is the updated design it's kind of like if you took the s23 ultra and dressed it up for the red carpet and I think it's a stunner everything is flatter and less rounded even the end of the S Pen is squared off it's almost like they just took a shaver to their last phone but without being so boxy that it just feels like a brick plus points for the new satin finish that hides fingerprints even better and side rails that are completely matte now and textured instead of high gloss and I am happy there's finally some new colors you got a funky yellow a two-tone Violet which if nothing else is unique and of course the gray which feels like a very clear winning option made even greater by the fact that it kind of changes color as the light catches it but let's be honest the best colors will probably end up as Samsung website exclusives like they always do but yeah I have a feeling this gray one especially is going to draw a lot of comparisons to the iPhone 15 pros and for good reason this is the most similar I can remember iPhone and Samsung flagships ever looking not just because of the color and the Finish but
also just like the iPhone Samsung has
swapped out the material of the phone
entire frame from aluminium in this case
to Titanium and that's awesome titanium
is stronger it's better at conducting
heat from the inside of the phone to the
outside and while it is a heavier metal
than aluminium because it's tougher you
need less of it meaning that the weight
of the phone has actually gone slightly
down instead of up and also like the
iPhone this is now a flat display for
the first time on one of the company's
top-end models since like 2015 now I've
personally always liked the smooth feel
and the futuristic look of a curved
screen and so pardon me can't help but
feel like this is a step back but I'm
willing to concede it I can totally see
how there is practical benefit to a flat
screen flat screens are sturdier they're
easier to apply screen protectors to
they can feel a bit sharp on your
fingers which is something that I was
persistently telling off the older
iPhones for doing that Samsung's
mitigated that with the way the side
rails very smoothly curve into it and
what I love is that the flat screen here
has allowed Samsung 2 for the first time
ever completely even out the screen
borders praise the lord we took our
sweet time getting here but isn't
symmetry just the most beautiful thing
especially paired with a front camera
that's now even smaller and even less of
an interruption the only thing they
haven't fixed and I'm going to keep
banging on about this until they do is
these sharp Corners look I get it the
phone's got a pen it's like a notebook
but that doesn't change the fact that
this aesthetic differentiation causes
very real hand indentation oh and then
also with these s24su is launching new
flips suit cases which are like Smart
cases that will also change your phone's
wallpaper NE to match and then a really
cool spin on the idea of a case that's
also a grip for your hands and a stand
I'm very curious to see how this
mechanism holds up over time anyways
design aside the new phone also has a
bunch of Hardware upgrades most fairly
expected but that doesn't mean
meaningless the base amount of RAM for
example has finally gone up from 8 to 12
GB about time for an Ultra phone to be
honest but nonetheless this is another
one of those things that have bugged me
about past phones that we can just take
off and be happy about now Samsung's
changed up the design of their internal
speaker funnel which gives the sound
more space and should improve the
clarity of audio last year's phone
supported Wi-Fi 6E this year supports
Wi-Fi 7 which is actually kind of crazy
it's up to four times faster than 6E if
you can find a router and a supplier
willing to actually give it to you it's
very early days right now the screen is
a big one so your responsiveness is up
by 12% so your inputs will feel just
that little bit more real time but more
noticeably brightness before it topped
out at 1715 H which already to me felt
absurdly bright and very able to hold
its own in direct sun now it is
2,600 I don't even know what to say
about this one but cool I have a feeling
we'll be seeing a lot of extreme
brightness phone screens this year
mostly so that you can not just see your
screen but also preserve the high
contrast High dynamic range experience
even if you're in bright sunlight now
I'm definitely someone who would get
more excited for a screen that focuses
on preserving battery as opposed to
getting even brighter but to be fair
Samsung's saying this one is made of a
new material that does that too and then
the glass that protects it all is also
upgraded from Gorilla Glass victus 2 on
the last phone to gorilla glass armor
the company says it's like four times
more scratch resistant versus the
competition but I can't stand that
phrasing cuz like what's the competition
what does that what does that mean which
is why I specifically asked them
