Quick summary
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra has officially launched and it has a number of key upgrades and differences over last year's model.
For starters, it features a flat display with no curved edges, and a Titanium case which gives it a more premium feel. There are a tonne of new AI features on board too, which elevate most elements of the phone's operation – including live translation between 13 languages during a phone call.
After months of speculation, Samsung has lifted the lid on its flagship Android phone for 2024.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is a truly premium handset that heads up the manufacturer's new lineup (which also includes the Samsung Galaxy S24 and S24 Plus). It has some welcome design tweaks, plus a whole lot of new features inside.
For starters, it comes in a new, swanky Titanium case – much like the iPhone 15 Pro – and the 6.8-inch display is flat this time around. The curved edges found on the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra are gone, making its replacement feel sharper and more business-like.
The display also has a thinner bezel, and while the handset itself is slightly wider this year, that simply allows for more screen real estate.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra specifications
The AMOLED (LTPO) screen has a resolution of 1440 x 3088, with a dynamic refresh rate that can rise up to 120Hz – ideal for gaming. It supports Samsung's Super HDR technology, which is also new when it comes to the rear camera, and has the "brightest" panel on a Samsung phone to date, with the capability of up to 2,600 nits.
The display is also the first to be covered in Gorilla Glass Armor, which is claimed to be four-times stronger than before. The handset comes with IP68 water and dust proofing.
The rear camera is made up of four lenses, with a 200-megapixel main cam, 50-megapixel 5x zoom, 10-megapixel 3x zoom, and 12-megapixel wide-angle. The zoom functionality also benefits from one of the AI features added under the "Galaxy AI" umbrella that's new on this model – it can stretch pictures up to 10x zoom without looking like they are digitally altered.
Under the hood you get a custom Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor and 12GB of RAM, which helps run all the extra processing capabilities of Galaxy AI. Storage options are 256GB, 512GB and 1TB.
A newly designed vapor chamber is included to keep the phone from overheating and things running smoothly. It is 1.9-times larger than the one in the S23 Ultra. This is also of benefit to mobile gaming, with the handset also supporting ray tracing and other dedicated features.
A 5,000mAh battery powers the whole shebang, with 45W fast charging (15W wireless) supported.
There is the latest S Pen housed in the bottom and accessible via a slight push.
Samsung Galaxy AI explained
Perhaps the biggest focus for Samsung on this phone generation is Galaxy AI. This is a generic term for a number of different on-device and cloud-based artificial intelligence features that you can find on the S24 Ultra.
These include Live Translate, which works with phone calls in different languages. Think of it as an interpreter inside your phone that will listen to a person speaking in one language and translate it – both by voice and text – to another.
It supports 13 languages at launch and is an impressive use of AI.
There is also Chat Assist, which can suggest different approaches for messages, Instagram posts, and emails as you write them, and Transcript Assist, which will automatically transcribe entire meetings and turn them into notes.
This includes meetings of many people (tested on 27), which will then be identified as different speakers in the transcript.
Other impressive new AI features include Circle to Search, which is the ability to search items in images or text just by circling it using the S Pen or a finger. There are plenty of enhancements to photograohy and video recording, too, with Generative Edit functionality allowing you to move or resize objects, with the AI filling the blanks. You can also straighten photos automatically that way too.
A new slo-mo mode will now fill in frames to make a 120fps clip into 240fps, even at 4K, so you can watch a recording even more slowly.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra: how much and when?
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is available to pre-order from today, priced from £1,249. It comes in four colours – Titanium Gray, Titanium Black, Titanium Violet, and Titanium Yellow – and those who order in advance can get double the storage for their money.
For example, if you order the 512GB model for £1,349, you get the 1TB handset at no extra cost (it will usually set you back £1,549).
This offer runs until 30 January 2024 and while Samsung is yet to confirm the exact shipping date, we expect it'll be the day after – 31 January 2024.
One last thing, Samsung has confirmed that all of its new handsets will receive seven generations of security and operating system updates, so that new handset should last you a fair few years.
