Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Review: My Experience After 1 Month Usage

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Samsungโ€™s top-of-the-line flagship for the year is none other than the Galaxy S24 Ultra. Launched in January of 2024, the Samsung King will soon be turning two months old in March. So, is the Galaxy AI-powered top-of-the-line smartphone the phone for you to rock in 2024 if you are team Android? Well, hereโ€™s what I can tell you about the Galaxy S24 Ultra.

As someone shifting from a slim 6.3-inch smartphone that was released in 2018 to the Galaxy S24 Ultra in 2024, the device feels big and at times bulky. It’s like carrying around a huge phablet. It took me a while to get adjusted to the height and width of this massive device. Picking the S24 Ultra over the other S24 variant seems like a sensible choice if you don’t mind spending upwards of $1000.

To me, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is not just a device that does everything your phone can do, but also at times replaces the need to carry around your laptop or maybe even your tablet thanks to the big screen, great battery life as well as the fun S Pen.

THE GOOD
  • Great Cameras
  • Optimized OS
  • Feature Rich One UI 6.1
  • Immersive Audio Output
  • Anti Reflective Screen
  • Flat Screens are back
  • S Pen Functionality
THE BAD
  • The Selfie Camera is recycled from the S23 ultra
  • Poor Ringtone and Notification options
  • Slow-wired charging speeds
UGLY
  • No basic cover in the box
  • Braided Type-C to Type-C cable could have been included in the box

Here, Iโ€™ll be sharing my review of the Galaxy S24 Ultra.

Note: I have been using the Galaxy S24 Ultra since the 25th of January, 2024; this is my review of the device.

Galaxy S24 Ultra – Whatโ€™s New With It?

When Samsung announced the Galaxy S24 Ultra, there were interesting changes when you compare it to the Galaxy S23 Ultra. For starters, Samsung has put an end to the curved displays and has gone flat out for the S24 Ultra. Plus, you now get a stronger display powered by Gorilla Glass Armour and a special overclocked Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC for Galaxy. The S24 Ultra also comes with a 50 MP 5x telephoto that replaces the 10x telephoto last seen on the S23 Ultra. 

Oh, and the biggest addition to the Galaxy S24 Ultra is the all-new titanium rails which makes the hefty device a bit lighter as compared to its older sibling the S23 Ultra. Rather than spilling everything about the S24 Ultra in a single paragraph, allow me to elaborate on the various aspects of the S24 Ultra.

Before we dig deep into everything about the S24 Ultra, here is a quick overview of the specifications of the mighty S24 Ultra.

Galaxy S24 Ultra – Whatโ€™s Under The Hood?

  • SoC: Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy
  • Screen Size: 6.98-Inches
  • Screen Type: QHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X
  • Refresh Rate: 120Hz
  • Display PPI: 500 PPI
  • RAM: 12GB
  • Storage Variants: 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB
  • Connectivity: 5G, 4G LTE, WiFi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 5.2, UWB and GNSS
  • OS: Android 14 with One UI 6.1
  • Front Camera: 12MP (Samsung Isocell S5K3LU)
  • Rear Camera Setup: 200MP main (Samsung Isocell HP2), 12MP Ultra-wide (Sony IMX563), 10MP 3X (Sony IMX754) and 50MP 5X (Sony IMX854)
  • Battery Capacity: 5,000mAh
  • Peak Brightness: 2600 Nits

Galaxy S24 Ultra – Color Options

As it is with Samsungโ€™s high-end flagships, you get to choose between the regular color options as well as the website-only special edition color options. Your standard color options are as follows

  • Titanium Gray
  • Titanium Violet
  • Titanium Black
  • Titanium Yellow.

Meanwhile, the special edition website-only models come in the following colors

  • Titanium Blue
  • Titanium Green
  • Titanium Orange

While the color options are good, they could have been better. As someone who owns the Titanium Violet model of the S24 Ultra, I feel it could have been a little brighter when you compare it to the Violet S24 and S24 Plus. Samsung seems to be sticking with pastel colors for its Ultra models.

