Samsung Galaxy S24 Extremely overview: all that and AI

The Galaxy S24 Extremely is a hell of a telephone. As at all times, Samsung has jammed it stuffed with extra high-end {hardware} than you’ll be able to shake an S Pen at, and this yr it’s additionally full of cutting-edge AI options. However it’s costly, and most of my favourite issues about it have little or no to do with the AI components, which aren’t even unique to the Extremely.

It comes with a show that’s really easy to make use of exterior in vivid gentle that I need each different producer to repeat it. Its digital camera system is among the finest within the recreation and comes with a improbable portrait mode. The built-in stylus stays one of many nicest and fanciest methods to make a grocery record.

A few of the AI options actually are spectacular: reside translation for telephone calls may very well be actually useful for somebody who makes plenty of calls in an unfamiliar language. Voice recording summaries are surprisingly good and provides my beloved Pixel Recorder an actual run for its cash. And turning any video into sluggish movement is simply plain enjoyable. Are the outcomes at all times nice? No, however they’re often pleasant. 

However battery efficiency is simply okay, and whereas I respect the brand new flat-screen design, it leaves some sharp corners that may be uncomfortable in your hand. Above all, the Extremely is dear — now beginning at $1,299, a $100 improve from final yr’s mannequin. Samsung’s everything-but-the-kitchen-sink system remains to be probably the most feature-packed telephone cash should buy, however I’m simply not seeing an additional $100 value of enhancements, particularly contemplating that the AI options will all be ported to the S23 collection in a future software program replace. 

Ever attempt to use your telephone in direct daylight and discover it turns right into a mirror? Reflections bounce proper off the glass, and no matter you have been attempting to have a look at is instantly invisible. It’s an actual ache within the buns, though it’s been much less of an issue as OLED screens have gotten brighter over the previous few years. The S24 Extremely goes an additional step and introduces a brand new anti-glare coating that does a improbable job of slicing these reflections down. 

The 6.8-inch display peaks at 2,600 nits in vivid gentle, which makes an actual distinction whenever you use your telephone exterior. I ready myself to squint on the show after I used it in some vivid sunshine, so it was an actual deal with to comprehend I may see the display nearly in addition to I may indoors. There’s a brand new Gorilla Glass Armor defending the display, and it purports to be rather more scratch-resistant than earlier variations of Gorilla Glass. It’s onerous to evaluate that in simply over every week of testing, however to this point, so good. 

Samsung adopted Apple’s lead on one other display function: dimming the wallpaper on the always-on show. You can too add a handful of widgets that may proceed to show on the AOD even with the telephone locked. It’s a straight-up Apple clone, and I’ve zero issues with that as a result of I crave data and love widgets. Answering “What’s subsequent on my calendar?” is so simple as glancing at my telephone display.

The always-on show is useful, nevertheless it does appear to take a major toll on battery efficiency. On the finish of every day I examined it, diagnostics reported that it was liable for about 7 p.c of my battery use all through the day. General, battery life on the S24 Extremely isn’t nice, nevertheless it’s not a catastrophe by any means — on days of sunshine use, I received to bedtime with round 50 p.c within the tank. Heavier days with nearer to 5 hours of screen-on time pushed my overview unit’s battery right down to 30 p.c. Truthfully, that’s about common for a flagship telephone lately, and I want efficiency have been slightly higher throughout the board. 

In any case, loads of individuals will get by a full day on the S24 Extremely simply fantastic, although it’s value remembering your mileage will dwindle over time because the battery ages. In the event you’re an influence person — as I think lots of people on this telephone are — you may want a day recharge to keep away from late-day battery nervousness.

There’s 45W wired and 15W wi-fi Qi charging out there however no Qi2, which is an actual disappointment. If you wish to reside the MagSafe life with the S24 Extremely, you’ll want to choose up a third-party magnet case — simply don’t use the stylus with a magnetic accent hooked up — and a MagSafe-suitable (not MagSafe or Qi2) charger.

The S24 Extremely comes outfitted with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset irrespective of the place you purchase it — not true of the usual S24 and S24 Plus, which include Exynos chips exterior of the US. I can’t discover something fallacious with efficiency on the Extremely. It didn’t get excessively sizzling in my testing, and with 12GB of RAM, it dealt with every thing I threw at it and not using a drawback.

