium frame and it feels alright. I like how the frame has a slight roundedness and makes it really nice to hold in the hands. The Titanium Gray color that we have also looks very minimalistic.
While this is indeed a minimalist design, I personally would like some flair – both Titanium Green and Titanium Violet are my favorite this year. The contrasting frame color with the back is just pulling on my heart strings.
Speaking of that, the back is a matte finish that I think is more matte than before? Either way, it feels great to touch but might not offer enough grip since the matte finish is very smooth.
Some people have highlighted this many times before so I’ll repeat it again – the corners of the phone makes it not that nice to hold if we’re going to use it one-handed or have small hands. It will dig into your palm, but this is something that will vary from person to person.
Screen
In my opinion, another big upgrade on the S24 Ultra is the screen. It’s using a flat screen now and words can’t describe how much I appreciate this change. I’ve always complained about screen protectors on curved screens because we’re only stuck with film or hydrogel – and they suck. Now, we can finally use tempered glass screen protectors on the S24 Ultra!
I get it, the bezels are now visible from the front but hey – they’re extremely thin and I think this is a good balance between practicality and style.
The screen itself got an upgrade in two ways. First, it’s using the Corning Gorilla Glass Armor which has glare reduction and that will definitely help while using the phone under direct bright sunlight. As a comparison, I shot this video while both the S24+ and the S24 Ultra are at 100 nits brightness. Blasted with studio lights, we can clearly see the difference between these two phones.
The second upgrade is an iterative one, and that is the upgraded brightness. This phone’s screen can go up to 1350 nits, which is around 200 nits higher than the S23 Ultra’s screen.
But one thing I have to highlight is the color accuracy. You see, when I booted up the S24 Ultra for the first time – I realized that the color isn’t as saturated as the S23 Ultra. Some people may like it, some might not – but I’m here to find out why because I’m using the same settings on these phones. When we did our color accuracy test, I was right – the DCI-P3 color gamut coverage has dropped while the sRGB coverage is still virtually at 100%.
What’s impressive here though, is the ΔE number. The maximum is only at 1.02 – and that means even in the worst-case scenario, our human eyes can’t tell the difference.
Performance
Now let’s talk about performance. The Galaxy S24 Ultra is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 worldwide and you’ve already seen our gaming test and benchmarks of this phone. If you haven’t, then watch it here.
I believe software updates could make it perform better, but that’s just a theory.
The one thing that I found out is that the thermal headroom on the Ultra is only at 43°C, which is very low. That’s why you’ll see the phone thermal throttling easily when we start gaming. Honestly speaking, I didn’t expect it to throttle that hard to the point that we’re getting around 40-something fps only.
Samsung could have increased the thermal limit to somewhere around 48°C and the phone will still be fine, but many people will start complaining that it is too hot – so I understand the dilemma Samsung is facing. Actually not just Samsung, all phone brands are facing the same issue.
Especially for phones, it has a lot of external factors that affect how much it thermal throttles. Perhaps we should do a video regarding thermal throttling and explain how and why this happens. Let me know what you think in the comments below.
We also did an emulation test too. It’s no surprise that Snapdragon-powered phones will perform better in emulation since there will be more community support.
Battery life
As for the battery life, it’s the same 5,000mAh battery and at 1440p resolution locked at 120Hz refresh rate, it lasts for 15 hours on the dot in our standardized battery life test.
Since we did the same test for the S23 Ultra when it was released, we can compare the data from last year and get an idea of how’s the efficiency on the new S24 Ultra – and the result is stunning. We’re getting about 15% increase in battery life compared to the S23 Ultra’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which was already heralded as a phone with fantastic battery life.
This could be due to the improvements made in One UI 6.0 because even my Z Fold 5’s battery is a lot better now – but we can’t redo the battery life test since my S23 Ultra was in use for the entire year and the battery is not going to be as pristine as when it was brand new.
Charging speed
What about the charging speed then? Well, it has not changed since a few years ago, so we’re only getting 45W of USB-PD PPS maximum and it can charge the phone to 100% in about an hour. Pretty much the same as the S23 Ultra.
Ever since One UI 6.0 though, the battery bypass feature is now available by default. Just plug the phone into any charger or power bank that supports at least 25W of USB-PD PPS and you can enable this option.
Software
And speaking of the software, the overall UI and experience remain the same. Some might say Samsung’s One UI is full of bloatware but it’s only considered to be bloatware if you don’t use those features. For me, I use them.
The biggest addition is all the Galaxy AI features – but we’re not going to talk about here since that topic is quite lengthy and deserves a video of its own. Just know that you can head into the settings menu and make it process your data locally only, so your privacy is protected. The Galaxy AI might not work optimally, though.
One more big upgrade is that Samsung will now provide 7 generations of Android OS upgrades and 7 years of security patches. This is a huge upgrade their already-great software support policy and it’s just great for us consumers.
Camera
The cameras. Okay, this is something that I’ll only brush through. Many other YouTubers have already tested the cameras so refer to those since they can take better pictures than I do. Also, the cameras don’t take particularly good pictures with this current firmware version, especially night shots. I am still eagerly waiting for the new firmware update, if you haven’t already realized.
To have a look at all of the pictures and videos taken with the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, watch our video at the top of this review.
A few more things to mention
And a few more things to mention – it of course comes with a USB 3 port at the bottom and can work with an external display. I just plug it into this external screen and it worked instantly in Samsung DeX mode. Since our portable monitor has a touchscreen, we can just use that too.
In the usual Galaxy S fashion, there is no microSD card slot but has a double nano SIM card slot, no audio jack, and that’s about it.
The IP68 rating is still here, but we already expect that.
Conclusion
Time for conclusion and overall thoughts – I do think that in terms of hardware, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is an iterative upgrade. There are two big changes – the first one is the screen, which I think is a huge upgrade because of its antireflection properties and also using a flat screen.
The second change is the change from a 10x telephoto to a 5x telephoto camera. Depending on how you use your phone to take pictures, this may or may not be a good change. Personally, I think 5x is better as it’s a more proper amount of zoom to take pictures of the dogs. 10x zoom makes me feel like I’m a National Geographic photographer.
And the price – it’s expensive for sure, but there are still people that are going to buy it no matter what. Samsung will perpetually have discounts and such, so if you think the price is right, go get it.
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Nice write-up! The display color saturation does suck.
Thanks a bunch – and that’s a software issue. We have another video talking about it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSkhC4AGhxg
Hi. Thanks for the info. I normally have cases and screen protectors with my phones. Will they still be needed, or will the quality of the phone stand up without them?
Even though this new glass is a lot tougher – I’m still going to put on a piece of tempered glass screen protector. It’ll definitely negate the antireflective qualities but I don’t want to risk it