Samsung Galaxy S24 / S24+ / S24 Ultra

I'm pretty disillusioned with my last 3 Pixels, but am giving the S24 Ultra a shot to keep me on Team Android. Got my reservation locked and Pixel 8 Pro ready for trade-in (or sell). If the Ultra don't impress, I'll be back to an iPhone for the first time since the 7 Plus.
 
Damn, that's the 4th S-series Ultra model in a row to come with a 6.8" screen. I guess they've settled on that size going forward. Having no SD card slot and paying tons of extra money up-front being your only option for extra storage seems to have become standard also. I'm going to have to upgrade from my current Note 20 Ultra at some point, but my Note 20 Ultra has a 6.9" screen and an SD card slot. I like Samsung phones but I'd really love something to upgrade to that didn't feel like a downgrade or a compromise.
 
I feel you !
But that descision has been made by the SD-card industry by selling crap that does not meet the minimum specifications and samsungs helplines beeing overburdened by users buying cheap SD-cards and giving samsung the blame.
 
GotNoRice said:
Damn, that's the 4th S-series Ultra model in a row to come with a 6.8" screen. I guess they've settled on that size going forward. Having no SD card slot and paying tons of extra money up-front being your only option for extra storage seems to have become standard also. I'm going to have to upgrade from my current Note 20 Ultra at some point, but my Note 20 Ultra has a 6.9" screen and an SD card slot. I like Samsung phones but I'd really love something to upgrade to that didn't feel like a downgrade or a compromise.
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SD cards are never coming back on phones.
 
Vengance_01 said:
SD cards are never coming back on phones.
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And if certain mfgr's continue to get their way, very soon there will be ZERO ports/slots etc of any kind on any phone anywhere....well, maybe we will still have speakers for a while, but that's it !

1st - no mo headphone jacks
2nd - no mo sim card/micro-nano-sd trays
3rd - no mo charging ports except USB-C, which is rapidly being groomed for extinction also, in favor of wireless charging only with no other options :(
 
Have a Star Wars Note 10 + and S24 ultra other then camera and faster chip aside doesn't feel like much of an upgrade. Why does Samsung still offer only 12 gb of ram? Note 3 (3 gb ram 64 gb storage) to Note 10 + 12 gb ram 256 gb) storage was a big upgrade other then losing the head phone jack. Sony XM4s are fairly decent other then the random blue tooth disconnects. Not liking S24 having no SD card slot. Losing micro sd is huge. My Note 10 plus has 256 gb internal and 1 tb sd card means for me to upgrade to a no sd card phone I need a 2 tb phone minimum which no one is offering. Already don't like losing the head phone jack and ir blaster from the note 3. Don't like the whole charge more and lose features trend. At this rate will be waiting till 2025 for a 24 gb of ram 2 tb phone or if they come out another cool star wars edition. Likely end up buying the Madalorian and Grogru S25 Ultra if they make one even if it doesn't meet those specs since am a big Star Wars fan.
 
Pre-ordered an S24 Ultra from Best Buy today. BB is including a $150 e-gift card with pre-orders, but only offers $450 trade-in for the Pixel 8 Pro. If I keep the S24, I'll sell my 8P on Swappa.
 
Mad Maxx said:
Pre-ordered an S24 Ultra from Best Buy today. BB is including a $150 e-gift card with pre-orders, but only offers $450 trade-in for the Pixel 8 Pro. If I keep the S24, I'll sell my 8P on Swappa.
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Your downgrading from the Pixel 8 Pro to S24 Ultra?

I'm being silly, but seriously though, what does the S24U offer or do more or better than the P8P? I love stock Android and the lack of bloatware and duplicate apps, plus I find the rounded smaller shape of the Pixel 8 Pro easier and more comfortable to hold than the sharp corners of the Galaxy Ultra.
 
Zorachus said:
Your downgrading from the Pixel 8 Pro to S24 Ultra?

I'm being silly, but seriously though, what does the S24U offer or do more or better than the P8P? I love stock Android and the lack of bloatware and duplicate apps, plus I find the rounded smaller shape of the Pixel 8 Pro easier and more comfortable to hold than the sharp corners of the Galaxy Ultra.
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Gotta try it before deciding whether it's a down or upgrade. I use a case for my phone, so the sharp vs. rounded edge is a non-issue for me.
 
