Galaxy S24 Ultra release date, price, features, and news (2024)

The Galaxy S24 Ultra scores a price hike across the board. The 256GB version of the Galaxy S24 Ultra starts at $1,299.99, or some $100 over the same storage tier on the Galaxy S23 Ultra. The 512GB version scores a higher $120 price increase in comparison with the 512GB version of the Galaxy S23 Ultra. Finally, the 1TB version of the Galaxy S24 Ultra costs some $40 more than last year's 1TB version of the phone.

Prepare to shell out more for your next Galaxy, as this is the first time in recent years that Samsung has increased the pricing of its top Galaxy offering. However,Samsung always gives you numerous options to save more, be it by pre-ordering or trading-in an eligible device, so you will most certainly pay less than the sticker price for your new Galaxy S24 Ultra.

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Galaxy S24 Ultra camera features and specs

Samsung is shaking up the camera setup at the rear of the Galaxy S24 Ultra by ditching the 10X periscope in favor of a 5X telephoto camera with much better resolution that allows for optical-grade zoom up to 10X. That's despite the lack ofa 10X periscope camera, which has been the highlight of all previous Galaxy Ultra phones. Instead, Samsung matches the iPhone 15 Pro Maxwith its 50MP 5X telephoto.
Due to the arrival of a 5X telephoto camera, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is able to snap extremely close 5X portraits, which correspond to a field of view around 120mm. Such long portraits are not uncommon, but definitely a tad more personal than regular 3X or 2X portraits that we are used to.

Despite the lack of a dedicated 10X periscope camera, there's still 100X Space Zoom that lets you zoom extremely close in on your subjects.

Samsung has kept the 200MP wide-angle sensor, but has introduced lots of improvements, namely larger pixel size for better low-light capabilities. The new ProVisual Engine also helps greatly. The latter enables improved Nightography, which captures more light in dim environmental conditions. Enhanced OIS makes certain that your photos will no longer suffer from motion blur, as well as new Dedicated ISP block for improving noise reduction.

Also read:

• Galaxy S24 camera: our expectations and the rumors so far

• 256 GB
• 512 GB
• 1 TB

Galaxy S24 Ultra design

The Galaxy S24 Ultra is exclusively made of titanium, ditching the Armor Aluminum design of the Galaxy S23 Ultra. The side frame is not completely flat, but has a slight convex curve that boosts the ergonomics and comfort.

The titanium design change boosts the premium feel of the Galaxy S24 Ultra and improves the robustness of the device. On the other hand, the flat display maximizes the usable screen real estate and lets you do more on your Galaxy.

The Galaxy S24 Ultraexclusively comes with Gorilla Glass at the front and at the back. Dubbed Gorilla Glass Armor, this one is a much tougher and scratch resistant successor to Gorilla Glass Victus 2 and is a superb addition to the titanium-clad phone that boosts its endurance.

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Galaxy S24 Ultradisplay features and specs

The Galaxy S24 Ultracomes with a 6.8-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display, similar to its predecessors. New here is the exceptional peak brightness that hits 2,600 nits, rivaling the iPhone 15 Pro Max, Pixel 8 Pro, and the OnePlus 12.

Aside from that, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is outfitted with a 3080 x 1440-pixel panel with a rather decent 500ppi sharpness, Gorilla Glass Armor, and the class-leading contrast, vibrancy, and overall color rendition that Samsung's flagship phone displays are usually known for. Long story short, the display will more likely than not be excellent.

Just like its predecessors, the Galaxy S24 Ultra comes with a 1-120Hz refresh rate, which makes all content super smooth.

When it comes to wireless charging, the Galaxy S24 Ultra supports Fast Wireless Charging 2.0, which maxes out at 15W. Reverse wireless charging is also on deck, allowing your Galaxy S24 Ultra to top up other devices with wireless charging.

The Galaxy S24 Ultra comes along with seven years of software updates, including both major OS upgrades and security patches. This matches Google's latest pledge for prolonged software support on the Pixel 8 series.

Samsung doubling down on such long software support is a pretty major step in the right direction, which should vastly increase the lifetime of Samsung's phones and give users the peace of mind that their devices will be enjoying fresh new features and timely security fixes.

The Galaxy S24 Ultra comes along with Android 14 and One UI 6.1. The recurrent theme of the software improvements on the Galaxy S24 Ultra have everything to do with Galaxy AI. Generative on-device AI features are sprinkled everywhere across the interface, with tons of new features.

A fascinating new feature is Chat Assist, which functions similarly to ChatGPT in that it will intelligently recommend rewriting your content and suggesting a different tone based on the person you are corresponding with. Since this functionality is integrated directly into the Samsung keyboard, all your Galaxy S24 Ultra's messaging apps will work with it.

The Note Assist feature on Samsung Notes is powered by AI and can summarize lengthy notes, check spelling and grammar, and even translate the note completely into another language. AI also automatically tidies up your text notes.

Speaking of translation, the Phone app has a built-in Live Translate function that uses on-board AI to translate phone conversations in real time, both ways, for text and speech. Interpreter is another comparable new feature from Galaxy that lets you hold split-screen discussions with someone and have those conversations instantly translated from one language to another.

In a collaborative move with Google, Samsung introduces Circle to Search on the Galaxy S24 Ultra. This feature allows you to invoke a quick Google search by holding your home button and circling what you see on your screen. The feature is not exclusive to the Galaxy S24 Ultra and will actually arrive to most new Android phones in the future.

The Galaxy S24 Ultra's on-device generative AI can intelligently fill any blank parts in your images when you move an object around or rotate your image. You can also move a subject around and amplify your image. Any changes will be indicated in the image metadata for transparency's sake and a watermark will indicate that the image has been changed by AI.

With the use of on-device AI, reflections may also be eliminated from photographs. Nothing is worse than taking a photo through a window and seeing your reflection in the glass, but with Galaxy AI, that problem should be resolved. Image remaster has been improved, and there's also a much enhanced Object Eraser that removes undesirable items from your photographic masterpieces much more effectively.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, TSMC's 2nd-gen 4nm chipset, is the exclusive chipset of choice on the Galaxy S24 Ultra across the globe. It's not the regular version, mind you, but a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy, similarly to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy that powered the Galaxy S23 series exclusively across the globe.

The CPU itself is 30% faster and 20% more efficient in comparison with the previous generation, while the Adreno GPU is also 25% faster and more efficient. Keeping all of this raw power in check and actively working towards keeping the phone cool is a vapor cooling chamber that's 92% larger than the one on the Galaxy S23 Ultra.

Samsung also boasts that the Galaxy S24 Ultra is a very capable gaming machine, especially when mobile ray-trace graphics are considered. The company has also partnered up with gaming companies to ensure that some of the most popular games are perfectly optimized for the Galaxy S24 Ultra.

• You should wait for the Galaxy S24 Ultra if you have kept yourself from upgrading to the Galaxy S22 Ultra/Galaxy S23 Ultra and are rocking an aging Galaxy flagship. Think Galaxy Note 9, Galaxy Note 10, Galaxy S10 Plus, and Galaxy S20 Ultra. Upgrading to the Galaxy S24 Ultra from any of those will almost certainly give you insane value and a vast improvement of your overall phone experience.
  

• You should not wait for the Galaxy S24 Ultra if you've just scored a flagship in the last two years and have no qualms about it. As flagship smartphones have peaked long ago and the overall new tech adoption has somewhat slowed down, upgrading every two years is no longer necessary. Thus, if you have a fairly recent phone that does the job for you just fine, it's somewhat unlikely that the Galaxy S24 Ultra will be the second coming of the Christ.