I don’t think it’s a controversial statement to say themost exciting days of smartphones are behind us.These days, we demand a lot from the devices in our pockets — and, with very few exceptions, they all deliver, no matter how much cash you actually dropped at checkout. But that’s not to say there’snothingexciting about smartphones. From foldables like theOnePlus Opento getting a complete Pixel package for just $500 with thePixel 7a, the last twelve months have left me feeling more optimistic than ever about thebest smartphones you’re able to buy.
Then there’s Samsung. It’s not so much that Samsung is making bad phones — some of myhighest-rated reviewslast year went to the company’s products. Rather, Samsung has become so stale, so scared of taking any amount of risk, the entire portfolio has become uninteresting. I went into my time with the Galaxy S24 Ultra hoping my outlook on the most popular Android manufacturer — and, up until very recently, the most popular smartphone manufacturer, period — would change. Instead, I think this phone proves Samsung’s rut is deeper than anyone thinks, and it’s going to take something unexpected to shake up the game.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
Samsung’s latest phablet might not be a big change over its predecessor — or even the Galaxy S22 — but incremental change might be enough to win over the company’s remaining die-hards.
Best-in-class hardware, but for how much longer?
The Galaxy S24 Ultra is a tale of two Samsungs. First, you have some ever-so-slight refreshments to the company’s signature slab, creating what is inarguably the best-feeling hardware you’ll find outside of Apple today. Yes, Samsung has followed the iPhone’s lead, swapping its phablet to a titanium chassis. It feels nice in the hands, although it does mean the frame doesn’t match the color of the back glass panel on most of the models available.
Likewise, Samsung’s avoidance of stainless steel means you don’t get the Apple experience of feeling just how light theiPhone 15 Pro Maxis compared to its predecessor. I held the Galaxy S24 Ultra and Galaxy S23 Ultra at the same time, and I struggled to feel any major weight difference, a fact backed up by near-identical numbers found on both specs sheets after the fact. Sure, it matchesApple’s titanium-focused ad campaign— and, crucially, does away with the chrome side rails that acted as a magnet for smudges and hand grease — but will it make much of a difference in daily use? My gut says no.
Can you even tell the left phone is the Galaxy S23 Ultra?
The other big change this year is found on the front of the phone. The curved glass panel used by Samsung as its signature style for nearly a decade is gone, replaced with a standard flat screen. Believe it or not, the company promoted this as a selling point during its briefing with journalists; when I asked why curved screens were on their way out and, more importantly, why the company was so proud, I was told it was something consumers were asking for to make better use of the S Pen.
And, granted,Iwasasking for it on this very site. But even as I welcome this change — flat displays are so much more comfortable to hold, nocaserequired — it leaves the company’s legacy of smartphone design feeling like a failed experiment. Curved glass was supposed to be the future, and now it’s not much more than an abandoned past.
Still, this hardware is phenomenal. In my eyes, Samsung is still at the top of the smartphone game, give or take an Apple (and considering the cosmetic damage my iPhone 15 has picked up, I’d give the win to Samsung). But others — namely Google and OnePlus — are catching up quick; it’s not quite the edge the smartphone juggernaut once held. Still, if you’re looking for a premium piece of hardware, you’ll be pressed to find something quite as nice as this.
Flat vs. curved.
But at the same time, the same question kept running through my head as I held the S24 Ultra during my early hands-on: is this it? I’m not expecting the wheel to be redesigned year after year, but is this phone all that different from the Galaxy Note 10+, a phone that came out nearly five years ago? Is there nothing left for Samsung to do with this design other than swap to a new chassis material and give up the ghost on curved displays — a problem, I might add, that was of its own making?
And considering the company chose this generation to finally raise the price to a whopping $1,300 for the Galaxy S24 Ultra, I think it’s fair to expect a little more. This is one of the most expensive smartphones you can buy today outside of foldables. You can buy two 512GB Steam Deck OLEDs for that price and have $100 leftover to spend on games. You can cover most of a65-inch OLED TV from Samsungitself. While I understand trade-in deals bring this price down quickly, I’m just not sure what’s here to justify the new price tag.