Vengance_01 said:
SD cards are never coming back on phones.
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Unless you consider a midrange phone like the Galaxy A24, which also has a headphone jack and better battery life than the flagships. Having just gone from a Pixel 5 to the 8 and barely noticed any performance improvement in real world usage, the case for flagship phones gets harder every generation.

The biggest differentiator is usually in camera performance, so if that isn't a high priority, then that's even less reason to go flagship. Also, funny enough, the Pixel 7a pretty much sweeped MKBHD's blind picture poll tests across millions of votes on every social media platform. And the 6a did the same last year somehow.


View: https://youtu.be/VRoTOE3FqT0?si=rhoMzM8q4592541D

Imb4 someone tries to discredit him and/or his method too.

But anyways, given the mediocre hardware of the Pixels and software updates that often introduce as many bugs as they fix, I wouldn't blame anyone for jumping to Samsung. I would have totally preferred the S23 over my P8 if I could have found a similar deal on one for $550 over the holidays. But I settled for the price and other than it still being too large/heavy for my liking (compared to my Pixel 5 or even the S23), it's been ok. But I'm only getting average battery life and that's only going to get worse with battery wear.
 
I've been enjoying my Pixel 8 Pro the past 3 months. I like the FLAT display, the brighter screen, the comfortable rounded size, and it feels smooth and lag free. And the battery life seems much improved, like way batter than the 7 Pro. Plus stock Android with no bloatware, no duplicate apps, or Bixby and stuff.

I was curious about the S24 ultra, but honestly, it does nothing for me, looks like a nice enough smartphone, ya. But not pumped up or super exciting, to me. How is it much better than the S23 Ultra?

I think I'm just getting burned out on new smartphone releases, a lot of the same old, same old, nothing really new, unless you wait 2 to 3 years between upgrades then yes it's a big upgrade, but year to year upgrades lately are just lighting your ca$h on fire.

Even for me, I went from the Pixel 6 Pro to the Pixel 7 Pro, and it was a sidegrade at best, if that, the 7 Pro to me, felt like a 6.25 Pro. A week later I couldn't tell if I was holding the 7 Pro or 6 Pro.

But don't listen to my rants, it's exciting getting new gadgets, it hits those dopamine levels :)
 
Zorachus said:
I think I'm just getting burned out on new smartphone releases, a lot of the same old, same old, nothing really new, unless you wait 2 to 3 years between upgrades then yes it's a big upgrade, but year to year upgrades lately are just lighting your ca$h on fire.
But don't listen to my rants, it's exciting getting new gadgets, it hits those dopamine levels :)
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How can we not love your honesty Zorachus.
 
Hard Pass for me. will skip Pixel 9 most likely as well. sticking with my Pixel 6 as it works just fine
 
Vengance_01 said:
Hard Pass for me. will skip Pixel 9 most likely as well. sticking with my Pixel 6 as it works just fine
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Pixel 9 has been rumored to be a big nothing upgrade. It's the Pixel 10 that will be the top dog with custom made TSMC chipset.
 
I pre-ordered the regular S24 direct from Samsung. I've been pretty disillusioned with the overall terrible modem and SOC in the Pixel series, so I moved to the S23 last year. I bought it used for ~$450. Samsung is offering me $550 on trade with a free set of their buds and a storage upgrade free. All in with taxes, trade in, and a first responder discount for ~$250.
 
I can't be the only one whose favorite feature of the S24 Ultra is also one of the simplest: the return of the flat screen.

There's no point to having those curved screen edges on a penabled phone; it just makes it harder to use the S Pen on the very edges, and somehow Samsung thought this was a great idea as far back as the ill-fated Note 7, right up until now. It was "form over function" in the worst way.

It also means you have more viable tempered glass screen protector options besides the Whitestone Dome Glass with that LOCA UV glue.

Zorachus said:
I was curious about the S24 ultra, but honestly, it does nothing for me, looks like a nice enough smartphone, ya. But not pumped up or super exciting, to me. How is it much better than the S23 Ultra?

