Updated January 1: article originally posted December 30.
Samsung’s Galaxy S24 Ultra will enter a crowded smartphone market, but three features will stand out to consumers looking to fall in love with their new phone.
The first decision is around the camera. This is critical to the Galaxy S24 Ultra and Samsung’s smartphone story. If the S24 Ultra camera is seen as the leading smartphone camera, the halo effect for the other S24 handsets—and all of the Galaxy devices coming in 2024—then the Galaxy brand is much easier to sell on photography.
The four-lens rear camera is built around the main 200-megapixel primary lens. It’s backed up with a 12-megapixel ultrawide lens and two telephoto lenses at 10-megapixel and 50-megapixel, which between them offer optical zoom at x2, x3, x5, and x10. There was discussion of Samsung dropping the x10 potential, but the current feeling is that this feature will be retained.
Then you have the S-Pen. Originally a fixture of the Galaxy Note series, when these larger form factor smartphones were discontinued, Samsung’s S-Pen stylus became part of the mainline Galaxy S handsets. Using a stylus offers many advantages over a stocky finger. To pick out three, photos can be edited more precisely, handwritten notes are far easier to compose, and sketching ideas is cleaner and more accessible.
Samsung is rightly regarded as the leading manufacturer of smartphones with stylii, and it’s a lead that no other manufacturer has challenged. With new S-Pen hardware certified by authorities before the upcoming launch, the Galaxy S24 Ultra will extend Samsung’s lead.
There’s an argument for suggesting the titanium frame as the third factor, but I think Apple’s PR team has ensured that relying on titanium as a selling point will benefit the iPhone just as much as the S24 Ultra.
Instead, I’ll pick out the use of Artificial Intelligence. Samsung has heavily trailed how it will approach AI in 2024. Its AI framework—Samsung Gauss—was launched in November, and since then, deals around training data have been published, indications of the use of AI on a smartphone found in code, and the balance between AI running locally and running in the cloud discussed.
Update: Sunday December 31. Thanks to Walmart mistakenly publishing details on the Galaxy S24+ ahead of yet to be announced official launch, we can see Samsung’s AI push in action. This Galaxy S Plus handset will be the first to ship with 12 GB RAM, offering more memory to help with the AI routines.
Many of the listed features are AI-powered and built around the camera and photography. Of note in the leaked details are the inclusion of Live Translate, Generative Edit, and Nightography Zoom. Samsung called out the broad scope of features at the launch of the Samsung Gauss AI system, naming Samsung Gauss Language, Samsung Gauss Code, and Samsung Gauss Image.
Update: Monday January 1. Further details on one of the key AI tools that will debut on the Galaxy S24 have been revealed. Sagar Naresh has written up the details on the ever-popular Sammobile.
Samsung Gauss’s Generative Edit feature will help add or remove details when editing photographs. This could be as simple as removing small elements from a picture and generating what would be behind the removed object. If photos are rotated to any degree, the missing information at the borders can be filled in using the same software.
The available details suggest that this feature will require both a Samsung account and an active connection to the internet, which indicates that at least some of the work will happen in the cloud.
Nevertheless, it’s an easy-to-describe feature with easy-to-understand results. For all the technical talk around AI, practical examples such as generative editing will go a long way to demystifying AI and offering a tempting feature for prospective buyers.
Google opened the door with the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro by calling them AI-first smartphones. Samsung is clearly not going to be the first, but with the expected volume of sales and a drive to stand out from the competition, it is looking to be the best AI smartphone of 2024.
One of the highest-specced cameras on the market, unique stylus support that offers a mature and natural user interface, and software that will leverage the latest technological advances in computing. Consumers looking at the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra will see an impressive feature set when the flagship smartphone goes on sale.
The Galaxy S24 family, including the S24 Ultra and S-Pen, will launch in early 2024 at a “Galaxy Unpacked” event that is widely expected to take place on January 17th.
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