Galaxy S24 Ultra – Whatโ€™s In The Box?

When you order the S24 Ultra, you will get a nice black box which is quite a thin one. You see, the fast charger that charges the S24 Ultra to 100% does not come with it, hence the thin box. Inside the box are the following

  • Regular documents and paperwork
  • Galaxy S24 Ultra
  • USB-C to USB-C cable
  • SIM Tray Ejection tool

And that is all you get in the box when you buy your Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. There is no screen guard and neither is there any transparent case or cover for your brand-new smartphone.

Galaxy S24 Ultra – Design, In-Hand Feel, and Build

Samsung has stuck with the if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it design styling. Nearly all of Samsungโ€™s smartphones across every budget look similar to each other. Thankfully, the quad rear camera setup is a unique identifier for the Galaxy S24 Ultra. But, that doesn’t stop you from saying, well it just looks like the Galaxy S23 and the S22 Ultra models.

The boxy slab design for the S24 Ultra makes the device look and feel premium, even in the weight category. The S24 Ultra weighs 232 grams, a bit lighter than the S23 Ultra.

When you hold the phone without any cover or case, you can feel the soft finish present at the edges of the S24 Ultra. Speaking about the edges, you will see that the antenna bands are present at the top, bottom, and left and right sides of the device. This ensures you always get the best network connection at all times even if you are in an area with spotty network coverage.

The front and back of the Galaxy S24 Ultra come with Gorilla Glass Armour. It is quite strong as you might have seen in a durability test video done by none other than Jerry Rig Everything.

Yes, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is the first and only device as of now to rock Gorilla Glass Armour at the back and front. Because of the feel of the rear and front glass, expect to get a ton of fingerprint stains on it if you do not use a case. With regards to the front, we will talk about it in the next section.

Galaxy S24 Ultra – The Display

Now, the display on Samsung smartphones is superb. The same can be said about the S24 Ultraโ€™s 2K Dynamic AMOLED LTPO display. The colors are bright, vibrant, and sharp. The vividness issue that came with the device has now been fixed with the February security patch and you can choose how vivid you like your display to look. Because the device uses an LTPO screen, it can change its refresh rate depending on what you are doing.

While the colors and the quality of the display are outstanding, the brightness also plays an important role. The S24 Ultra has a peak brightness of 2600 nits. You can easily use your phone even if you are in harsh sunlight. You don’t have to worry about putting your hands on the display to create some shadow on your display to look at content.

One cool feature of the S24 Ultra is the anti-reflective display. Yup, this display reduces a lot of glares when you compare it to many other phones out there. This is a unique feature of the S24 Ultra The screen is made up of Gorilla Glass Armour and is quite resistant to scratches. While you can use some screen protectors from trusted third-party brands, do note that you will miss out on the anti-reflective feature. Heck, even Samsungโ€™s anti-reflective screen protectors are not able to do a good job of reducing reflections.

So if you are worried about scratches on your screen and don’t care about the anti-reflection feature, get yourself a good screen protector.

Galaxy S24 Ultra – Cameras

The front 12MP snapper on the Galaxy S24 Ultra is similar to the one on its older sibling the S23 Ultra. On the video recording side of things, you can shoot in HD at 30 FPS,  FHD at 30 and 60 FPS as well as UHD at 30 and 60 FPS. You can make use of the auto-framing feature in video mode that zooms automatically to fit people in the frame.

With the rear camera, you get a quad setup paired with the 100X digital zoom. You get a new 50 MP 5X optical zoom lens which replaces the 10X optical zoom present on the S23 Ultra. In terms of video recording, you can record in various qualities. You can record in HD at 30 FPS,  FHD, and UHD at 30 and 60 FPS, and finally in massive 8K quality at 30 FPS.