The S24 Extremely is the primary Extremely with a flat display, and I respect it — now not do I worry operating the S Pen over the curved edge. The titanium exterior end is beautiful, however this stays an unapologetically huge, heavy telephone. After the primary few instances it slipped out of the pocket of my joggers and onto the wooden ground with a thud heard ’spherical the home, I stop carrying it round with me and left it on the eating room desk.

Additionally, this telephone is type of sharp? The corners the place the flat components of the telephone meet the curved edges are pointy, and when you don’t get it located in your hand good, they’re fairly uncomfortable. I’m not a case individual, however I’d contemplate one with the S24 Extremely because of this.

The S24 collection ships with One UI 6.1, which is Samsung’s tackle Android 14. Like Android 14 itself, One UI 6.1 is a comparatively gentle replace, and the issues that irritate me about Samsung software program persist: a push notification urging me to take a look at the brand new Galaxy S24 (lol); a number of proprietary apps and options that I don’t have a use for (I refuse to consider World Objectives has impressed anybody to do something besides uninstall World Objectives); and clickbait hyperlinks stuffed on the backside of the climate app (“Vacationer Finds Massive Diamond at State Park,” actually?).

You’ll be able to de-Samsung plenty of these things and reside a peaceable existence with One UI, and there’s some excellent news this yr: the corporate is promising seven years of OS upgrades, together with seven years of safety updates. That’s an ideal proposition for ROI and anybody who needs to get absolutely the most years out of their telephone.

That’s the gist of the common telephone stuff — a large display, okay battery life, and efficiency becoming of a 2024 flagship. So how in regards to the marquee function: Galaxy AI? Settle in, as a result of there’s lots to cowl. 

The quick model is that this: the S24 Extremely has a powerful assortment of AI options. However it’s simply that — a group. It doesn’t really feel like a unified set of instruments with a collective objective; it looks like a handful of capabilities scattered all through the system which might be glorious at instances and baffling at others.

Take reside translation: it occurs on-device, and it might probably act as a real-time interpreter on telephone calls. I attempted it with my colleague Victoria Track, a fluent speaker of Japanese, and she or he thought it did an enough job translating our trade. It’s finest suited to quick transactional conversations as a result of it will get impatient with pauses. It doesn’t fairly get issues proper when speaking extra casually, both — I requested how Vee’s cats have been doing, and the translator by some means interpreted her Japanese for “Petey is consuming my chair” as “I’m consuming my chair.” Hilarious, however not splendid!

But when that you must name and ask for some data or make a reservation, it will serve the aim. And that’s type of superb — when you reside in a rustic the place you don’t communicate the language, I can see this being a vastly great tool. It’s the type of state of affairs the place AI that’s good sufficient is healthier than nothing.

Computerized be aware and voice transcript summaries are in the identical class. I put the S24 Extremely’s new voice recorder options up towards my beloved Pixel Recorder by studying them each a passage from the closest guide I had readily available, Treasured Little Sleep, aka the newborn sleep Bible. General, I used to be stunned by how nicely Samsung saved up with the Pixel. It doesn’t transcribe in actual time just like the Pixel does, nevertheless it’s on-device, and it’s comparatively fast after the actual fact; a six-minute recording took about 90 seconds to transcribe in my testing.

Upon getting your transcript, you’ll be able to generate an in depth abstract in just some seconds, full with subheads and timestamps. It’s not one thing I’d belief with out double-checking the supply materials, however like name translation, it offers you a place to begin — one thing helpful whenever you’d in any other case don’t have anything. Samsung’s translation summaries occur within the cloud, not on-device, so that they do require an web connection. Summarization looks like it’s an excessive amount of to ask of a telephone processor: the Pixel 8 Professional I examined on the identical time tried to summarize its recording of the identical textual content, produced one bullet level, after which gave up after chugging for a couple of minutes.