The Pixel rival you (haven’t) been waiting for
Maybe it’s under the hood — that’s where you’ll find that second story I promised. Samsung wants the Galaxy S24 Ultra to be a window into its vision of,surprise,the future of AI. In other words, a Pixel killer, if such a thing needs to exist. The company hasn’t held back its Galaxy AI excitement, complete with full partnerships from Google itself, as its entire presence at CES last week centered around this platform. It’s all powered (at least for now) by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy chipset underneath — though, despite the return of that specialized branding, only the S24 Ultra will use Qualcomm in all regions worldwide.
Skimming through the list, some of these tools do sound pretty great. Transcript Assist wants to beat Google’s Recorder for Pixel phones, a feature so good nearly every journalist at trade shows keeps one on them just for capturing audio. Early results seem… mixed, though I’ll need to compare the two in greater detail to cement an opinion. Circle to Search makes pulling up additional data from anything on your phone screen a snap. One of the most promising tools, Instant Slow-mo, looks to fix the obvious issue with capturing slow-motion: you never actually know when you want it until it’s already too late.
Frankly, a lot of this will have to wait for now, either for my early impressions set to go live on the site early next week or for the full review. Thankfully, I did get to experience a full demo of Live Translate, the feature Samsung deems so impressive it decided toannounce the tool a full month beforethe actual hardware that runs it. And honestly, it worked pretty well. The demo involved calling a foreign restaurant — either Korean, as pictured, or Spanish — and communicating with the person on the other end with auto-translations.
While I found the speech-on-speech effect a little difficult to follow at times — and I have no idea how an untrained person on the other end of the phone call would react, specifically considering they likely wouldn’t have the text log pictured in front of them — it was, undeniably, a cool feature. I’m preparing to fly out to Barcelona next month for MWC, and the thought of calling local restaurants to place orders or make a reservation is pretty sweet.
But Live Translate, no matter how intriguing, seems destined to have pretty limited use cases. How oftendoI call people in other languages? How often do most Americans? Sure, this tool might find more of a life outside the US, but as always, this is the region the company is coming to play in. This is the region where Samsung wants to eat Apple’s lunch, no matter how dire things might seem for the future.
And all of this aside, Samsung has told reporters it plans to bring the Galaxy AI platform in some state to last year’s hardware: the entire Galaxy S23 series, including the Galaxy S23 FE, and the Tab S9 series. Even if the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is likely to make most of these tools faster — and maybe keep one or two exclusive — it’s tough to get excited about a new phone when your current device might be able to do most of these tasks in just a few months. Hell, Circle to Search is available for the Pixel 8 series today, even if Samsung is promoting it as one of its newest additions to One UI.
There’s plenty left to unpack here
At the end of the day, I think the Galaxy S24 Ultra is an identity crisis for Samsung. Only time (and approximately 4,000 more words with a score out of 10) will tell if it’s a good phone — and, frankly, itprobablyis, considering the company’s track record. But it’s one I’m finding difficult to feel excited about, and I can’t imagine I’m alone here.
But look. I have plenty of time to have my opinion turned by this phone once it’s my daily driver. I haven’t even gotten into the camera, which swaps out last year’s 10x telephoto for a new 5x lens while promising similar levels of performance. Samsung even promised me its problems with motion are a thing of the past — we’ll see about that. I have lots more to share about the Galaxy S24 Ultra over the next couple of weeks, but first impressions are everything. If this phone is Samsung’s vision of the future of mobile, I’m not sure it looks all that different from our present — or, indeed, our past.
The Galaxy S24 Ultra might be Samsung’s nicest phone yet, but whether it does enough to set itself apart from its predecessor — or indeed, the increasingly steep competition — remains to be seen. And at $1,300, it’s going to have to do a lot to prove its worth.