One reason for me to pick the S24 Ultra over any other smartphone will have to be the camera setup. I love taking a lot of pictures and the Galaxy S24 Ultra does that perfectly. You get detailed daytime shots and great nighttime shots.

Does it take better photos than its previous flagship? Yes, it does. With the ability to play around with various photo modes, especially the Pro Mode on the stock camera of the Galaxy S24 Ultra, the sky’s the limit for your creativity.

Low-light shots also look great. Here are some sample photos.

As for the front selfie shooter it does its job. It keeps the details in and most importantly, keeps your skin tone the same without any of those funky beauty modes or makeup modes that many other smartphones have. One thing to note is that the selfie shooter is the same for the S24, S24+, and S24 Ultra so, expect to take the same great-quality selfies on any S24 device.

The stock camera app on the Galaxy S24 Ultra is feature-rich. You can take beautiful shots either in the auto mode or simply take full control in the pro mode. Capturing images in Pro mode will let you capture them in RAW, which you can use to easily edit colors in your preferred photo editing software. Night Photography on the Galaxy S24 Ultra is quite good, but could still be fixed and improved upon by necessary software updates.

You can make use of the GCam port that is available for the S24 Ultra, but I would simply prefer the stock camera because of the various modes and the ability to zoom digitally at 100X.

Galaxy S24 Ultra – Audio

The audio on the S24 Ultra is tuned by AKG which outputs the audio in stereo thanks to the top and bottom firing speakers. The audio levels are quite loud and you get an immersive audio experience when you watch content in landscape mode.

Oh, and thereโ€™s also Dolby Audio that you can enable in the Settings app to give your volume a little more loudness boost. You can use Type-C wired earphones or headphones to listen to audio or get yourself some good Bluetooth headsets to enjoy the content.

Galaxy S24 Ultra – Battery and Charging

Packed with a 5,000 mAh battery, you can easily get more than a day of normal usage for regular day-to-day tasks. The S24 Ultra supports up to 45 Watts of fast charging and can charge your device from 0 to 100% within an hour.

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Review

If you use a 35W Samsung fast charger, you can charge the device in one hour and 15 minutes. There is also 15 Watts of wireless fast charging. Yes, it will take you a bit longer to charge up the S24 Ultra wirelessly at 15W when you compare it to other Android smartphones that have faster wireless charging capabilities.

You can also use the S24 ultra as a power bank to reverse charge other devices either by using the Type-C cable or by using the wireless power share option for devices such as smartphones, smartwatches, and TWS cases.

Galaxy S24 Ultra – Performance

Powered by the custom Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy, the S24 Ultra can perform any task that you throw at it. The device can handle games and other heavy tasks with ease without heating up too much.

Given how the One UI 6.1 runs fluidly on the S24 Ultra, you can expect all of your day-to-day tasks as well as heavy tasks to run just fine. With regards to the cooling side of things, the S24 Ultra has a bigger cooling vapor chamber when compared to the S23 Ultra.

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Review
CPU Throttle Test: Without Charging & Charging

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy is built on the 4nm architecture by TSMC. The SoC comes with one Prime Cortex X4 core at 3.4 GHz, 3 Cortex A720 at 3.15 GHz, two Cortex A720 cores at 2.96 GHz, and two Coretx A520 cores at 2.27 GHz. On the GPU side of things for the S24 Ultra, you get an Adreno 750 clocked at 1000 MHz

The S24 Ultraโ€™s RAM is a 12GB LPPDR5X module in quad-channel running at 4,800MHz Meanwhile on the storage front, the S24 Ultra comes with UFS 4.0 on all storage models. So, whether you take the 256GB variant of the massive 1TB variant of the Galaxy S24 Ultra, the performance is going to be the same. Having UFS 4.0 onboard means you will be able to copy and move files as well as read data at really fast speeds.

