The Galaxy S24 launch this year saw a focus on AI with a range of smart new features announced across the range of devices. Trevor checked out the Galaxy S24 Ultra, and Scott has followed up with a long term review – giving me a shot at the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ review.
The Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ offer a more wallet friendly option to the S24 Ultra, with the Galaxy S24 available from $1,399.00, while the Galaxy S24+ clocks in at $1,699 – undercutting the $2,199 price tag of the Ultra.
Between the two, they both run an Exynos 2400 processor and include the same camera setup so we can take a look at the two fairly well together, though there are some differences which we’ll look at along the way.
| Galaxy S24+ | Galaxy S24 | |
| Display | 6.7-inch QHD+*Dynamic AMOLED 2X DisplaySuper Smooth 120Hz refresh rate (1~120Hz)Vision booster | 6.2-inch FHD+*Dynamic AMOLED 2X DisplaySuper Smooth 120Hz refresh rate (1~120Hz)Vision booster |
| Dimensions & Weight | 75.9 x 158.5 x 7.7mm, 197g (mmWave) / 196g (Sub6) | 70.6 x 147 x 7.6mm, 168g (mmWave) / 167g (Sub6) |
| Camera | 12MP Ultra-Wide Camera· F2.2, FOV 120˚ 50MP Wide Camera· OIS F1.8, FOV 85˚ 10MP Telephoto Camera· 3x Optical Zoom, F2.4, FOV 36˚ 12MP Front Camera· F2.2, FOV 80˚ | 12MP Ultra-Wide Camera· F2.2, FOV 120˚ 50MP Wide Camera· OIS F1.8, FOV 85˚ 10MP Telephoto Camera· 3x Optical Zoom, F2.4, FOV 36˚ 12MP Front Camera· F2.2, FOV 80˚ |
| Memory & Storage | 12 + 512GB12 + 256GB | 8 + 512GB8 + 256GB8 + 128GB |
| Battery | 4,900mAh | 4,000mAh |
| Charging | Wired Charging*: Up to 65% charge in around 30 mins with 45W Adapter** and 5A USB-C cable***Fast Wireless Charging 2.0****Wireless PowerShare***** | Wired Charging*: Up to 50% charge in around 30 mins with 25W Adapter** and 3A USB-C cable***Fast Wireless Charging 2.0****Wireless PowerShare***** |
| OS | Android 14One UI 6.1 | Android 14One UI 6.1 |
| Network & Connectivity | 5G*, LTE**, Wi-Fi 6E***, Wi-Fi Direct Bluetooth® v 5.3 | 5G*, LTE**, Wi-Fi 6E***, Wi-Fi Direct Bluetooth® v 5.3 |
| Water Resistance | IP68 | IP68 |
On the software side, the Galaxy S24 series is launching with Android 14 with Samsung’s One UI 6.1 over the top and of course all the AI features announced for the series including Circle to Search, Live Translate, Note assist and Photo Assist.
I’ve had two weeks with the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ and here’s how it went.
Hardware and Design
The Galaxy S24 and S24+ differ from the Galaxy S24 Ultra which has a more squared design to accommodate things like the S Pen. With no S Pen to accommodate, the Galaxy S24 and S24+ have a little more curve in the corners and, to me, a more pleasing look overall.
The two phones include a flat display on a metal chassis and rear panel, with those circular camera bumps poking through in the top corner. Just as they did last year, Samsung are leaning into the camera array poking through the rear with no island surrounding it – and I really like it.
There are some internal material differences, namely the Galaxy S24 Ultra gets a Titanium chassis and Gorilla Glass Armour on the display, while the Galaxy S24 and S24+ use an Armour Aluminium frame with Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the front.
Despite the lack of titanium, the Galaxy S24 and S24+ are both lightweight, weighing in at 167 g and 196 g respectively, though they feel solid and well built with no flex. The body is a mere mm larger all round than last year’s models on both the Galaxy S24 and S24+, but you also get a 0.1” larger display on the front on both models which is a win.
Against the competition, the phones are slightly smaller, and lighter than the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 pro and I really love the finish on the Galaxy S24 series rear panel which doesn’t show fingerprints.
The sides and ends of the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ are flat, allowing them to stand on end if you choose, with a volume rocker and power button on the right and power button on the left. These buttons have a nice clicky feel to them when you push them which is a big plus.
