- I've had the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra for over two months. And ... What about the update? You should really wait for the update. Update! Software update! Update update update! Yes, I've done the damn update, okay? As I was saying, I've had
this as my daily driver for over two months now, and this is my full in-depth review. Now, before I start, let me just 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've liked it so much. It really does tick all of the boxes. I want to start with the display, because I think the S24 Ultra does have quite a unique display, and I've used lots of
different smartphones. We've gone from a curve
display on the S23 Ultra to the flat display, and I know this was something
that was a bit polarizing, but I have to agree that
going for a flat display was the best move forward. When you're using the S pen, it doesn't just kind
of fall over the sides, and it's also much easier to apply screen protectors to this. It's sharp, it's smooth with
its LTPO 4.0 technology. And one thing that I've
personally appreciated is that it's a much brighter
display now as well. So with the S23 Ultra, it
was an excellent display, but it did get overtaken
by lots of the competition. With the S24 Ultra, the peak brightness of
2,600 nits is amazing. Now yes, other devices can go now, even higher than that, but
this for me is just fine. Now you may know that the S24
Ultra is using Gorilla Armor, and I believe this is
the only device right now that uses Gorilla Armor. This makes it more scratch resistant. I'm not somebody who
scratches my smartphone, but Zach from JerryrigEverything
has done a test and he did determine that it
was more scratch resistant. And the other thing with Gorilla Armor is that it reduces reflections. So if you've got some direct light, this is going to be easier on the eyes compared to other devices. One of the things that
I noticed straight away when testing the S24 Ultra, as somebody who was
coming from the S23 Ultra, was that the display was not as vibrant. Now, if you've been using Samsung devices for the past few years, Samsung has very punchy and vivid colors, and this is something
that was, I would say, lacking a little bit on the S24 Ultra. However, since then, we have had a software update, and that software update has
bought a vividness slider. So you can just keep it as normal if you don't like your
colors to pop too much. But then you can also boost this to make it 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 do put a regular
screen protector onto here, then the colors do seem quite vivid, regardless of the slider. And that is something that you're going to have to keep in mind, that if you do use a
regular screen protector, the anti-reflectiveness that
you have of Gorilla Armor, you are going to lose that, because now you've got
a barrier in front of it which is glossy and reflective. So if you want to maintain
that anti-reflectiveness of Gorilla Armor, you're going to have to just
go without a screen protector, or you're going to have to
try to find a screen protector that is anti-reflective. Just something to keep in mind. Now while we're on the
topic of screen protectors, this has the Gen 2
Qualcomm 3D Sonic sensor, and this hasn't really changed
over the past few years. It really hasn't had to change, because it works really well. It's fast and it's accurate. But having used a screen
protector on the S24 Ultra over the past couple of months, I have noticed that
the fingerprint scanner is just not as fast and accurate as it would be if you didn't have it on. Now it's usually fine in most occasions, but sometimes if you've got dry fingers, like I generally tend to have, then it can struggle a little bit. My advice would be to
register the same fingerprint a couple of times, which
definitely does help. Now speaking of the build on the design, I do like this, but it's very
similar to the S23 Ultra, which was very similar to the S22 Ultra. And while I was doing my
comparisons with the S23 Ultra, there was quite a few occasions where I picked up the S23 Ultra thinking it was the S24
Ultra, and vice versa. So yes, if you're after a fresh design, you're not really getting that on here, because the shell is very similar, but we now do 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 actually broke down his S24 Ultra to find out exactly what
grade of titanium it is. And it is apparently
using grade two titanium, so it's not as premium
as the iPhone 15 Pro Max. I don't think that's going
to matter to anybody. It hasn't mattered to me, because I, like most people, have my smartphone in a case. Now I've gone with the
titanium gray color, which I think looks really nice. It's also available in the titanium black, the titanium violet, and a yellow. But I actually quite
like the exclusive colors available from samsung.com. There is the titanium blue, the titanium orange,
and the titanium green. Now if I was going to get one, I'd probably go for one of those, just to make it a bit more unique. And if you are thinking of getting one of those exclusive colors, then I will leave a link down
in the description below. Now, within this titanium frame, at the bottom, we do have a slit now, rather than holes for the
bottom firing speaker. We've got one in the earpiece, and the speakers have actually improved. They are louder compared to the S23 Ultra, and I do really like the speakers. But as good as the speakers
on the S24 Ultra are, if you really want to get
the best out of your music, you'll want to check out
the Middleton speaker from our sponsor, Marshall. With its quad speaker setup and multi-directional
stereo sound from Marshall, it gives you the heaviest portable sound in your hand wherever you are. It has 20 plus hours of
playtime from a single charge, so you can keep the
party going all day long, and it has an iconic but durable design, with a rugged IP 67 dust
