Updated January 23: article originally posted January 21.
With the Galaxy S24 Ultra, Samsung has introduced a powerful smartphone that uses Artificial Intelligence to create the best user experience possible. Yet three decisions made by the South Korean company could dull the cutting edge of the handset.
One of the disappointing decisions is the price. It’s important to note that while Samsung has kept the cost of the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ handsets the same as last year’s S23 and S23, the Galaxy S24 Ultra price is $1,299, $100 more expensive than the S23 Ultra.
It also makes the S24 Ultra more expensive than the iPhone 15 Pro Max; Apple’s premier smartphone with the same 256 GB entry-level storage is priced at $1199. Putting aside the folding phones and the occasional esoteric design, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is the most expensive mainstream smartphone on the market today.
Is that price premium for the Ultra justified by the use of titanium, the introduction of Corning’s Gorilla Glass Armour, and the addition of AI software?
Then you have Galaxy AI. Samsung placed its AI software at the heart of the Galaxy Unpacked launch event with an impressive series of live demos. Real-time conversational translation, impressive image editing, and generating and summarising texts were all displayed. Some AI features will be completed on the device, while others require a Samsung account and an active internet connection.
Which features will be online and which will be offline will become clearer when the handsets reach reviewers and the public; knowing what features you need to have high-speed connectivity and which can run no matter where you are may impact how practical some of these functions will be.
Samsung has confirmed that Galaxy AI features will come to other Galaxy devices. Given the two chipsets used in the S24 platform—The Exynos 2400 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 For Galaxy—have dedicated hardware for AI and ML processes, I’m curious to see just how much can be backported while offering a sufficiently strong user experience, or if this backporting would push even more processing into Samsung’s cloud.
Update: Tuesday January 23: The Korea Herald reports on a presentation by Samsung’s head of AI Kim Young-Jip, which highlights the importance of AU to Samsung just now and going into the future. One of those features is running AI on the handset. How do you pack all of that into a smartphone?
“…we have to train the AI with a vast amount of data and create this big parameter model of 32 bits. We then went through the highly-advanced optimization process of pruning, fine-tuning and quantizing to reduce the size to 3- and 4-bit parameters,” Kim explained. “It is similar to how we do not carry around the 100 books we read in our hands. Once you read it, it is all in your head. Data does not increase when AI learns new things,” Kim said.
One other detail is worth noting from the presentation… Samsung is looking to have Galaxy AI running in over 100 million Galaxy phones this year. Given last year’s S23 family sold a shade over 25 million units, that’s a lot more than just the Galaxy S24, S24+, and S24 Ultra.
Then there’s the matter of paying for Galaxy AI. Tucked away on the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s product page is a footnote that says “Galaxy AI features will be provided for free until the end of 2025 on supported Samsung Galaxy devices. Different terms may apply for AI features provided by third parties.”
Not only does Samsung have to introduce and promote the Galaxy AI features and, by association, promote the Galaxy S24 family as AI-first smartphones, but the company also needs to make these features so indispensable that users will pay a subscription to continue accessing these features. At some point, Galaxy AI will have to put some of the effective and beloved features behind a paywall.
Finally, you have the longevity of the Galaxy S24 handsets.
Samsung has made the welcome move to offer seven years of software updates and security patches. This follows Google’s move to offer a similarly long support window with the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro. Hopefully, this will push the rest of the industry.
But there is a step that Google has taken that I would love Samsung to follow: confirming the availability of spare parts to third-party repair centers and individual users. Google has confirmed that parts will be available for seven years, matching the software support window. You might never break your phone, but knowing you can replace a battery after a few years is a strong selling point for an expensive smartphone.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is a powerhouse smartphone that pushes the new generation of hardware to the limits and explicitly uses AI and ML techniques to improve the user experience. But a smartphone is more than an isolated snapshot of capabilities. For the Galaxy S24 Ultra to be considered one of the greats, it must deliver a revolution in every area.
Now read more about Galaxy AI in Forbes’ interview with Samsung VP James Kitto…
