The Truth About The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra - 2 Months Later

- I have had the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra for more than two

months

. And... What about the update? You should really wait for the update. Update! Software update! Update update update! Yeah, I did the damn update, okay? As I said, I've had it as my daily driver for over two

months

and this is my full, in-depth review. Now before I start, let me say that this is easily one of the best smartphones of the year so far, and I think it will be one of my top five smartphones of the year, because I liked it so much.

It really ticks all the boxes. I want to start with the screen, because I think the S24 Ultra has a pretty unique screen and I've used a lot of different smartphones. We went from a curved screen on the S23 Ultra to a flat screen, and I know this was a bit polarizing, but I have to agree that going with a flat screen was the best step forward. When you use the S Pen, it doesn't just fall off the sides, and it's also much easier to apply screen protectors to it. It is crisp and smooth with its LTPO 4.0 technology.

And one thing I have personally appreciated is that it is now a much brighter screen as well. So the S23 Ultra was an excellent display, but it was outperformed by a lot of competition. With the S24 Ultra, the maximum brightness of 2600 nits is amazing. Now yes, other devices can now go even higher than that, but this for me is fine. Now you may know that the S24 Ultra uses Gorilla Armor, and I believe this is the only device right now that uses Gorilla Armor. This makes it more resistant to scratches. I'm not one to scratch my smartphone, but Zach from JerryrigEverything did a test and determined that it was more scratch resistant.

And the other thing about Gorilla Armor is that it reduces reflections. So if you have some direct light, it will be easier on the eyes compared to other devices. One of the things I noticed right away when testing the S24 Ultra, as someone coming from the S23 Ultra, was that the screen wasn't as vibrant. Now, if you've been using Samsung devices for the last few years, Samsung has very deep and vivid colors, and this is something that I would say was a bit lacking on the S24 Ultra. However, since then, we have had a software update and that software update acquired an intensity slider.

So you can keep it normal if you don't like your colors to stand out too much. But you can also upgrade it to be quite similar to the S23 Ultra. Now I'm not sure why it wasn't vivid out of the box, but this might have something to do with Gorilla Armor, because if you put a normal screen protector here, then the colors look pretty vivid, regardless of the slider. And that's something that you're going to have to keep in mind, that if you use a regular screen protector, the anti-reflective ability that you have from Gorilla Armor, you're going to lose it, because now you have a barrier in front of it that's shiny and reflective.

So if you want to maintain the anti-reflective capabilities of Gorilla Armor, you'll either have to do without a screen protector or you'll have to try to find a screen protector that is anti-reflective. Just something to keep in mind. Now that we're on the topic of screen protectors, this one has the Qualcomm Gen 2 Sonic 3D sensor, and this hasn't really changed in recent years. It hasn't really had to change, because it works really well. It is fast and precise. But having used a screen protector on the S24 Ultra for the past few months, I noticed that the fingerprint scanner simply isn't as fast and accurate as it would be if I didn't have it on.

It's usually fine most of the time, but sometimes if you have dry fingers, like I tend to have, then it can be a bit tricky. My advice would be to register the same fingerprint a couple of times, which definitely helps. Now, talking about the design construction, I like this, but it is very similar to the S23 Ultra, which was very similar to the S22 Ultra. And while I was making my comparisons to the S23 Ultra, there were quite a few times where I picked up the S23 Ultra thinking it was the S24 Ultra, and vice versa.

So yeah, if you're looking for a new design, you won't get it here, because the case is very similar, but now we have titanium. Now, the iPhone 15 Pro Max introduced titanium, and that was grade five titanium. With the S24

ultra

, we knew it was titanium, but we didn't know what grade it was. Zach from JerryrigEverything broke down his S24 Ultra to find out exactly what grade of titanium it is. And it apparently uses grade two titanium, so it's not as premium as the iPhone 15 Pro Max. I don't think that matters to anyone. It didn't matter to me, because I, like most people, have my smartphone in a case.

Now I have decided on the titanium gray color, which I think looks very good. It is also available in titanium black, titanium violet and yellow. But I actually quite like the exclusive colors available on

samsung

.com. There is titanium blue, titanium orange and titanium green. Now, if I were going to buy one, I'd probably go with one of those, just to make it a little more unique. And if you're thinking about getting one of those exclusive colors, I'll leave a link in the description below. Now, inside this titanium frame, at the bottom, we now have a slit, instead of holes for the bottom speaker.

We have one in the earpiece and the speakers have really improved. They are louder compared to the S23 Ultra and I really like the speakers. But as good as the S24 Ultra's speakers are, if you really want to get the most out of your music, you'll want to try the Middleton speaker from our sponsor, Marshall. With its four-speaker setup and Marshall's multi-directional stereo sound, it delivers the most powerful portable sound in your hand wherever you are. It has more than 20 hours of playback on a single charge, so you can keep the party going all day long, and it has an iconic yet durable design, with a rugged IP 67 dust- and water-resistant construction, so you can listen to your music , rain or shine.