The base includes a USB Type-C port for charging and data transfer alongside a SIM tray (They support dual-SIM and eSIM), with a bottom firing speaker that pairs with the earpiece for stereo sound – which is decent quality.
The body looks fantastic, with the Galaxy S24 review unit sent over in a beautiful Cobalt Violet colour, while the Galaxy S24+ came in Amber Yellow. There’s a range of colours to choose from for both models, including good old black, but I do recommend you check out the options – including some which are exclusive to the Samsung online store.
The Galaxy S24 series is all IP68 rated for dust and water protection, with the phone good for submersion in up to 1.5 metres of freshwater for up to 30 minutes.
I love the design of these two phones, which have more rounded corners than the Galaxy S24 Ultra. The overall look and feel in the hand screams premium every step of the way.
Display
While the phones include a lot of similarities, the display is a definite difference with the Galaxy S24 including a 6.2-inch FHD+ (2340×108) resolution AMOLED display, while the Galaxy S24+ gets a 6.7-inch QHD+ (3120×1440) resolution AMOLED display.
Both displays are simply gorgeous with brilliant colours and are sharp and easy to read. You can choose your colour tuning as usual if the AMOLED colours pop a little too much – but overall they’re just beautiful to look at.
Those displays are super bright, with up to 2600 nits peak brightness making them simply brilliant to use outdoors, or indoors, beating even the Pixel 8 and iPhone 15’s 2,000 nits peak brightness.
Once again the displays are capable of up to 120Hz this year for smooth scrolling, though this year the Galaxy S24 includes an LTPO display capable of scaling down to 1Hz when nothing is on the display. You can of course force 60Hz in settings, but the Adaptive setting on by default does a pretty good job here.
The Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ still includes an under-display fingerprint sensor for biometric security. It’s fast and reliable, though you do have an option for facial recognition as well if you want.
Performance
Samsung has copped a little flack over the years on their Exynos line of processors, but in the Galaxy S24 and S24+ there’s no performance issues, with good thermal performance and overall performance.
The largest difference I found was the memory, with the Galaxy S24’s 8GB of RAM not able to quite cache and switch apps as fast as the Galaxy S24+’s 12GB of RAM. Overall though, they both performed very well day to day.
Of course I ran both through the GeekBench and 3D Mark tests and there was a snag on the 3D Mark test, with the app advising both the S24 and S24+ were just too powerful. I ran it through the Wildlife Extreme test instead.
Battery and Charging
The Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ both support fast charging, though there are differences, as well as wireless charging. There’s a decently sized 4,000mAh battery in the Galaxy S24, a 100mAh jump from the Galaxy S23, and a 4,900mAh battery in the Galaxy S24+, a 200mAh jump from the Galaxy S23+.
The improvements in battery size, as well as LTPO display make for excellent battery life on both the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+, easily lasting a full day of fairly decent use. I didn’t have many issues with last years Galaxy S23, though the Galaxy S24 was well on track to best it.
While Samsung no longer includes a charger with either phone, there are subtle differences in the charging support – and of course the charging speeds. You do get a 3A capable USB Type C cable included in the box which is nice.
The Galaxy S24 supports fast charge at 25W, allowing the phone to get to 50% charge in 30 minutes, while the Galaxy S24+ supports up to 45W charging allowing the phone to get to 65% in 30 minutes.
You do get wireless charging – with reverse wireless charging support – at 15W, however it is a shame we’re not seeing Qi2 as yet – maybe on the Galaxy S25. Still, the 15W charging works quite well if you have a wireless charger capable of charging at that speed.
Camera
The Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ include the same triple camera array on the rear and 12MP front-facing camera embedded in the display. The rear array includes a 50MP main camera, 12MP Ultra-Wide camera with 120˚ field-of-view and a 10MP Telephoto camera with 3x Optical zoom – and an LED flash.
The camera performance was the same on both the phones, understandable when they share the same hardware. The photos from the main sensor in good light were fantastic. Vibrant, colourful and showing good fine detail, as well as offering good bokeh for portraits – and low-light shots are excellent, offering impressive boost in extremely low-light to achieve a very nice shot.
The ultra-wide camera takes good shots without having too much of a fish-eye effect, even with the large field of view. The telephoto option offers a good chance to get closer without sacrificing quality, at least up to 3x zoom, though the digital zoom is actually fairly impressive. The 100x SpaceZoom from previous versions is gone, instead giving you up to 30x digital zoom, with some fairly impressive results in these shots. Below you see the Ultra-Wide (0.6x), 1.0, 3.0x Optical Zoom, 5.0x Digital Zoom, 10x Digital Zoom and the 30x Digital Zoom.