and water resistant build, so you can 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 seamlessly connects to your
smartphone with 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'd like to get the
Marshall Middleton speaker for yourself, or find out more, check out the link in
the description below. Now let's talk about the camera. So I've taken hundreds if
not thousands of images over the past couple of
months with my S24 Ultra, and I think this has one of the best all around camera packages out there. The selfie camera is really good, it's detailed and it's great
for portrait mode as well. I find that a lot of
reviewers don't even touch on the selfie cameras, so that's something that I
definitely do have to mention with the S24 Ultra,
excellent selfie camera. But the rear facing cameras
are, of course, the highlight. So the ultra wide camera,
the primary 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 am very happy with Samsung's decision to go with a 5x zoom camera rather than
the 10x Periscope zoom camera that they had on the S23 Ultra. And the reason for that
is because the zoom area between around five, all
the way up to 10 times, wasn't the best on the S23 Ultra, especially when you compared it to the likes of the iPhones or
the Google Pixels out there. Now going with the 5x zoom camera, because it is a high resolution, you still get great extended zoom, and with the software update, you now also have clearer text when you are zooming
into text, which is nice. But I think for me, the best
thing is portraits at 5x, which I think look really, really good. I think the edge detection on the Samsung is one of the best out there. So when you are taking portraits at 5x, it almost looks like
you are taking pictures with a pro camera. They are very, very good. The other thing that
I really do appreciate on the S24 Ultra is the
improvement in shutter lag. So you can see side by side when you're comparing it to the S23 Ultra, it does take pictures quicker. And I also really like the improvements that we've got for video. So I think the S24 Ultra takes some amazing quality video, and I've done lots of tests with this. It's really, really good. Now, one area that people really picked up on my camera comparison
versus the iPhone 15 Pro Max, which I'll link in the cards
and in the description, you can check that out, was the cinematic mode. And that's what the video started with, and a lot of people kind
of just took that snippet and kind of rolled with it, didn't even bother watching
the rest of the video. So after the update, I
did try portrait video 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 towards my hair, yes, I know, I've got gray hair, which is difficult to cut out, but the iPhone is still
doing a better job. Now, there was some release notes with the software update about lots of specifics 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 have noticed a lot of
improvements with the cameras. But my point has always
been that the cameras before the update as well on the S24 Ultra were still very, very good. I just think that they've
had a bit of an improvement now with this update. Now,
moving on to the software. Hey! Yes, I'm going to tell
'em about the update. It's not about the update, it's just a reminder that if
you're enjoying this video, and you want to see more like it, then do consider subscribing
and hitting that bell icon. Cheers. You heard the man, don't forget to subscribe
and hit that bell icon. Now, with the software, I have to say that One UI is one of my favorite skins on Android, and I've been saying this
for the past few years. I think Samsung has done
such a good job with One UI. I was watching Marquez's video, which reviewed every
single Galaxy S device since its release, and I was just reminded of TouchWiz, and how cartoony that was. Samsung has come such
a long way since then. One UI, amazing, but also, Samsung has now promised seven generations of Android OS updates, and that's so impressive
because, apart from Google, I don't think anybody else is doing that. I reviewed the ASUS
Zenfone 11 Ultra recently, and ASUS is only offering two
years of major OS updates. So that just goes to show how much better support you're getting
with the S24 Ultra here. I've had two updates on the S24 Ultra in the past couple of months, which is very, very good. And we definitely have to talk about some of the AI features
that have been introduced on the S24 series. So, some of these are really, really good, but realistically speaking, I've not found myself using them as much as I thought I would've. Now, I'm not going to go
through every single AI feature, because I've done that in previous videos. I'm going to talk about the
ones I have found myself using, and the ones that I've not
found myself using much at all. So firstly, AI wallpapers
I think is very cool. You can have some 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've been nice, like just putting some random text in and for it to generate
wallpapers based on that, rather than within the parameters. Maybe we'll get that in the next version. Live translate. Now this was a very,
very cool poster feature, for the S24 Ultra when it was announced. You can make phone
calls and then there are 13 languages supported for real-time AI two-way conversations. What I have personally found is that it really depends on, firstly, how much you travel, and
also where you travel to. If you're somebody who travels maybe once a year or twice a year, I really don't think
that this is going to be a feature that you're
going to use very often. You might just use it
when you are on holiday. But also, 13 languages are
supported, which is great. But I was in Saudi Arabia
a couple of weeks ago, and I wanted to speak to the taxi driver, who didn't speak any English. I was like, "Oh, you know what? I've got live translate. I don't need to worry about this." I pull 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 it's not something that I think anybody's going to be