multiple times what's the actual
difference between this glass and the
last phone's glass but for some reason
the company's just decided they don't
want to make any specific comparisons
which makes this four times number
completely useless as a stat the other
interesting aspect of this gorilla glass
armor though is that it should also be
able to reduce screen glare by up to 75%
I'm always surprised how this company
manages to seemingly remake glass every
year and give it new features but hey
I'm not complaining the s24 ultra's
display does look absolutely drop dead
gorgeous so these are good spec bumps to
what was already very much not broken
and I haven't even talked about the
biggest one the s24 ultra is powered by
the Snapdragon 8 gen 3 chip which is
probably the meatiest upgrade in The
Last 5 Years and the first time in
recent memory where you can actually
unambiguously say it is more powerful
than the latest iPhone which is already
big but then Samsung uses a custom
version of that chip called the 8 gen 3
for Galaxy which gives you even faster
speeds than all your normal peasant H
gen3 friends so there's no doubt in my
mind that at Peak Performance apps will
fly but it's just that especially
nowadays I don't think the Peak
Performance figure should be the focus
it should be how well can it control its
temperatures is it going to affect
battery life and thankfully for both of
these things it looks like Samsung's
worked it out they built a 1.9 times
larger heat sink which means a bigger
surface area of heat to be conducted
away from the chip pretty impressive
considering that this phone is actually
Slimmer than last year's and for battery
Samsung is quoting a further 15%
increase battery life over the already
very good s23 Ultra but it all needs
testing and I will be doing exactly that
with my review of this phone so sub to
the channel would be
Almighty however there is one more
important aspect of this new chip now
the companies are about to start
properly dialing up the involvement of
AI in your phone all of a sudden all
that chat about the AI cores in your
phone's chipset and the fact that
they're two times faster here than last
year's you know the part of the
presentation where you start to doze off
a little bit all of that matters in a
much more real way now this chip is
powerful enough to run entire large
language models completely on device
without internet but more on that when I
get to the Galaxy AI part cuz before
that we got to talk cameras that's some
cool stuff going on here like the main
200 megapixel camera has been refreshed
by refreshed I mean it's a new camera
sensor but it's got like basically the
exact same spec as last year not
insignificant though because it has a
faster technique for capturing photos
which combined with a little sprinkle of
software magic has quite significantly
brought the time to capture down from
333 milliseconds to 238 and the most
recent software now let you select an
option to shoot even faster but it's at
the cost of quality so I don't really
know who that's for both the front and
rear cameras now have better noise
reduction algorithms which I'm very
curious to test properly because noisy
videos have been my single biggest gripe
with past Samsung cameras so if they can
fix that they're going to shoot up the
rankings but what's pretty clear already
is the improvements to photos in my very
early testing you can see some decent
improvements to color reproduction and
most importantly the smoothness and
Clarity of the shot and that is
apparently down to what Samsung calls
the pro visual engine now I asked about
five separate times and I could not get
a clear answer on exactly what this Pro
visual engine is but it seems like it's
a blanket marketing term that Samsung's
using for what's actually lots of
different camera optimizations they've
made here like for example there's a new
AI model that's been trained on millions
of different photos to understand what
things should look like that the phone
can reference to improve its color
accuracy or simple things like the
smoothness of the camera app it still
feels one generation off being perfect
but this is still by far the slickest
Samsung's camera has ever felt like you
can actually Zoom all the way from 0.5
times to 10 times without your phone
acting like you're trying to torture it
and that's a big win I think having a
camera app that feels polished is a big
part of the photo taking experience oh
and also video can now be recorded in
both 4K and 120 frames per second at the
same time which might sound excessive
and Niche Until you realize that 120 FPS
is the same frame rate many phones use
for slow-mo so you can now actually take
4K slow motion video that's lowkey like
the most exciting upgrade to any camera
mode ever and the thought of having that
capability in my pocket at all times is
bringing me great joy but the last major
camera change is a little bit weird see
last year's s23 Ultra had a main camera
