Updated January 15: article originally posted January 13.
One decision by Samsung promises to deliver the best performance possible to the cutting-edge Galaxy S24 smartphones expected to launch at next week’s “Galaxy Unpacked” event.
Update: Monday January 15: The increased performance impacts many areas of the Galaxy S24, including the user interface. Sammobile’s Asif Iqbal Shaik reports that the three Galaxy S24 handsets will be the first devices from the South Korean company to run One UI 6.1 out of the box. This is Samsung’s version of Android 14, and as part of the update, it has worked on the UI to offer a smoother experience.
The change, demonstrated in a video from noted tipster Ice Universe, will reduce the blurring effect when elements move into the background. Dropping this should lead to a crisper look on the screen and improve the smartphone’s battery life. You can also see faster scaling and natural stretch of the windows.
One UI 6.1 will be available across Samsung’s current range during the first quarter of 2024, but for now, the Galaxy S24 will showcase the latest software and its impact on the user experience.
Update: Sunday January 14: One other decision Samsung makes will affect Galaxy consumers and the wider smartphone world.
Android Headlines’ Justin Diaz reports that Samsung plans to offer seven years of updates for the Galaxy S24 owners. While it’s not clear if this is seven years of Android version updates or just seven years of security updates, it’s certainly an advance on the four years that Samsung currently offers on its flagship and key smartphones.
Google increased the Android support window to seven years when it launched the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro handsets in October 2023, tacitly challenging the rest of the industry to match them. Whether this was always planned or if Samsung is reacting to Google’s advance, It looks like Samsung is preparing to do just that.
The winners will not only be Samsung owners; with one of the biggest Android manufacturers and the “mothership” promoting seven years of support, the rest of the industry will feel even more pressure to follow.
One of the messages that I expect Samsung to deliver is the performance and power of the Galaxy S24 family. This will no doubt tie into the AI capabilities of the handsets (and in the cloud) but will also apply across the entire Galaxy ecosystem of apps and games. Getting the most out of the hardware is vital.
Which is where cooling comes in. Samsung isn’t following the extreme example of pure gaming handsets with active cooling, fans, and air vents. Still, the South Korean company has designed more cooling into the new handsets. New details confirm previous leaks of a larger vapour chamber featuring on all three models with some definitive numbers; the Galaxy S24 is expected to be 1.5x larger, the S24+ 1.6x larger, and the S24 Ultra 19.x.
The cooler the chips can run, the more performance can be offered. Any demand for sustained performance (such as widely popular gaming tiles like Genshin Impact or Call Of Duty) will rely heavily on consistent cooling throughout.
Of course, another issue will impact the Galaxy S24’s and Galaxy S24+’s performance. While the top-end Galaxy S24 Ultra will ship exclusively with Qualcomm’s customized “Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 For Galaxy” chipset, the two smaller S24 and S24+ handsets will ship with a mix of Qualcomm chips and Samsung’s own Exynos 2400 chipset.
In previous generations of Galaxy S handsets, the Qualcomm-based models have shown higher performance and improved efficiency over the Exynos handsets. While the margins are tight, the community regards the Qualcomm Galaxy handsets as better.
Both Exynos and Qualcomm-powered S24 models have appeared on benchmarking sites for the last few months; while the numbers are improving as the software is optimized for the final release hardware, benchmarks from this month show there is still a mismatch between the Snapdragon and the Exynos handsets.
Samsung’s Galaxy S24 family represent the top of the market for Samsung and the wider Android ecosystem. With the work inside the S24 family to allow the silicon to perform to the best of its ability, the Exynos 2400 chipset will deliver more performance than previous Galaxy S handsets, and for many, these handsets will be the most powerful smartphone they have ever owned.
The Galaxy S24 family, including the S24 Ultra and S-Pen, are expected to launch at the upcoming “Galaxy Unpacked” event as part of the new Galaxy S hardware to be announced on January 17th.
Now read how Samsung will use AI to improve photography on the Galaxy S24 family…
