Samsung Galaxy S24 Extremely overview: Spectacular(ly boring)

Samsung’s Galaxy S24 Extremely, the corporate’s newest flagship smartphone, checks practically each field for what you’d need in a high-end smartphone in 2024. It boasts the newest Qualcomm processor for clean efficiency, has a giant, shiny show and a digicam setup that turns anybody right into a budding photographer. Oh, and the battery life — it goes for days. Actually.

During the last two weeks, I examined the S24 Extremely, utilizing it as my fundamental telephone day by day. Outdoors just a few delicate modifications to the design and a handful of software program options, I am not satisfied I may have instructed the distinction between it and final yr’s S23 Extremely if I did not know any higher. Certainly, the S24 Extremely is a boring replace. However, perhaps that is not a nasty factor? Let’s take a more in-depth look.

Samsung Galaxy S24 Extremely

Really helpful

100x House Zoom, a vibrant, curve-free AMOLED show, an S Pen with nice options, and much more wrapped up in a titanium bundle. The Galaxy S24 Extremely is Samsung’s assertion on what a conventional slab smartphone ought to be in 2024.

Execs

• A very flat show that appears nice
• A battery that does not know what give up means
• A powerhouse in efficiency

Cons

• A tried and true design
• The digicam tends to overexpose pictures

Value, specs, and availability

Samsung started taking preorders for the Galaxy S24 Extremely on Jan 17, with deliveries and in-store availability set for Jan. 31. Nonetheless, preorders began arriving earlier than the official launch date.

As ordinary, Samsung has a number of colour choices obtainable, a few of that are unique to orders positioned by means of Samsung. The Samsung unique colours embody titanium inexperienced, titanium blue, and titanium orange. Colours with wider availability embody titanium black, titanium violet, titanium yellow, and titanium grey.

The S24 Extremely begins at $1,299 for 256GB of storage, with the 512GB and 1TB fashions costing $1,419 or $1,659, respectively. All three fashions include 12GB of storage

What I like in regards to the Galaxy S24 Extremely

Flat shows are again

There are only some design modifications between final yr’s S23 Extremely and the 24 Extremely, a few of which you may be hard-pressed to even discover. One such instance is the truth that the S24 Extremely’s housing is now made from titanium as an alternative of aluminum, making the telephone barely lighter than its predecessor, however retaining the identical total aesthetic of being a flat-edged rectangular field.

Arguably the most important design change from final yr is the change from a curved edge show to a completely flat show. Samsung, together with different telephone makers, have used curved edge shows to make bigger telephones really feel thinner and simpler to carry, but it surely has come at the price of errant touches and different usability points.

In October, Google made an identical change to the Pixel 8 Professional, and it vastly improved the general expertise. The identical might be stated in regards to the S24 Extremely — the flat show feels extra pure to faucet and swipe throughout. The S24 Extremely is not a lot thinner than the S23 Extremely, but I do not really feel prefer it’s any tougher to carry.

One other show enchancment I admire is the enhance in total brightness to 2,600 nits, which is useful when viewing the display in direct daylight.

Nonetheless, my favourite design change is the brand new Gorilla Glass Armor that removes reflections from the display. Technically, it reduces the S24 Extremely’s show reflectivity by as much as 75% in response to Corning. I can not vouch for the precise share, however I can say that overhead lights all however disappear from the display, and even utilizing the S24 Extremely exterior, beneath a shiny solar, I hardly ever discover any reflections or points.

Samsung has lengthy been an trade chief in smartphone show high quality, and the S24 Extremely continues to bolster Samsung’s declare to the throne.

Clean efficiency

Contained in the Galaxy S24 Extremely is Qualcomm’s newest Snapdragon Gen 3 processor, 12GB of reminiscence and both 256GB, 512GB or 1TB of storage.

