The Galaxy S24 Ultra is probably the best smartphone that Samsung has ever made. It is, without a doubt, its best non-foldable. It’s nearly identical to last year’s impressive Galaxy S23 Ultra, but Samsung’s new “biggest and best” smartphone has been upgraded across the board.
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It has a next-gen processor, a brighter display, a slightly better camera (the existing one was already fantastic), a more advanced cooling system (for gaming), a longer-lasting battery and a titanium frame. The kicker? It comes with seven years of OS updates guaranteed.
On the surface, these qualities might seem like pretty standard improvements you’d expect from a next-gen smartphone. And technically, you’re right. Specwise, the Galaxy S24 Ultra isn’t that much better than the Galaxy S23 Ultra. But specs don’t really tell the full story here.
That’s because, as with the other Galaxy S24 series phones (the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus — both smaller than the Ultra and lacking the embedded S Pen stylus for note-taking), the headline feature is Galaxy AI: a suite of AI-powered upgrades that change the way you interact with and communicate on your smartphone.
There are a lot of these AI-powered features on the Galaxy S24 series. They can help you edit photos, translate or transcribe conversations in real time, and search for things online (like images and text) just by circling them on your screen. Some of these features are surprisingly helpful, useful and quite cool. Some you’ll probably never use.
Now, if you’ve been paying close attention to the smartphone landscape, you’ll know that — especially with Google’s latest Pixels — these AI-powered features will be a big deal moving forward. Smartphone displays and cameras have gotten so good in recent years that, well, they can’t get that much better (can they?). Future smartphones will lean more and more into AI to (theoretically) help make your life easier.
I’ve been using the Galaxy S24 Ultra for the past several weeks. These are the coolest AI features that I’d actually use in real life.
You can instantly search the web by circling images or text
Circle to Search is the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s standout AI feature — I’ve been using it a lot. It allows you to circle anything on your screen, be it a photo, sign, text or even part of a video, and it’ll initiate a Google Search to help you find out exactly what that is.
I’ve taken photos of restaurants, circled their signs, and gotten links to their websites so that I could look at their menus. I used it to identify a large plant I was gifted, a turntable I spotted on Instagram and the cleats of certain Liverpool players. It just takes a split second, and it’s really a game changer once you realize what it’s capable of doing.
It’s never been easier (and cheaper) to transcribe an interview
Some of the AI-powered translation features of the Galaxy S24 Ultra are pretty mind blowing. For example, there’s an Interpreter feature that can translate a conversation between two people speaking different languages in real time; the transcribed conversation appears as a split screen so you both can see what each other is saying. (There’s a similar feature called Live Translation that can translate a live phone call between two people speaking different languages.)
Those aren’t things that I’m going to take advantage of in my everyday life, however.
As a journalist, writer or blogger (whatever you want to call me), one thing that is really useful is its Transcribe Assist feature, which is built into the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s Voice Recorder app. After recording an interview, tap a little transcribe button and, after a few seconds (or a minute or two depending on the length of the recording) you get a pretty accurate transcription. It even discerns the different speakers. It’s really quite neat and hell of a lot quicker (and cheaper) than using an outside transcription service.
Additionally, when you transcribe a recording, the phone also gives you a “Summary” or an outline of the recording — with subheads and timestamps — that’s pretty wild. (If only I had this in college for lectures.)
Photo editing is magic (and a bit scary)
We’ve seen pretty powerful photo-editing tools on smartphones like Google’s latest Pixels, allowing you to alter, remove or resize people, objects and other details from photos — basically a type of on-device Photoshop — and the Galaxy S24 Ultra has that as well. On Google Pixels it’s called “Magic Edit,” and on Samsung’s Galaxy S24 series it’s called “Generative Edit.” (Note: Samsung is actually using Google’s technology — the two have partnered — so they have similar capabilities.)
Altering a photo with Generative AI is super easy. You just take a photo — or open one in the gallery of photos you’ve already taken — and then select the Generative AI star icon. You can then circle or tap an object you want to erase or resize, edit the photo how you see fit, click a button and after a few seconds you’ve got a new photo. Like the phone itself, it’s a little bit of magic, that makes one marvel (or perhaps tremble) at the possibilities.
SamsungSamsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
Specs
| Display | 6.8-inch QHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X Display (120Hz refresh rate) |
| Processor | Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Mobile Platform |
| Cameras (rear) | 200MP (wide); 12MP (ultra-wide); 50MP and 10MP (telephoto) |
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$1,300 (0% off)