an ultra wide a three time zoom and then
a 10 time zoom camera now this year with
the s24 ultra that 10 times lens has
been swapped for just a five time zoom
lens why would you do that well there is
one clear perk cuz the problem we had
with the three times lens and the 10
times lens is that when you're zooming
in and you're at let's say seven times
or nine times your photos used to look
pretty rubbish cuz you're well past your
three time zoom but you're not quite
activating your 10 times whereas here
the entire sort of standard Zoom range
from 0.5 times to 10 times is looking
mighty fine and consistent if I say so
myself plus you can also use this new
five time zoom to take what feels like
the prettiest portrait mode shots I've
ever seen come from a Samsung couldn't
do that before on the old 10x lens but
it does leave us with the obvious
question mark surely the new phone is
going to be worse when you try and zoom
in all the way like say 100 times which
has been like Samsung's whole thing for
the last 4 years well there's two things
Samsung's done to try and make that not
the case one that this new five times
zoom camera is actually a much better
quality camera than the 10 times used to
be it's a significantly bigger sensor
with two times the optical image
stabilization and five times the
resolution so even after you reach five
times it has a lot more room to be able
to use digital Zoom to get further and
then also smarter AI that after you've
taken your Zoom shots can just go back
into them and intelligently upscale them
that said in my again very early testing
I wasn't blown away it's too early to
say for sure if these Max Zoom shots are
going to be better or worse on average
but I can say for sure that if they are
better they're definitely not going to
be significantly better this isn't going
to be the generation where all of a
sudden your 100 times Zoom shots are
finally usable I was also a little
worried about if you wanted to take say
a 10 times zoomed in video since videos
tend to Faire much worse than photos
when you digitally zoom in in but to be
fair it looks okay so far you can take
8K video at five times zoom and 4K video
at 10 times and now just before we get
to the AI side of things I just want to
say that I'm really happy with the
general software direction that
Samsung's taking the s24 ultra is going
to come out the box with Samsung's one
UI 6.1 based on Android 14 and I love it
since the launch of their last phone
they've completely redone the drop down
menu it's more organized your brightness
slider is One Touch Away now there's a
new always on display and it's all just
so much more aesthetically pleasing to
me than what Samsung software used to
look like even just one generation ago
you get Dynamic widgets like the live
animated weather you get camera widgets
which let you instantly open up your
camera into your favorite mode like rear
camera photo and the software's jazzier
like when you listen to music you got a
real-time visualizer it's just fun and
I'm really glad that Samsung is slowly
leaning into that away from the ultra
corporate styling that they've had for
the last decade not to mention that
Samsung's also had a bit of a software
support Arc where they've quite quickly
gone from one of the worst companies in
that area to a real standout in the
Android world right let's talk about the
AI cuz this is like the first flagship
phone launch in memory where cameras
haven't actually been the main talking
point it's this the fact that the phone
is now supercharged with artificial
intelligence so what does that mean you
can do and how good or bad is it well
let's just go through the different AI
features and I will rate them based on
my early Impressions so the first is
instant slow-mo literally go into your
phone's Gallery hold down on any video
in it and Bam it halves the playback
speed while keeping it smooth using real
time frame interpolation analyzing your
video's motion and inventing extra in
between frames the tech isn't perfect
like you can see some slight weirdness
if you look close but I do think this is
still a class feature to have it
literally the touch of a finger oh but
also what I think is so cool is that
this effect can also double up with
videos you've already taken in slow-mo
so if we're watching back a 4K video
that I shot at 120 frames per second
hold down and those 120 frames become
240 frames it has bugged out a couple of
times on me but I still think it's an
easy 9 out of 10 there's generative
wallpaper which gives you like three
different parameters that you can tweak
to make a continuous stream of One of a
Kind images I'd say there's a lot you
can do with this but equally it doesn't
feel like completely unbounded
creativity seven there's AI image
editing which comes in two flavors
there's instant effects that you can
just apply with one tap to photos while
browsing in your gallery like the
portrait mode effect when it notices it