Qualcomm and Samsung tout numerous efficiency will increase, all of which really feel correct and true after utilizing the S24 Extremely for a few weeks. For many who care about specifics, the Gen 3 chip is meant to carry a 30% efficiency enhance over the Gen 2, whereas being 20% extra environment friendly.

My S24 Extremely utilization has been a mixture of social media, inbox triage, Slack messages, streaming music, watching YouTube movies, often gaming, and taking a bunch of images and movies.

I can not vouch for the 30% enhance in efficiency, however I can say that the S24 Extremely’s efficiency was clean and hiccup-free.

I did run Geekbench 6, a benchmarking app that exams single and multicore efficiency for a extra goal measure of the S24 Extremely’s efficiency chops in comparison with the S23 Extremely. In single-core efficiency, which is leveraged for extra routine and mundane duties like scrolling the net or sending a textual content, the S24 Extremely was roughly 8% quicker than the S23 Extremely. Multicore efficiency, used when doing extra resource-intensive duties like gaming, modifying images, and even utilizing the S24 Extremely’s new AI options, had an total efficiency enhance of 20% over final yr’s Extremely.

Associated

What’s Galaxy AI? Samsung’s generative AI options defined

All the eye is on generative AI and the main manufacturers which have but to leap into the pool. Apple is one in all them, however what about Samsung?

Battery life is bananas

During the last two weeks, I’ve constantly been capable of get nearly two full days of use out of the S24 Extremely’s battery earlier than I needed to cost it. I may solely dream of doing that on my iPhone 15 Professional Max and Pixel 8 Professional.

Once more, my use consisted of duties that have been taxing on battery life — gaming, streaming video, watching Reels, and a whole lot of use open air in direct daylight with the show set to max brightness — together with extra mundane duties, like doom-scrolling Mastodon and Threads or replying to emails.

Associated

Samsung Galaxy S24 Extremely vs iPhone 15 Professional Max: Does Android’s newest win over iOS?

Samsung’s newest Extremely debuts spectacular AI software program and an up to date digicam, however how does it examine to Apple’s most up-to-date Professional?

For practically each telephone I overview, I run the identical battery life benchmark that consists of setting the show brightness to 50%, turning off Bluetooth, enabling Do Not Disturb, and enjoying a 4K video on a loop. I monitor the telephone utilizing a Wyze Cam in timelapse mode, capturing an image each 60 seconds. As soon as the telephone turns off, I overview the timelapse video and calculate how lengthy the telephone’s battery lasts.

Associated

Samsung Galaxy S24 Extremely vs Google Pixel 8 Professional: Which AI powerhouse must you purchase?

Samsung and Google have created a few of the most succesful Android telephones, boasting spectacular AI options and smooth casing. Which is value your cash?

The Galaxy S24 Extremely powered by means of 20 hours and 47 minutes earlier than turning off, besting Google’s Pixel 8 Professional by practically 9 hours and half-hour.

Suffice to say, battery life will not be a priority with the Galaxy S24 Extremely.

What I do not like in regards to the Galaxy S24 Extremely

The design lacks persona

The design of Samsung’s Extremely sequence of telephones has adopted the identical primary method during the last couple of years, with flat edges on the highest and backside of the telephone, and curved edges on the vertical sides.

The design of the S22 Extremely and even the S23 Extremely felt like extra of a transition design as Samsung tried to determine how one can incorporate the Be aware’s beloved S Pen into its flagship S-series telephone, however with the S24 Extremely utilizing the design, it feels as if Samsung is simply mailing it in at this level.

Perhaps my damaging emotions in direction of the S24 Extremely’s design are indicative of an total drawback with smartphone design feeling stale typically. All of them really feel boring and off, to some extent.

However the S24 Extremely lacks the identical form of persona you get from Google’s Pixel line or the identical degree of refinement discovered on Apple’s iPhone.

The S24 Extremely is an unapologetic rectangular slab of glass and metallic. That is it. To Samsung’s credit score, disposing of a curved edge show was the proper name, however that is the place my appreciation for the S24 Extremely’s design begins and stops.