I think I'm just getting burned out on new smartphone releases, a lot of the same old, same old, nothing really new, unless you wait 2 to 3 years between upgrades then yes it's a big upgrade, but year to year upgrades lately are just lighting your ca$h on fire.
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You and me both; it's getting harder and harder to tell apart these yearly releases. About the only way you can tell apart a Note 20 Ultra from an S22 Ultra is the camera array being individual lenses rather than an island with one big rectangle of glass, and from there, the S22U, S23U and S24U all look almost identical save for the gradually shrinking amount of glass curve.

That said, I'm getting an S24U largely because my Note 20 Ultra's got cracked glass on both sides and is living on borrowed time as far as software updates go, especially with the locked bootloaders they slapped us with. That's about a three-year run when factoring in the late-year release of the old Note line, not too bad, more time for those iterative upgrades to add up to something meaningful - but I'm not gonna like losing the microSD slot, 1 TB internal storage be damned, just like I never liked losing the headphone jack, the IR blaster, or easily user-replaceable batteries.

If they're serious about the 7-year software update promise, I wouldn't mind keeping the S24U for that long. Maybe at the end of that period, they'll actually have a worthy upgrade other than "N20U but with a new SoC and no microSD" like the past few generations have been.
 
NamelessPFG said:
I can't be the only one whose favorite feature of the S24 Ultra is also one of the simplest: the return of the flat screen.

There's no point to having those curved screen edges on a penabled phone; it just makes it harder to use the S Pen on the very edges, and somehow Samsung thought this was a great idea as far back as the ill-fated Note 7, right up until now. It was "form over function" in the worst way.

It also means you have more viable tempered glass screen protector options besides the Whitestone Dome Glass with that LOCA UV glue.


You and me both; it's getting harder and harder to tell apart these yearly releases. About the only way you can tell apart a Note 20 Ultra from an S22 Ultra is the camera array being individual lenses rather than an island with one big rectangle of glass, and from there, the S22U, S23U and S24U all look almost identical save for the gradually shrinking amount of glass curve.

That said, I'm getting an S24U largely because my Note 20 Ultra's got cracked glass on both sides and is living on borrowed time as far as software updates go, especially with the locked bootloaders they slapped us with. That's about a three-year run when factoring in the late-year release of the old Note line, not too bad, more time for those iterative upgrades to add up to something meaningful - but I'm not gonna like losing the microSD slot, 1 TB internal storage be damned, just like I never liked losing the headphone jack, the IR blaster, or easily user-replaceable batteries.

If they're serious about the 7-year software update promise, I wouldn't mind keeping the S24U for that long. Maybe at the end of that period, they'll actually have a worthy upgrade other than "N20U but with a new SoC and no microSD" like the past few generations have been.
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I have been waiting years for Samsung to return to flat screens! Still have my Samsung S9, but going to wait one more year for the S25 which I'm sure will be well worth the wait, with even more AI. I must say the S24 Ultra's flat screen looks so attractive compared to my curved S9.
 
I'm still not used to the software differences between the S23u and the Pixel 7Pro. I like how Pixel's behave but the S23U can do so much more. I do pine for the actually flat display of the 24 series.
For the one way that I have ended up using my phone for the most, being a glorified magnifying glass. I hope that I can hold out for whatever comes out after what's next.
 
Supersnake said:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vQKk5NRCqs

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The reason I don't have an I-phone is it's maddening to have them decide what's best for you based on their profit vs desire of the end user.

I have the S-20 ultra and still can't find a reason to upgrade.

I feel they are getting desperate to have EVERYONE carry a phone that doesn't have a micro sd slot by giving huge discounts so they can make the REAL MONEY with government contracts to access all our info on cloud SERVERS that rolls in monthly rather than one time purchases.

I take 4k diving videos @ 60fps as well as tons of personal stuff...I don't want do cumbersome cloud transactions all the time as well as giving all my info to servers.

It's not their business but they make it their business since it's big money....better than the phone itself since it's monthly.

I've been faithful to Samsung for over 15 years but I'm seriously considering defecting.

Just give me my stinkin sd card slot!