will work particularly well but the main
new editing feature is the generative AI
editor which lets you do mostly three
things you can move your subjects you
can erase distractions like people who
got in the way and you can expand things
or even straighten the image if it's
crooked and AI will fill in the blanks
and just to kind of set expectations
this is not the most powerful AI image
editor on the planet you know you see
those Twitter threads of people doing
some absolutely insane image and video
manipulation with AI it's not that level
but it does achieve what I assume it was
setting out to which is being a really
polished really accessible easy to use
entry route into AI editing that will
definitely impress people who are yet to
experience that and Samsung's made good
decisions with it like the fact that it
doesn't make you wait in between each
action it lets you do all your changes
and then you just hit the button once to
fix up the whole image the fact that it
adds a little bit of metadata into the
shs that can let other people know that
this has been AI modified for a first
gen AI that has kind of come out of
nowhere I would give it an 8 out of 10
we've got an upgraded voice meeting app
for which you just plop your phone down
on table to record and it can figure out
who the various speakers within a
conversation are for up to 20 people
which is that's almost like a classroom
and it can even summarize those meetings
as well as translate them into other
languages so we had to test it I sat
down with an unsuspecting Samsung
employee and just dove into a
conversation about Pokémon cuz let's be
honest that's 90% of what's Happening up
there there we chatted for like 2
minutes and mixed bag really the trend I
picked up with my few hours with the
phone is it's not very good at
understanding what you're trying to say
like I say Squirtle it thinks I'm saying
squirrel and then the next sentence we
say Squirtle again it thinks we said
squiddle which squiddle a word even
though it's picking up our voices really
clearly which you can tell because when
you play the voice recording back it
sounds awesome it's just the
transcription that needs to get smarter
I think the phone needs to be able to
better understand the context of the
conversation and then use that to inform
what the words it's hearing should be
and this also applies to the phone's
live translation feature but I'm getting
there on the flip side though the
phone's ability to summarize things is
amazing and this has many benefits
partly for the audio recorder which
rescues it a little bit to what i' call
a pretty mid five out of 10 feature for
now but this also has implications
Beyond like for example if you download
a PDF on your phone one tap will
summarize it if you're browsing a
website on the internet you now have a
button that that can read the entire
page for you and churn out a very good
summary in like 2 seconds or if you're
making notes in your notes app I don't
know about you but when I make notes
they're a real scribble and there is no
organization at all every thought is a
new note and basically buries the one
before it and so the fact that now your
notes app can use AI to organize the
entire document with headers and
subheaders and bullet points that it can
summarize any points you've waffled on
about for too long and even add an
automatic cover page so that you can
easily navigate through them afterwards
feels like was designed for me and like
absolute magic at your fingertips N9 out
of 10 all right so that live translation
feature is in concept brilliant it's the
ability to talk to any person in any
language and them being able to hear you
in their own native tongue without even
needing an s24 of their own it's such a
big feature that I'm going to say it
actually feels like a step changing
communication and you can really tell
with these AI features that Samsung
spent the time to figure out how people
will want them as well because they even
give you the option to decide if you
want to mute what you or the other
person is actually saying so that you
can just hear the translated portions
and the translation happens in nearly
real time as you talk so it doesn't feel
close to as bogged down as I expected it
would like you say something then you
wait for it to be translated for them
and then when they say something you
wait for it to be translated back it's
so seamless that in moments you actually
forget that you're talking across
language barriers and that is exactly
how you would want it to feel what
reminds you however as I've alluded to
is that the phone's ability to
understand what you're trying to say
it's not good so I tried two different
conversations one with a Spanish speaker
one with a German speaker and both
conversations were absolutely butchered
by the phone to the point where I was
actually creasing just reading the
conversation that the phone thought we
were having which would have made
absolutely zero sense in any language or