Galaxy S24 Ultra – Software

The S24 Ultra runs on Android 14 out of the box with the One UI 6.1 skin. This new One UI 6.1 brings in a lot of cool features as well as more customization options and is also more fluid in terms of performance.

Following the Google Pixel train in software updates, the Galaxy S24 Ultra along with the S24 and S24+ will be getting seven years of software updates. This means the S23 lineup will be getting seven Android versions as well as security updates. This is a big upgrade to Samsung smartphones and we do hope to see other mid-range smartphones from Samsung get software updates extended by a year or two when compared to its current software update cycle.

Galaxy S24 Ultra – Customization

Skimming through the Settings of One UI 6.1 on the Galaxy S24 Ultra will greet you with various customization options. I prefer changing the ringtone, notification tone, and wallpapers for my Galaxy S24 Ultra. I do this simply because so many people, especially those with Samsung smartphones always keep their ringtones and notifications the same. So, avoiding that confusion and doubt of whether it was your phone or someone elseโ€™s phone comes to an end.

There are even more customization options that you can play through using the Good Lock customization service that you can install from the My Galaxy app. With ample customization options and good imagination and creativity, you can make your S24 Ultra stand out.

Good Lock has two main elements that you can customize to the max. You can customize the visual elements of your Galaxy S24 Ultra as well s the day-to-day usage elements of your S24 Ultra. Under the makeup elements of Good Lock, you have the following modules.

  • NavStar for customizing the navigation bar
  • Theme Park – to apply and create your themes
  • Pentastic – to customize various elements for the S Pen
  • Wonderland – to create different live and moving wallpapers as well as 3D effects to portraits set as your wallpaper.
  • LockStar – to customize and make your lock screen truly your own.
  • Keys Cafe – to customize the Samsung keyboard 
  • Home Up – easily customize the OneUI launcher by adding folders and easily manage floating windows.
  • ClockFace – now get the best out of your lock screen and AOD screens with different cockatiels that suit your style.
  • QuickStar – you can customize the notification quick panel whether you want more or fewer icons.
  • Edge Lighting+ enables and customizes the lighting effects on your display when you receive notifications.

More customization modules make sense for your day-to-day usage of the Galaxy S24 Ultra. Samsung calls these Life Up modules. Here are all the modules and what you can do with them.

  • Camera Assistant –  customize the stock camera app to your preference
  • Sound Assistant – adjust volume preferences per app and customize volume panels.
  • Nice Shot – enable and expand more functions for screen recording and screenshots
  • NotiStar – view notification history, customize lock screen entry point, share and copy notifications
  • Edge Touch – set up and adjust touch zones for the edges of your display.
  • Nice Catch – easily view what is causing certain instances on your smartphone
  • One hand Operation+ – have small hands? Make it easier to navigate your big-screen device with customizable gestures.
  • Routines+ get a smarter and more powerful Bixby with Bixby Routines
  • MultiStar – enhance your multi-window and Samsung DeX experience
  • RegiStar – Want a more personalized settings app? RegiStar gives you that freedom.

With how many customization options Samsung gives you, you can truly make your Galaxy S24 ultra stand out and unique in almost every aspect that you can think of.

Galaxy S24 Ultra – Smarter With Galaxy AI

When the S24 Ultra was announced, Galaxy AI was one of the main reasons to get your hands on the S24 lineup. All of these newly released AI tools are a great touch that will make your day-to-day tasks get done quicker.

Now, not everyone is going to get on board with the AI tools on the Galaxy S24 Ultra and that is just fine. Some of the AI tools in my personal opinion are great while some do not have any use for me at all. Below you will find my views on some cool AI features of Galaxy S24.

Circle To Search

To search for things on the internet more easily, Googleโ€™s Circle To Search is a faster and better alternative to Google Lens. It does everything Google Lens does, but you do not have to install the app or switch between apps or for that matter take screenshots and upload them to Google Lens to identify what you are asking it to search for.