Why is it such a big huge deal not too?
It's become obvious.

Even with 1 TB of onboard storage that's no good if your phone breaks or gets stolen and you never got to back it up without first giving it to the government!

Think I'm a conspiriost?
Think again!
In the interest of National security "their security" they've invaded all facets of banking, social apps, and storage devices to maintain control.

Yes the inherent idea to catch Crooks is noble but the gov Crooks use it too!
 
Supersnake said:

Samsung says Galaxy AI features will only be free ‘until the end of 2025’​

Notably, most of Samsung’s AI suite runs through the cloud. The translation features and some others work fully on-device, but some of the more impressive demos, like Generative Edit and transcription run through the cloud (off of Google’s Gemini models).
[9to5google]
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Yes, this was mentioned above. This is beyond idiotic and is a major turn off for the phone, considering this is their biggest pitch for it. It's like ... now we have to pay for basic functionality of phones? They already bumped the price of the flagship by 100 bucks. I get times are hard, but this is just stupid.
 
GotNoRice said:
Damn, that's the 4th S-series Ultra model in a row to come with a 6.8" screen. I guess they've settled on that size going forward. Having no SD card slot and paying tons of extra money up-front being your only option for extra storage seems to have become standard also. I'm going to have to upgrade from my current Note 20 Ultra at some point, but my Note 20 Ultra has a 6.9" screen and an SD card slot. I like Samsung phones but I'd really love something to upgrade to that didn't feel like a downgrade or a compromise.
Click to expand...
I'm feel exactly the same as you... My Note 20 Ultra still works flawlessly and love have the option of adding storage via SD card. I don't see any flagship phones using SD cards these days and I've been using only Galaxy phones since the S3. My screen is starting to show signs though as there is light bleeding where the front camera phone is located and also around the edges... Doesn't bother me enough to replace but the battery has held up surprising well. Maybe cause I've been capping the charging to 85%.

This whole AI subscription service model Samsung is pushing with the latest S24 makes me question whether I should finally get an iPhone....

I agree with what others have posted above. Paying a subscription for AI features is the dumbest thing ever and I can imagine they will try to add everything possible under this AI umbrella like even photo editing as an AI feature that you need to pay subscription for moving forward... If this is what Samsung is doing I'm done with them...
 
psy81 said:
I'm feel exactly the same as you... My Note 20 Ultra still works flawlessly and love have the option of adding storage via SD card. I don't see any flagship phones using SD cards these days and I've been using only Galaxy phones since the S3. My screen is starting to show signs though as there is light bleeding where the front camera phone is located and also around the edges... Doesn't bother me enough to replace but the battery has held up surprising well. Maybe cause I've been capping the charging to 85%.

This whole AI subscription service model Samsung is pushing with the latest S24 makes me question whether I should finally get an iPhone....

I agree with what others have posted above. Paying a subscription for AI features is the dumbest thing ever and I can imagine they will try to add everything possible under this AI umbrella like even photo editing as an AI feature that you need to pay subscription for moving forward... If this is what Samsung is doing I'm done with them...
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I enjoy the simple, non-BS of my iPhone, though I have enjoyed messing around with Pixel phones and Samsung phones (my last one was the Note 20 Ultra and it was great). Is the iPhone more boring than all the constantly changing and new features of Android phones? Sure. But the iPhone is a consistent experience and everything just works as I expect it to. I do miss tinkering with Android phones, but I know what I'm getting with the iPhone.
 
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Shoganai said:
I enjoy the simple, non-BS of my iPhone, though I have enjoyed messing around with Pixel phones and Samsung phones (my last one was the Note 20 Ultra and it was great). Is the iPhone more boring than all the constantly changing and new features of Android phones? Sure. But the iPhone is a consistent experience and everything just works as I expect it to. I do miss tinkering with Android phones, but I know what I'm getting with the iPhone.
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My current work phone is an iPhone and I've used iPhones since iPhone 6 cause of work... The more I used it the more I'm open to the idea of if becoming my primary phone...