It's built with 55% post-consumer recycled plastic to make your music more sustainable. And if you really want to amplify the sound, you can even connect the Middleton to other Middleton speakers with a multi-speaker stack. It connects seamlessly to your smartphone via Bluetooth and you can easily customize the sound to your liking, with bass and treble adjustments on the top of the speaker, or control them wirelessly with the Marshall app. If you want to get the Marshall Middleton speaker for yourself or get more information, check out the link in the description below. Now let's talk about the camera.

I've taken hundreds, if not thousands, of images over the past few months with my S24 Ultra, and I think this has one of the best camera packages out there. The selfie camera is really good, has detail and is also great for portrait mode. I find that a lot of reviewers don't even mention the selfie cameras, so that's something I definitely have to mention with the S24 Ultra, a great selfie camera. But the highlight is, of course, the rear cameras. So the

ultra

wide angle camera, the main camera and the 3x zoom camera, all very good, but the main change is the 50 megapixel 5x zoom camera.

Now, I have to say that I'm very happy with Samsung's decision to go with a 5x zoom camera instead of the 10x Periscope zoom camera they had on the S23 Ultra. And the reason for this is that the zoom area between around five, up to 10 times, was not the best on the S23 Ultra, especially when you compare it to iPhones or Google Pixels. Now with the 5x zoom camera, because it's high resolution, you still get a great extended zoom, and with the software update, you now also get clearer text when you zoom in on text, which is nice.

But I think that for me the best are the 5x portraits, which I think look very, very good. I think the Samsung's edge detection is one of the best out there. So when you take portraits at 5x, it almost looks like you're shooting with a professional camera. They are very, very good. The other thing I really appreciate about the S24 Ultra is the improvement in shutter lag. So you can see it side by side when compared to the S23 Ultra, it takes pictures faster. And I also really like the improvements we have for the video. So I think the S24 Ultra shoots amazing quality video and I've done a lot of testing with it.

It's really nice. Now, one area that people really picked up on in my camera comparison with the iPhone 15 Pro Max, which I'll link to in the cards and in the description, you can check it out, was the cinematic mode. And that's how the video started, and a lot of people just took that bit and moved on, not even bothering to watch the rest of the video. So after the update, I tried portrait mode versus cinematic mode on the iPhone again. And the S24 Ultra is good, but I still don't think it's as good as the iPhone.

You can see my hair, yes I know, I have gray hair, which is hard to cut, but the iPhone still does a better job. Now, there were some release notes with the software update about many details that have improved on the S24 Ultra. I didn't have an older version of the S24 Ultra to test them side by side, but in my experience, I've noticed a lot of improvements with the cameras. But my point has always been that the cameras before the update also on the S24 Ultra were still very, very good. I just think they've gotten a little better now with this update.

Now, moving on to the software. Hey! Yes, I'm going to tell you about the update. This isn't the update, it's just a reminder that if you're enjoying this video and want to see more videos like it, consider subscribing and hitting the bell icon. Health. You heard the man, don't forget to subscribe and hit the bell icon. Now, onto the software, I have to say that One UI is one of my favorite skins on Android, and I've been saying so for the past few years. I think Samsung has done a good job with One UI. I was watching Marquez's video reviewing every Galaxy S device since its launch, and I was reminded of TouchWiz and how cartoonish it was.

Samsung has come a long way since then. A user interface, amazing, but also, Samsung has promised seven generations of updates to the Android operating system, and that is very impressive because, apart from Google, I don't think anyone else is doing that. I reviewed the ASUS Zenfone 11 Ultra recently and ASUS only offers two years of major OS updates. That just goes to show how much better support you're getting with the S24 Ultra here. I've had two updates to the S24 Ultra in the last few months, which is very, very good. And we definitely have to talk about some of the AI ​​features that have been introduced in the S24 series.

So some of these are really good, but realistically speaking, I haven't used them as much as I thought I would. Now, I'm not going to go over each and every AI feature, because I did that in previous videos. I'm going to talk about the ones I've used and the ones I haven't used much. First of all, I think the AI ​​wallpapers are great. You can have a few different parameters and generate your own wallpapers. Now, these are confined within those parameters, so you can't just make something up completely, which I think would have been nice, like just putting in some random text and generating wallpapers based on that, rather than within the parameters.

Maybe we'll get it in the next version. Translate live. This was a very, very interesting poster feature for the S24 Ultra when it was announced. You can make phone calls and then 13 languages ​​are supported for real-time two-way AI conversations. What I have found personally is that it really depends on how much you travel in the first place and also where you travel to. If you're someone who travels maybe once or twice a year, I really don't think this is a feature you're going to use very often. You could use it when you are on vacation. But 13 languages ​​are also supported, which is fantastic.

