Galaxy S24 Extremely: Every little thing New Over the S23 Extremely (and Ought to You Improve)

To kick off the 12 months, Samsung unveiled its latest Galaxy S24 telephones at its Unpacked occasion in January. On the prime finish of the lineup is the Galaxy S24 Extremely, which has a handful of recent options over final 12 months’s most premium Samsung telephone. What’s modified from the S23 Extremely, and do you have to improve? Most likely not, however let me clarify. 

First, here is what’s modified. The S24 Extremely has a nominal quantity of upgrades on its predecessor (primarily beneath the hood), however is pricier, beginning at $1,300, whereas the S23 Extremely had a $1,200 price ticket at launch (and might most likely be discovered for cheaper now).

Learn extra: Greatest Android Telephone of 2024

The S24 Extremely visually appears equivalent to its predecessor, with broadly the identical design and rear digital camera structure. There are delicate variations. As an example, Samsung’s new high-end telephone has a titanium body, which needs to be more durable than the aluminum body on the S23 Extremely.

For the S24 Extremely, Samsung distributed with the curved edges of the show discovered on the S23 Extremely, leaving a flat entrance (Samsung claims it has 47% much less bezel on the perimeters). That new display screen can also be brighter with a most of two,600 nits (the S23 Extremely maxed out at 1,750 nits) and thus simpler to see in vivid daylight. The S24 Extremely’s display screen can also be made from Corning’s latest and hardest materials, Gorilla Glass Armor, whereas the S23 has Corning’s Gorilla Glass Victus 2. 

In brief: it appears the identical however needs to be more durable and have a doubtlessly brighter display screen. The S24 Extremely additionally has an improved cooling system with a vapor chamber that is twice as giant and two added layers of thermal insulation, so we would anticipate it to take care of higher framerates and temperatures when operating performance-intensive operations, like gaming.

As for cameras, the S24 Extremely inherits most of its predecessor’s lenses and sensors however does use a 50-megapixel 5x optical telephoto digital camera instead of the 10-megapixel 10x optical digital camera within the S23 Extremely. Whereas the brand new digital camera has a shorter optical size, its larger megapixel depend ought to imply photographs taken with it are sharper than these shot with the S23’s 10x optical digital camera. (We’ll know for positive once we can evaluate each telephones’ picture capabilities facet by facet.) To get to 10x optical size, the S24 Extremely shoots with its 5x optical digital camera and crop zooms in.

Learn extra: Samsung Galaxy S24 Telephones Have a New Zoom Trick to Get That Shut-Up Picture

The S24 Extremely is powered by a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, which is quicker than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 within the S23 Extremely. Configurations have additionally been simplified within the new premium telephone: you’ll be able to solely get 12GB of RAM and 256GB, 512GB or 1TB of storage (no 8GB RAM possibility, as there was within the S23 Extremely). The remainder of the {hardware} stays comparatively unchanged, though the S24 Extremely ought to get a minor battery effectivity enhance because of its newer chipset.

The massive distinction between the brand new telephones, not less than on the launch of the S24 Extremely, is the brand new telephone’s generative AI capabilities, known as Galaxy AI. Essentially the most noteworthy is Circle to Search, which helps you to hint an space in your display screen along with your stylus or finger to have your telephone search for what you’ve got circled with out ever having to go away the app you are in. It is conceivably nice for trying issues up, like figuring out landmarks within the journey photographs your pal sends over or making an attempt to trace down trend objects in somebody’s outfit.

The S24 Extremely (and the remainder of the S24 lineup, to be clear) has different generative AI capabilities, like summarizing notes and stay translations throughout telephone calls. It may additionally recommend completely different tones for textual content messages relying on who you are speaking to, recommending extra formal tones for bosses or informal tones for associates. Generative AI picture tips let customers do issues like transfer or delete some components, broaden photographs past their authentic boundaries or right the lean of a picture, then use AI to fill within the backgrounds and empty areas.

A few of these generative AI options might be processed regionally, like stay translation, whereas others require sending requests to the cloud. The S24 Extremely does have a toggle in its settings to require generative AI requests to be carried out on the system, which helps hold what you are asking (and what your telephone is addressing) personal.

The kicker? Galaxy AI is coming to some older Samsung telephones, together with the S23 collection, sooner or later sooner or later. Whereas Samsung hasn’t stated when to anticipate them, these options ought to come to the S23 Extremely in time.

There are different non-generative AI upgrades the S24 Extremely has over its predecessor, like making photographs extra steady throughout motion and enhancing low-light pictures. The S Pen accent is kind of unchanged from final 12 months. 

There may be yet another improve that is price mentioning: Samsung expanded how lengthy it is pledging to assist its latest telephones. The S24 Extremely comes with Android 14 and can get seven years of Android software program and safety patches, up from 4 years within the S23 Extremely (which comes with Android 13). That is massive. For sustainability, the S24 Extremely has extra recycled elements, together with cobalt in its battery and uncommon earth components in its audio system.

Ought to S23 Extremely house owners improve to the brand new S24 Extremely?

You possibly can depend the {hardware} enhancements on one hand and so they do not meaningfully change how house owners use their new S24 Extremely in comparison with final 12 months’s S23 Extremely. In the end, in case you personal Samsung’s premium telephone from 2023, the one motive you to contemplate upgrading to the brand new one is to entry generative AI at the moment — or in case you wished a telephone that would conceivably final you seven years.

As beforehand talked about, all of the Galaxy AI options are anticipated to return to the S23 Extremely sooner or later sooner or later. It is unclear when that can occur, and although Samsung stated all the S24 Extremely’s generative AI options will come to its predecessor, we’re involved whether or not final 12 months’s premium telephone can pull that off.

Final October, Qualcomm unveiled its Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 as the primary phone-powering chipset to incorporate generative AI on its silicon. That is the chip powering the S24 Extremely, and presumably, the brand new telephone wants that silicon to course of a few of its generative AI options. Both the S23 Extremely would require extra of these Galaxy AI options to run by way of the cloud, or the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 powering the S23 Extremely is definitely able to operating on-device generative AI, however these options weren’t prepared when that chipset launched in late 2022.

Regardless of the case, whether or not you need generative AI weighs extra closely than every other issue on whether or not it is price upgrading from the S23 Extremely to the brand new S24 Extremely. It is price noting that we have not gotten to totally expertise Galaxy AI ourselves, and might’t make a abstract judgment of its usefulness till we do. As soon as our full evaluation comes out, we’ll be higher knowledgeable to say whether or not the S24 Extremely supplies a superior expertise to its predecessor. For now, we advocate ready — except you wish to be on absolutely the slicing fringe of cellular know-how. 

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