Then there’s Circle to Search, which is simply actually an AI function by affiliation, however spiritually, it feels at residence in a dialogue in regards to the S24 Extremely’s AI options. It’s a Google function that’s debuting on the Galaxy S24 and Pixel 8 collection and can reportedly come to extra high-end Android telephones sooner or later. Principally, it’s Google Lens however all over the place in your telephone — any app, anytime. You long-press the house button or navigation deal with to interact it, after which a immediate seems to circle the factor you need to know extra about. A web page of Google outcomes will comply with, and you may faucet round to study extra or dismiss the entire thing and go about your small business. It’s easy, however it sort of feels like how our telephones ought to have been working all alongside.

Google’s enhancements to multisearch actually make this function stand out. After you’ve circled one thing to seek for it, you’ll be able to make clear your search with further questions utilizing the picture as a place to begin. Beforehand, multisearch may solely work with fundamental modifiers, like “blue” to seek for a pair of footwear in a specific shade. Now, you’ll be able to ask extra sophisticated questions, and the search outcomes will supply up a solution utilizing generative AI. And that’s the place I discovered the reply I used to be after most frequently.

There are some apparent conditions the place Circle to Search makes rapid sense — a pal texts the identify of a restaurant, you spotlight the identify, and with out ever leaving the messages app, you’ll be able to test the place it’s. I needed to kind of unlearn doing this the great distance whereas utilizing the S24 Extremely, and now that I’m used to Circle to Search, I don’t need to return to the previous method.

However after I was on the lookout for extra details about one thing, the primary set of outcomes didn’t at all times clear issues up. Looking for a mural I photographed in San Jose introduced up a web page of similar-looking murals — useful when you’re making a Pinterest temper board, much less useful if you wish to know precisely what you’re taking a look at. However asking “The place is that this?” in multisearch (shh, I knew the place it was, I used to be simply testing the pc) received me to the best reply shortly. 

There are extra AI options — naturally there are extra — however I received’t go into depth about each considered one of them. You’ll be able to have generative AI boost your textual content messages with emoji or summarize webpages. They work fairly nicely however don’t strike me as being fairly as helpful because the others. After all, there’s yet one more place you’ll discover AI at work: the Galaxy S24 Extremely’s digital camera. 

First, the numbers. Per normal, there are a boatload of cameras on this telephone:

• Predominant digital camera: 200-megapixel f/1.7 with OIS
• 3x telephoto: 10-megapixel f/2.4, OIS
• 5x telephoto: 50-megapixel f/3.4, OIS
• Ultrawide: 12-megapixel f/2.2
• Selfie: 12-megapixel f/2.2

They’re the identical cameras which might be on the S23 Extremely apart from one notable substitution — the 10x lens is gone, swapped for a 5x lens coupled with an even bigger, higher-res sensor. That is horrible information for me personally as a result of I really like that ridiculous 10x lens. You’ll be able to take footage of planes! Within the sky! It’s such an ideal celebration trick. 

The brand new model makes use of crop zoom to get to 10x, and Samsung insists that the picture high quality is simply pretty much as good because the 10x optical zoom on the earlier model. So far as I can inform, that’s principally true — element rendering appears to be like about the identical. And the S24 Extremely positively appears to be like higher at 5x for the reason that S23 Extremely was utilizing digital zoom at that focal size. I do see extra chromatic aberration on among the S24 Extremely’s 10x pictures in comparison with the S23 Extremely’s, which might make sure topics seem slightly fuzzier — this appears to be much less of an issue with distant topics, like the highest of a skyscraper. The change to a 5x zoom hasn’t been a totally victimless crime. However general, it’s a transfer that is smart. The 5x focal size has much more sensible makes use of, and Samsung claims it’s used extra usually than 10x. Honest. 

In any other case, there aren’t any drastic modifications yr over yr. Samsung remains to be leaning on the saturation slider, embracing these vivid reds and blues it’s recognized for. It often appears to be like good and sometimes appears to be like bananas. The corporate made a couple of tweaks to the tech behind its portrait mode, which remains to be glorious. Professional RAW now produces 24-megapixel pictures with knowledge from 50- and 12-megapixel captures. Extra knowledge, extra higher, as they are saying. 