culture was mildly offensive and also
unusually morbid as it stands right now
this feature is probably a five but
benefit of the doubt it will probably
probably get better not necessarily with
a quick fix on launch day but over the
next year or two for sure and when it
does it is going to be a big deal
there's a new Circle to search feature
which is literally that anytime you want
you just hold down the home button you
Circle something and your phone will
Google that exact thing now I don't
think it's anything that couldn't have
been implemented like 5 years ago but
regardless it is kind of perfect for
things that you can't quite articulate
into words like a specific shoe you've
seen someone wear that you want to get
to and finally there's the new smart
keyboard which has something called chat
assist baked into it and that does three
things translation writing style and
grammar so let's say that you're typing
out a message but you want to swap out
the language tap chat translation and
then you just pick which one that part's
pretty simple and it's done well the
spelling and grammar check is nice too I
guess if you're using your phone to type
out really long serious emails and you
want a second pair of eyes to have a
full scan when you're done it's powerful
to be able to have that level of
reassurance at your fingertips but the
most interesting one is definitely
writing Stu style when you tap the
button for it you get back the thing
you've written but in like every
possible different tone casual to
professional I can see the potential I
can see why Samsung decided to make this
a feature cuz like drisha my fiance when
she's helping me to write out a caption
for say a Tik Tok because she comes from
a really corporate background this could
actually help her to type more
conversationally but in practice the
actual responses it gives you just feels
a bit cringe and I'm not convinced I'd
use it I'm pretty sure that I'd rather
just type in the exact tone that I think
is right for the situation as opposed to
specifically not doing that to then rely
on AI to try and fix it for me but the
keyboard is not just able to control
what you send but also what you receive
so in your phone settings you'll set up
what your native tongue is and then this
keyboard makes sure seemingly whatever
application you're messaging in that any
incoming message comes with both what
was originally said but then also that
message in your language which again
reinforces this as like the first proper
beat down of International Communication
barriers no one needs to download
anything no one needs to change their
habits it just happens 8 out of 10 one
of the reasons that I was so skeptical
about this whole galaxy AI thing was
that we already have so many AI
applications that are so powerful and so
what I thought Samsung was going to do
was create a whole bunch of new Samsung
branded apps that basically do the same
thing as what already exists but what
they've actually done is weaved AI
features seamlessly into the apps you
already use and that is much better like
building all these chat assist bits into
your keyboard it just makes sense it
means they're with you all the time and
it will actually make things quicker
versus the alternative which is using
another app or website to do your
translation and then copy and pasting
that translated result back or how for
live translation the fact that it's
baked into your default phone app and
pops up as you receive a normal phone
call reduces all the friction that might
prevent people from giving it a go but
there is one more key consideration with
any AI features companies often don't
make it clear when they're announcing
them what is done on your device and
what is being done on the cloud but the
difference is massive if you have an AI
feature that can be pulled off
completely on your device it's likely to
be faster because it doesn't need to
connect to the internet more reliable
cuz you can use it literally anywhere on
the planet regardless of whether you're
connected or not and also safer since
none of your data is actually having to
leave your phone at all and so in this
regard I would give Samsung's phone a
pass not a distinction but a pass or
translation for example is done
completely on device I mean you can kind
of tell but still that's a tick AI slow
motion on device but then quite a lot of
the other stuff is internet based like
the generative image editor the ability
to make new wallpapers and basically all
of your summarization tools now Samsung
has added an option that pivots the
phone to only performing AI tasks
offline but then that will just straight
up stop the ones that need to be online
from working so overall initial
assessment of this phone I would say
solid Hardware upgrade to what was
already top tier Hardware software
that's not just incredibly flexible but
also starting to become kind of fun and
then as for the AI it is a little rough
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