The Galaxy S24 Ultra is Samsung’s best-selling flagship in years — and also one of its messiest.
Samsung finally has a Galaxy S phone back in the global top 10, but it got there with a cocktail of aggressive AI marketing, confusing hardware decisions, and post-launch firefighting on basics like the display and camera. If you’re a buyer, this is not a clean win.
Samsung’s launch timing is a weapon, not a coincidence
Over the last few generations, Samsung has quietly dragged its Galaxy S launch earlier and earlier. What used to be a March event slid into late February, then February 1 for the Galaxy S23. Leaks pegged the S24 announcement as early as January 18, and that’s in line with the broader play here: beat everyone else to the 2024 flagship cycle.
There’s a reason for that. Smartphone sales are soft, and Android OEMs are trying to spark demand with earlier launches. OnePlus is rumored to push the OnePlus 12 in China as early as December. Samsung wants the S24 family on shelves while iPhone 15 demand is still hot, not after it cools.
This isn’t about giving users a dramatically different phone two months sooner. It’s about owning the early-year flagship conversation and boxing competitors into the calendar.
Ultra hardware: smarter tweaks, not a spec-sheet flex
On paper, the S24 Ultra looks like a small step, not a leap, over the S23 Ultra — and honestly, that’s fine. Samsung is iterating on a formula that already sells: big display, big camera stack, big battery, Galaxy Note DNA.
The leaks point to the S24 Ultra ditching the curved screen for a flat panel with up to 2,500 nits of peak brightness, plus a titanium frame dropping the weight to around 233g. That’s not a headline spec war, it’s quality-of-life stuff: easier one-handed use, less annoying screen distortion at the edges, and better outdoor visibility.
The controversial move is on zoom. The 10x optical periscope from the S23 Ultra is rumored to be swapped for a 50MP 5x periscope with a faster aperture. Expect better detail and sharpness in the mid-zoom range and low light, but worse performance once you push past 10x. Video quality at high zoom will likely follow the same pattern.
Meanwhile, the S24+ might get promoted back to QHD resolution, with 12GB RAM and 256GB base storage, but a largely unchanged camera setup. It’s a quiet spec fix more than an upgrade wave.
AI is the headline, not the silicon
Samsung’s real story for 2024 isn’t metal or glass — it’s Galaxy AI. The company is clearly aiming at Google’s Pixel playbook: make the S24 series feel smarter than raw specs suggest.
One UI 6.1 on the S24 family is expected to go heavy on AI tricks. Think generative AI wallpapers, auto-formatting in Samsung Notes, and Google-style media editing. Leaks describe Magic Editor-style photo tools that let you move people and pets around in a shot after capture, plus a Magic Eraser-like feature for video, where you can highlight a subject and have the AI scrub it from the clip.
There’s also talk of AI-assisted video processing to boost low-light quality, stabilize shaky footage, and balance exposure while cutting down noise. That’s basically Samsung’s answer to Pixel 8 Pro’s Video Boost, but how much runs on-device versus in the cloud is still guesswork.
On-device, an AI chatbot is reportedly in the cards too, handling basic questions and math. The catch: even if these features technically belong to One UI 6.1, they’re expected to be locked to the S24 series, justified by the AI capabilities of Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and Exynos 2400.
So yes, AI is a selling point — but also a segmentation tool.
Exynos vs Snapdragon: the split returns, kind of
Last year’s Galaxy S23 lineup went all-in on Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 globally. Exynos haters finally got the universal Qualcomm flagship they’d begged for. That might have been a one-year truce.
For the S24 generation, the rumor mill has bounced between a full Exynos/Snapdragon split for S24 and S24+ and a more nuanced configuration. One late leak claims Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 will power the S24 Ultra and the S24+ in most markets, while the base S24 will be stuck with Exynos 2400.
This directly conflicts with earlier reports that both S24 and S24+ would share the Exynos 2400 in many regions, so treat it with caution. The takeaway isn’t who’s right; it’s that buyers are once again forced to care which SoC they’re getting depending on country.
Meanwhile, the S24 Ultra sticking with Snapdragon everywhere reinforces where Samsung sees its real halo product. If you want zero doubt about performance and AI headroom, you’re being funneled to the most expensive model.
Samsung vs Google: the AI camera crown fight
Samsung’s S23 Ultra already had a serious camera system: a 200MP Isocell HP2 primary, strong zoom, and top-tier stills. For the S24 Ultra, leaks say Samsung is reusing that 200MP formula with an HP2SX sensor. On paper, it’s basically identical — 0.6 µm pixels, 1/1.3-inch size — with internal optimizations.
The aim isn’t to brute-force better photos with bigger sensors but to refine the pipeline. Samsung’s been dealing with complaints about shutter lag causing blur, and heavily saturated colors on the S23 series. Optimizing the HP2SX plus new AI processing could shave off lag and tone colors closer to reality.
Samsung is also clearly watching Google. Pixel 8 Pro’s Video Boost and Magic Editor features made AI the camera story in 2023. Galaxy S24’s rumored video AI and Magic Editor-style tools are Samsung’s counterpunch. The question is whether the underlying imaging is consistent enough to make those AI tricks feel like improvements, not band-aids.