But I was in Saudi Arabia a couple of weeks ago and I wanted to talk to the taxi driver, who didn't speak any English. I thought, "Oh, you know what? I have live translation. I don't need to worry about this." I pick it up and guess what? Arabic is not supported. Now, yes, Arabic might be supported in the future, but my point is that it's very specific, for specific situations, and not something I think anyone is going to use on a daily basis. However, two AI features that I have found myself using are the search circle.

This is something I have to remind myself, but when there is a situation, for example, I was looking for the location of a hotel and I wanted to get a particular view. I just circled around to Google that and found locations around there, which was very, very helpful. I also like to use the summary function. So, for example, if you're on an article and you don't really have time to read it all, you just want the highlights, then you can use the summary feature and it actually does a pretty good job overall. . With the AI ​​photo editing side of things, this is very, very impressive,I have to say, and especially when you're showing some of these features to people, again, I haven't found myself using them every day.

Maybe just once in a while if you want to correct an image, if you want to remove some of the background. I think my favorite still has to be being able to rotate an image and fill in the gaps. That's something I think will be helpful to a lot of people. Now, we've seen all of these AI features in fine print and they will be free until the end of 2025. After that, we're not sure. There might be a monthly charge for it or something. Now, my thought is that, well, let's say after 2025, they will charge a few dollars a month to maintain these features.

Will I use them enough to justify paying a regular rate? And currently, my answer is probably no, because I don't use these features as often as I thought. Don't get me wrong, I think they're really cool features and very, very nice to have, but I use them maybe a couple of times a week. So if I use them twice a week, multiplied by four, I use them eight times a month, how much am I willing to pay to keep those features that I use eight times a month? That's the question that I think will be very important to a lot of people, depending on what Samsung decides to do after 2025.

And that brings me to the S Pen, which I love, and I'm very happy that it's here. But, as with AI features, as much as I love it, I only use it once or twice a week. Now, I'm really glad it's there when I use it, but it's not something that I think is an absolute necessity for most people. The other thing with the S Pen is that it takes up some space on the device, which means we have a 5000 battery (indistinct). Now let me tell you that the S24 Ultra has excellent battery life. It keeps me active all day.

I know people like to know screen time numbers. For me personally, it varies from person to person, but for me, I would say I get about six hours more screen time, which is absolutely fine. That said, there are other devices I tested this year that have better battery life compared to the S24 Ultra. To name a few, the One Plus 12, the ASUS Zenfone 11 Ultra, and the Honor Magic 6 Pro. All of them have larger batteries and better battery life compared to the S24 Ultra. And that does make me think that if this one didn't have the S pen, for example, would it have even better battery life than it currently has?

Now, once again, I want to emphasize that it has very, very good battery life. I'm just talking about some of the competition. Maybe you are someone who loves games and you play on your phone all day. You'll get better battery life with some of these other devices, compared to the S24 Ultra. You'll also get faster charging from other devices compared to the S24 Ultra. So this supports 45 watts of fast charging and 15 watts of wireless charging. Personally, I leave it on a wireless charger overnight. I wake up with it charged and I'm ready for the rest of the day.

And since the battery life is good, I don't have to worry about it. But then again, when you look at the competition, there are others that support faster charging. That may not be important to you, but it's something I should mention. Now, one area where the S24 Ultra has an advantage compared to other competitors is in its chipset, because it has a custom chip. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 gen 3 for Galaxy, which has a higher clock speed. What impact does that really have on your day-to-day life? Not much for me. The S24 Ultra, like almost all other devices powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, handles anything you throw at it.

And over the last few months of using this, I haven't had any performance issues. It's been very, very smooth. And that brings me to the price. So the S24 Ultra, I mean, it's an expensive phone. It's a flagship device and starts at a higher price in the US compared to the S23 Ultra's starting price. In the UK, it starts at the same price, £1,250. Is that price justified? It's worth it? In my opinion, yes it is. This is a great smartphone that ticks all the boxes and yes, there may be some features that you may not use on a daily basis, but they are there if you need them.

Unfortunately, many of the amazing pre-order deals Samsung had when the S24 Ultra launched are no longer around. But if you're still interested in getting the S24 Ultra, you can use my affiliate link in the description below. And with that, there are still some trade-in deals out there, so you can still get some really good trade-ins if you have an older device. And that is the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. I've been using it for the past few months and will continue to use it as my daily driver for the next few months, until something else replaces it.

But it is going to be very difficult to replace it, because it is an excellent smartphone and I can definitely recommend it. What do you think of the S24 Ultra? Leave me a comment below, let me know your thoughts. If you want to see that detailed comparison of the SuperSaf-style camera with the iPhone 15 Pro Max, I've covered it here. Maybe you have the S23 Ultra and want to see how it compares to the newer S24 Ultra. Well, I've covered it in detail in this video here. If you want to see more videos like this, please consider subscribing and hit the bell icon.

Thanks for watching. I'm Saf on SuperSaf TV and I'll see you next time.