using on a daily basis. Two AI features that I have
found myself using, however, circle to search. This is something that
I do have to kind of remind myself of, but when there is a
situation, for instance, I was looking at a location for a hotel and I kind of wanted to
get a particular view. I just circled to search that on Google, and it kind of found me
locations around there, which was so, so useful. I also like using the summary feature. So for instance, if you are on an article, and you don't really have time
to read through everything, you just kind of want the highlights, then you can just use
the summarized feature, and it actually does a
very 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 kind of showing off some of these features to people, I again, have not found
myself using these every day. Maybe just occasionally if
you want to correct an image, if you want to remove
something from the background. I think my favorite still has to be being able to rotate an image and for it to fill in the gaps. That's something that
I think will be useful for a lot of people. Now, all of these AI features we have seen in the small print that they will be free
up until the end of 2025. After that, we're not sure. There might be a monthly charge for it or something like that. Now, my thought is that, okay, say after 2025, they charge a few dollars a
month to keep these features. Will I be using them enough to
justify paying a regular fee? And currently, my answer is probably no, because I don't use
these features as often as I thought I would. Don't get me wrong, I think
they're really cool features, and they're very, very nice to have, but I find myself using them
maybe a couple of times a week. So, if I'm using them twice a week, times that by four, I'm using
them eight times a month, how much will I be willing to pay to keep those features that
I use eight times a month? That's the question that
I think is going to be very important for a lot of people, depending on what Samsung
decides to do after 2025. And that brings me on to the S pen, which I absolutely love,
and I'm so glad it's here. But, like with the AI features, as much as I love it, I only find myself using it
maybe once or twice a week. Now, I'm so glad it's
there when I do 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 does take up
some space in the device, which means we have a 5000
(indistinct) power battery. Now let me just say that the S24 Ultra has excellent battery life. It keeps me going all day long. I know people like to know
screen on time figures. For me personally, it varies
from person to person, but for me, I would
say I get roughly about six hours plus of screen on time, which is absolutely fine. Having said that, there are other devices
that I've tested this year which have better battery life
compared to the S24 Ultra. To name a few, the One Plus 12, the ASUS Zenfone 11 Ultra, as well as the Honor Magic 6 Pro. All of those have bigger batteries and better battery life
compared to the S24 Ultra. And that does make me think that if this did not 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 this has very, very good battery life. I'm just talking about
some of the competition. Maybe you're somebody who loves to game and you're gaming on your phone all day. You will 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 speaking, I just drop this on a
wireless charger at night. I wake up to it charged, and I'm good to go for
the rest of the day. And because the battery life is good, I don't have to worry about that. But again, when you
look at the competition, there are others out there that
do support faster charging. That might not be important to you, but just something I have to mention. Now, one area where the S24 Ultra does have an advantage compared to some of the other competition
is with its chip set, because it has a custom chip. The Qualcomm Snapdragon
8 gen 3 for Galaxy, which has a higher clock speed. How much of an impact
does that actually have on your day to day? Not much for me. The S24 Ultra, like pretty much every
other device out there that is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, handles anything that you throw at it. And over the past couple
of months of using this, I've not had any hiccups
in the performance at all. It's been very, very smooth. And that brings me on to the price. So the S24 Ultra, I mean, it is an expensive phone. It's a flagship device, and it starts at a higher price in the US compared to what the S23 Ultra started at. In the UK, it starts at the
same price, 1250 pounds. Is that price justified? Is it worth it? In my opinion, yes it is. This is an excellent smartphone
that ticks all of the boxes, and yes, there might be some features which you may not use on a daily basis, but they are there if you need. Now unfortunately, a lot of
the amazing pre-order offers that Samsung had when
the S24 Ultra launched are no longer there. But if you are still interested
in getting the S24 Ultra, you can use my affiliate link
down in the description below. And with that, there are some
offers still on Trade-in, 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 couple of months, and I'm going to carry on
using it as my daily driver over the next few months, until something else replaces this. But it's going to be very
hard to replace this, because it is such an
excellent smartphone, and I can definitely recommend it. What do you guys think of the S24 Ultra? Drop me a comment below,
let me know your thoughts. If you want to see that
detailed SuperSaf style camera comparison versus
the iPhone 15 Pro Max, then I've covered that here. Maybe you've got the S23 Ultra and you want to see how it
compares to the newer S24 Ultra. Well, I've covered that in
detail in this video here. If you want to see more videos like this, then do consider subscribing
and hit that bell icon. Thanks for watching. This is Saf on SuperSaf TV,
and I'll see you next time.