Given that you can use this tool on any screen, even with apps that have video playable – it is a tool I see myself using the most.

AI Photo Editing Tools

Samsungโ€™s stock Gallery app lets you now straighten your images, remove reflections and shadows as well as remove objects from your image all at a tap. This is one of the most sensible AI tools from Galaxy AI that will be used regularly by those who take a lot of photos.

Summarize Notes via the Notes App

If you have a habit of taking down notes on your S24 Ultra, you can now make use of AI to simply give you a simple and understandable summary of the notes you have taken down. The AI tool can also create headers, and bullet points as well as format the text so that it looks presentable.

Call Assist and Text Call

This Galaxy AI too easily translates the phone call based on the language you set it to. The whole translation process during your phone call in real time takes place on your device itself. The Text Call feature lets you use AI to talk to the other person while you simply type out the text. All of the transcriptions take place in real time. This is good for those who might be traveling to different countries regularly and don’t know the local language of the region.

Samsung Keyboard Message Translations

You can now easily translate messages that you receive on your device when you use the Samsung keyboard. If you want to reply to the person in the same language that they sent the text, the AI tool lets you do that as well. There are a handful of languages supported at present, but we do hope that more languages are added via future updates.

Magic Compose

Magic Compose lets you easily compose a text based on the text that you have receded. There are multiple composition styles that you can choose from. However, for this to work, you will have to be making use of the Messages app from Google.

Galaxy S24 Ultra – Should You Upgrade To It?

If you are rocking an S22 or even the S23 Ultra, there is no sense in upgrading to the S24 Ultra. Several Galaxy S and Z devices that were released in 2023 are getting Galaxy AI smarts with the One UI 6,1 update very soon.

However, if you have an older Galaxy S or even still rock one of the Note series from Samsung, upgrading to the S24 Ultra is a sensible decision.

As for me, I upgraded to the S24 Ultra from the Honor Play that was released in 2018. So yes, depending on what device you upgrade from, your experience with the Galaxy S24 ultra will differ.

While the device does tick-mark all your day-to-day usage as well as photography needs, I would recommend the S24 Ultra for your gaming needs. There are dedicated gaming-centric smartphones that will fulfill your needs and perform better thanks to dedicated game modes and software that optimizes your gameplay.

Galaxy S24 Ultra โ€“ The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

There is no device that is perfect in every aspect out there so sugarcoating the Galaxy S24 Ultra just feels wrong. Here are a few things that I liked, disliked, and truly hated about the Galaxy S24 Ultra

The Good

  • Great Cameras
  • Optimized OS
  • Feature Rich One UI 6.1
  • Immersive Audio Output
  • Anti Reflective Screen
  • Flat Screens are back
  • S Pen Functionality

The Bad

  • The Selfie Camera is recycled from the S23 ultra
  • Poor Ringtone and Notification options
  • Slow-wired charging speeds

The Ugly

  • No basic cover in the box
  • Braided Type-C to Type-C cable could have been included in the box

Galaxy S24 Ultra – Final Verdict

The S24 Ultra is a great all-rounder device for those who prefer productivity over everything else. Paired with great battery life, great software experience as well as support for Samsung Dex, and the large 6.8 screen packed into a titanium body, the S24 Ultra is your go-to device, especially for those who are always on the move.

Yes, the Galaxy S24 Ultraโ€™s price tag comes at a premium but, definitely worth the money spent for a device that you plan to use for 2 or more years As for me, I plan to be rocking the Galaxy S24 Ultra for 3 to 4 years or even more provided I don’t bust the front and rear glass.

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AUTHOR.

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Joshua D'souza

Enjoy games, 90's hip-hop, and tech. Loves exploring the infinite world of laptops and food. Every ready to provide assistance in anything that rocks his boat. Will gladly enjoy capturing memories through various lenses. Worked previously at PiunikaWeb as an author and researcher.

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