Pretty disappointed in Samsung phones lately and I don't really see any other good options. Camera quality is especially important to me which is why the iPhone looks more and more appealing.
 
psy81 said:
I'm feel exactly the same as you... My Note 20 Ultra still works flawlessly and love have the option of adding storage via SD card. I don't see any flagship phones using SD cards these days and I've been using only Galaxy phones since the S3. My screen is starting to show signs though as there is light bleeding where the front camera phone is located and also around the edges... Doesn't bother me enough to replace but the battery has held up surprising well. Maybe cause I've been capping the charging to 85%.
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Yeah, I really have not heard a single good reason to have eliminated the SD card. It's pretty obvious based on their pricing that they simply seized upon the opportunity to use storage as another price tier. They can advertise the phone at a lower price, but that model only comes with such a small amount of storage that a large percentage of people will end up paying hundreds more for extra storage. Except that extra storage isn't worth hundreds of dollars. You can buy SD cards with 4 times as much storage for 1/4th the price, but they simply eliminated that option and forced users to pay extra directly to Samsung if they want it. It's a deliberate money grab and nothing else. Any nonsense about maintaining their water-proof rating or not wanting users to have to deal with slow SD cards is pure BS. Phones still have slots for SIM cards, and all phones have at least some internal storage that is used for system functions.

Since phones have become most people's main cameras, it makes sense that people need storage for all of those pictures and videos. It's not rocket science. I usually take 10-15 pictures every time I take a picture and then pick out the best one later. I like to take long videos at max resolution and scale it down later if necessary. I don't want to have to compromise just because of a limitation of the phone.

The one thing that does not bug me as much as I thought it would was the removal of the headphone jack. The USB-C dongles work pretty good. The one I got is pretty small, and even allows pass-through USB-C charging while I listen to my headphones. So essentially 100% equivalent functionality compared to if my phone had a real headphone jack, using nothing but the USB-C port. I was actually impressed.

I also limit my battery to 85% charge unless I'm going on a trip, at which time I'll disable battery protection. It does seem to have helped maintain battery health over time. If my battery actually starts to go bad, and I'm not ready to give up the phone yet, I might try one of those battery-cases. I used one with my old Note 2 and it was pretty nice having 10,000+ mah of battery.
 
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The AI subscription concept doesn't bother me as much because I feel like whatever advantages it might offer I'd have to pay extra for anyways. If I was interested.
The last phone that I had with microSD was a Moto G5plus. I regret that I don't have the options that it afforded me, but I don't miss it. Or is it the other way around? Go easy on me, English is the only language that I know...
 
Does anyone know if the S24 will have improved AI speech-to-text for texting in the messaging app like google pixel has the "assistant typing"? Looks like Samsung only advertised the AI voice to text in the Translate app and recording app. They showed nothing of it being used in the texting/messaging app as part of the samsung keyboard. I would hope that if Samsung is using AI to translate languages in real time voice to text that the same tech would be utilized in the voice typing feature on the samsung keyboard when sending text messages. I really wanted fast Pixel level voice typing on samsung with punctuation.
 
Dutt1113 said:
Does anyone know if the S24 will have improved AI speech-to-text for texting in the messaging app like google pixel has the "assistant typing"? Looks like Samsung only advertised the AI voice to text in the Translate app and recording app. They showed nothing of it being used in the texting/messaging app as part of the samsung keyboard. I would hope that if Samsung is using AI to translate languages in real time voice to text that the same tech would be utilized in the voice typing feature on the samsung keyboard when sending text messages. I really wanted fast Pixel level voice typing on samsung with punctuation.
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Can't you just download the Gboard keyboard from the app store to get those features? That's the only keyboard I've ever used on my Galaxy devices.
 
You can still use samsung keyboard and then change the voice input to google, but it will be the standard voice typing that any android phone can use. The standard google voice typing still seems to be better than Samsungs, which can be garbage at times. Only Pixels get the enhanced google assistant voice typing which I miss from the pixel. I was wondering if the s24 will use it's new AI to get improved or an enhanced version of the their own Samsung voice input to maybe be as good as the pixel voice typing
 
Hopefully it is. After using the pixel 7 and the s23 both with Google's gboard instead of Samsung's keyboard, I don't really notice a big difference. I have not used a pixel 8 series yet either though.
 
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