The camera software is simple and easy to use with quick settings at the top of the frame, and more advanced settings nearby. The camera functions are easily laid out, and you can also choose to customise which camera features you’d like to use or remove by long-pressing and dragging.
Software
The Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ launch with Android 14 and Samsung’s One UI 6.1 over the top. When you first fire the phones up, an Over-The-Air (OTA) update is ready to download and install, updating the phone from the 1st of January security patch to the 1st of March.
During the launch, Samsung announced that the entire Galaxy S24 lineup will be supported for seven years. Including both Feature (OS), as well as Security updates.
The Samsung One UI 6.1 software is fresh, and easy to use for the most part. The launcher is clean except for some pre-installed Samsung, Microsoft – and of course Google apps which complete their installation when you login to the phone for the first time.
The Samsung OneUI software is leaps and bounds ahead of the dark days of Touchwiz, and while there’s a few niggles to annoy – ‘Custom Order’ for the app drawer by default – the rest of the software experience is now actually quite good. There is always the availability of so many features that it’s sometimes hard to find, but the search in Settings alleviates a lot of that pain point.
Galaxy AI Features
The Galaxy S24 and S24+ also include the AI features announced for the series including Circle to Search, Live Translate, Note assist and Photo Assist.
Circle to Search
The Circle to Search feature announced for the Galaxy S24, which has spread to the Pixel 8 (and soon beyond), is reminiscent of the old Google Now on Tap search, but with the backing of today’s improved AI it’s also much better than that ever was.
Circle to Search – launched by long pressing the home button at the bottom of the display – can basically find whatever is on the screen, be that in the camera looking at something (it captures a screenshot) or in an app or browser.
Look. I’ll admit to having used this on Framed a few times (for testing purposes only obviously!), and it really works well. I’m not saying do that – but it’s a neat feature.
Live Translate
Unfortunately I don’t get the opportunity to speak with many people in other languages on a regular basis, however Scott gave this a go on the Galaxy S24 Ultra and had some very good results.
Note assist, SMS Assist! Summarise/Translate and more!
Note Assist and SMS Assist bring Galaxy AI into your everyday life, presenting as a component of the Samsung Keyboard. It shows up as the star themed icon
The everyday effect of having Galaxy AI built-in to your keyboard is that it’s versatile enough that it’s now present in all your apps, from your messaging apps like Messages, Messenger, Telegram and WhatsApp, through to apps like Gmail and more. This leads to the ability to leverage Galaxy AI to take over your messaging, and suggest options to send in a variety of different styles ranging from casual, emoji filled, professional and more.
There are other places you’ll find Galaxy AI including the Samsung Browser where the Galaxy AI option is in the toolbar at the bottom of the screen. Tapping it allows you to choose between Summarise and Translate – and the results are pretty good.
The transcriptions in the Samsung Voice Recorder app are excellent, and the summaries are pretty good as well. It managed to pick up the major points of the Pixel Watch 2 launch I fed into it, offering a highlight list of points from the recording.
Photo Assist
Google softened everyone up with generative AI in your camera with the launch of the Pixel 8 series last year and Samsung have taken the ball and run with it on the Galaxy S24.
Just like the Pixel implementation you can see the AI option in the Samsung Gallery app. Once you choose to edit a photo you’ll see the AI icon and you can then choose to edit your photos, removing unwanted parts as you see fit.
Should you buy it them?
The Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ offer some of the best options when you’re looking for a new phone, but don’t necessarily want the size, cost or even all the hardware included in the flagship S24 Ultra.
Individually, the Galaxy S24 offers one of the best options on the market for anyone wanting a ‘small’ phone, while the Galaxy S24+ – to me at least – offers a more affordable, better looking device than the Galaxy S24 Ultra, which, unless you need that S Pen or the 200MP image sensor, it’s an easy choice to make.
In a sea of Android powered options, the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ stand out in a good way with premium design, materials, excellent cameras and specs and of course seven years of software support.
If you need a new phone, the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ are definitely worth a look – and there’s some fantastic deals on offer on contract, or to purchase outright. You can find the phones all Australian Telcos, the Samsung online store or through retailers including Harvey Norman, Officeworks, JB HiFi and Bing Lee