Galaxy AI is beneficial, however not essential

A significant a part of Samsung’s Galaxy S24 occasion was the rollout of Galaxy AI, a sequence of options and capabilities making their debut on the S24, S24+ and S24 Extremely.

Samsung’s Galaxy AI options embody instruments to summarize notes you have entered in Samsung Notes, provide the tl;dr model of a information story you are studying in Samsung’s Web browser, enhance transcriptions of conferences when utilizing the Voice Recorder app, or act as an interpreter for telephone calls or in-person interactions. There are even just a few Galaxy AI options for serving to edit images and one other one which helps you craft a message by adjusting the tone of your writing.

Out of all these new AI options, the one one I discovered myself utilizing frequently was Circle to Search. We’ve got a whole information detailing how and when you should use the characteristic, however the gist of it’s this: when utilizing your telephone, and also you see an merchandise in your display, be it in an Instagram Reel, TikTok video or on a webpage, you long-press on the underside of your show to set off the characteristic. Then you’ll be able to draw a circle across the merchandise and Google will present a sequence of search outcomes, all with out you ever having to go away the display you are on.

I’ve used Circle to Search to seek out random issues like a guide from a photograph of its backbone, or getting extra details about a particular sort of cheese I did not know the identify of.

It is an interesting use of AI and Google search in an nearly addictive form of means. When you get used to utilizing it, you may end up utilizing it an increasing number of. I do know I did.

Many of those AI options, nevertheless, aren’t unique to the S24 Extremely, though your choices are restricted to Google’s Pixel 8 lineup or any of the Samsung Galaxy units, together with the S23 sequence, Samsung has stated will obtain an replace that features Galaxy AI’s capabilities.

The digicam is nice, however…

The S24 Extremely has a four-camera setup on the rear of the telephone, much like the S23 Extremely, however with some tweaks and enhancements. Arguably essentially the most notable change is the change from a devoted 10MP 3x telephoto lens on the S23 Extremely to a 50MP 5x telephoto shooter on the S24 Extremely.

I haven’t got robust opinions about whether or not a devoted 3x digicam is best than a devoted 5x digicam, particularly as a result of Samsung can use software program to give you 0.6x, 1x, 3x, 5x, 10x, and 30x zoom ranges, however I’ll say that images taken at 5x and past appeared clear and sharp. The additional megapixels give Samsung extra flexibility for zoomed-in images.

However there appears to be a standard theme amongst all of the images I’ve captured with the S24 Extremely during the last two weeks — they’re all barely (or in some instances very) overexposed.

Samsung is infamous for cranking up the saturation on images captured on its smartphones, which typically meant that the publicity ranges have been additionally too excessive. However that latter a part of the equation was an exception, not the norm.

With the S24 Extremely, nearly each picture I captured with S24 Extremely had some degree of being overexposed.

Do not get me flawed, the S24 Extremely’s digicam captures good images. Nice, even. I am being, admittedly, considerably nitpicky right here, particularly as a result of the publicity ranges are one thing you’ll be able to tweak with just some faucets within the Gallery app. However you should not must.

Verdict

Samsung Galaxy S24 Extremely

Really helpful

The Galaxy S24 Extremely is an exceptionally good, however boring telephone. The return of a flat show is welcome, however the design is dated and lacks inspiration. Granted, most individuals put a case on their telephone, hiding the design.

The digicam takes completely acceptable images, but it surely does are inclined to overexpose some areas, so simply be conscious of that. And the brand new AI options are handy — helpful, even — however not a large enough purpose to improve to the S24 Extremely, particularly in case you have an older Galaxy system that can get them by way of an replace.

Efficiency, show and battery life are the S24 Extremely’s killer options, and as is normally the case for Samsung’s flagship telephone, different telephone makers are going to have their work reduce out for them in 2024 in the event that they need to compete with Samsung. The S24 Extremely certain seems to be prefer it’s the Android telephone to beat this yr.