And I’m thrilled to see Samsung totally embrace Extremely HDR — that’s the excessive dynamic vary picture format supported in Android 14. You’ll see the Extremely HDR tone mapping within the reside picture preview as you are taking your picture, and the S24 collection are the primary units that allow you to add Extremely HDR images to Instagram. These are true HDR images that look extra vibrant than the washed-out “HDR” images we’re used to seeing, that are actually simply makes an attempt at displaying a wider dynamic vary on an SDR show. I’m already impatient for third-party app assist to return to extra telephones.

Samsung is the corporate that gave us AI Moon, so naturally, there are a couple of AI picture and video enhancing options right here. Generative AI edits can be found behind a star icon within the native gallery enhancing interface. You’ll be able to choose objects to maneuver across the body or erase solely, and you may modify the horizon utilizing generative fill to pad out the picture somewhat than cropping in. The edits occur off-device, so that you want an web connection and slightly persistence.

That is similar to the generative AI enhancing instruments provided on the Pixel 8 Professional, which isn’t stunning — Samsung is utilizing Google’s fashions to energy nearly each AI function on these telephones. However I truly discover Samsung’s object choice a lot simpler to make use of than the Pixel’s. On the S24, you simply circle an object you need to choose, and on-device AI makes the choice. It’s slightly uncanny how good it’s. Deciding on objects on the Pixel feels slightly extra fiddly.

With an object chosen, you’ll be able to resize it, transfer it across the body, or erase it fully. With a considerably predictable background like grass or a gravel path, generative AI can fill within the blanks convincingly. Predictably, issues get dicey with extra sophisticated edits. I chosen a lamp on a desk and tried to erase it from a photograph; the AI changed it with a unique lamp. 

It’s the same story with slow-motion AI movies — spectacular when you don’t problem it an excessive amount of or look too intently. The S24 Extremely can flip any video right into a 120fps slow-motion video — primarily utilizing body interpolation however leaning on generative AI to fill within the gaps. With the best topic and background, it’s completely convincing. However when you begin introducing some complexity, it type of falls aside. 

I slowed down the above 30fps video of my son on a swing, and you may see that the mulch on the playground and greenery within the background gave the AI some bother. Is it nonetheless an lovely video? Sure. Will his grandparents be delighted by it regardless of its flaws? Additionally sure. It looks like a function proper on the sting between “ok” and “too bizarre” to be enjoyable. 

It’s onerous to explain why a tool that does a lot so nicely feels prefer it falls flat. The Galaxy S23 Extremely felt like one thing really particular — a refinement of a well-balanced method. However with the S24 Extremely, the mathematics feels slightly off.

It’s $100 costlier, nevertheless it’s onerous to see an additional $100 value of worth, particularly contemplating the brand new AI options are shared throughout the entire S24 collection. To be clear, I feel it’s a good factor that these options can be found on all three telephones. But when the Extremely actually is the quickest, bestest telephone in all of the land, shouldn’t it have the ability to perform a little extra?

The brand new anti-glare display coating is spectacular and really useful on a vivid day. The flat display is an enchancment, and the brand new titanium exterior appears to be like and feels nice. However that’s roughly the extent of this yr’s Extremely-only enhancements. The AI options, Extremely HDR assist, seven years of OS upgrades, up to date always-on show — they’re all out there on the much less dear S24 and S24 Plus.

That leaves the Extremely with an even bigger display, an S Pen, and a 5x zoom to differentiate it. They’re all nice options and certain to please loyal Notice / Extremely followers. However the feature-to-price ratio feels only a bit off-balance in a method that it didn’t within the S23 Extremely. 

I want Samsung had spent slightly extra time on the less-flashy stuff — bettering battery life or making it lighter and extra snug to make use of. Heck, I’d be thrilled if Samsung hung out on slightly housekeeping on the options which have piled up through the years. Bixby Imaginative and prescient, Google Lens, and Circle to Search all exist on this telephone. What are we doing right here? 

The Galaxy S24 Extremely stays absolutely the most telephone. Large display, S Pen, the entire cameras, efficiency out the wazoo — it actually has no peer. I simply want that it felt slightly extra worthy of its value bump when the MSRP was already sky-high earlier than. That is an Extremely telephone, alright. I simply want it got here with slightly further. 

Pictures by Allison Johnson / The Verge