Because so far, the S24 Ultra’s real-world camera performance hasn’t been the slam dunk its spec sheet suggests.
Camera inconsistency and the big One UI 6.1.1 promise
Despite strong hardware, the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s camera has been called out as inconsistent. The phone can produce excellent shots, but users and reviewers have complained about unreliable HDR and weak telephoto performance in certain conditions.
Samsung has been shipping updates since launch that allegedly target low-light performance and zoom clarity. A March 2024 update, for example, was supposed to improve low-light image handling and enhance text clarity when zoomed in. Some gains are there, but the camera still feels behind the best competitors in reliability.
Now, Samsung is reportedly testing a One UI 6.1.1 update for the S24 series with “significant” camera changes. That’s unusual territory: One UI x.1.1 builds have historically launched on foldables like the Galaxy Z Fold and Flip, then trickled down. Giving a slab flagship that treatment underscores how much work Samsung thinks the S24 camera still needs.
Timing lines up with past behavior. Samsung typically drops a big camera-focused update for its flagships around June or July, and rumors suggest the S24’s 6.1.1 build — with its big imaging overhaul — will arrive roughly alongside the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Flip 6.
The realistic outlook: expect improvements, especially around HDR logic and telephoto consistency, but don’t expect the phone to suddenly leapfrog every rival. Samsung has been chasing that “fix it in software later” dragon for years.
Display controversy: washed out by design
The S24 Ultra’s display hardware is legitimately impressive on paper. Peak brightness hits 2,600 nits, and Corning’s Gorilla Armor glass promises 75% less glare and reflections plus better scratch resistance.
But users quickly noticed that the screen didn’t look like past Samsung “Vivid” panels. Colors in Vivid mode looked closer to Natural, with less pop than older Ultras. Initially, some support chatter hinted at a bug or upcoming fix.
Then Samsung Spain shut that door. The company said the behavior is intentional: colors and brightness on the S24 series have been tuned for more accurate and comfortable viewing, with a more natural rendering and less aggressive saturation. Samsung explicitly called it a design choice, not a defect.
In response to the blowback, Samsung’s first major S24 update added a “Vividness” slider, giving users more control over how punchy the display looks. But the core message remains: if you loved Samsung’s old, hyper-vivid default profile, the new direction is going to feel like a downgrade.
To twist the knife, only the S24 Ultra gets Gorilla Armor. The smaller S24 and S24+ still use standard glass. Samsung’s workaround is an official anti-reflective screen protector for those models, which mimics the Ultra’s reflection reduction fairly well.
Sounds nice until you see the details: it’s a plastic film, not tempered glass, harder to install, more prone to smudges, and a two-pack costs $30. You can easily buy multiple tempered glass protectors for the same price.
Samsung could, in theory, bring that anti-reflective treatment to older flagships via accessories too, but that would blunt one of the S24 family’s selling points. So it doesn’t.
Early S24 owners are doing quality control Samsung should’ve done
The S24 series has already seen a wave of early complaints about camera behavior on the base and Plus models. Users on Samsung’s Korean forums flagged blurry textures and loss of detail, prompting a moderator to acknowledge the issue and confirm a future fix.
That same moderator also stated that outside of a shift to more natural color reproduction, there weren’t major camera changes versus previous S phones — which aligns with the hardware story. These are not new sensors; they’re mostly new tuning.
The problem isn’t that issues exist — early firmware bugs are normal — it’s how much of the S24 experience is being finished in public. Display color tuning, camera sharpening, HDR logic, telephoto consistency, AI features rolling out piecemeal: buyers are effectively beta-testing a $1,000+ lineup.
You can argue that seven years of software updates and feature drops make this acceptable. But if you’re dropping flagship money on day one, you’re gambling that Samsung will eventually fix the aspects you don’t like — instead of simply calling them “intended behavior” and moving on.
Sales success doesn’t automatically mean user win
On the numbers side, Samsung’s strategy is working. The Galaxy S24 Ultra is the first Samsung flagship in six years to crack the top 10 best-selling phones globally, grabbing ninth place for 2024. The mainstream Galaxy A15 and A15 5G actually outsold it, which says more about where most people spend their money, but the point stands: the Ultra is moving units.
Canalys reports Samsung shipped 222.9 million smartphones in 2024, barely behind Apple’s 225.9 million. Other Android OEMs like Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo also posted growth, but none of their phones hit the top 10. Xiaomi in particular grew 15% year-over-year, shipping more than 168 million devices.
Average selling prices climbed too. Globally, ASP went from $287 to $324. Apple blew past a $900 ASP for the first time, while Samsung’s sat at $299, powered by a mix of high-end flagships like the S25 and Pixel 9-class rivals on one end and volume budget devices on the other.
The market is clearly rewarding long software support, strong silicon, and AI buzz. But that doesn’t mean the S24 generation is automatically the best choice for every power user. You’re trading early access to AI features and long-term updates against year-one uncertainty on camera tuning, display processing, and SoC variants.
Who should actually buy a Galaxy S24 right now?
If you value long-term software support, want in on Samsung’s AI ecosystem from the ground floor, and can live with some rough edges, the S24 Ultra is the safest pick in the lineup. Snapdragon everywhere, Gorilla Armor, the fullest Galaxy AI suite, and the best chance of future camera fixes.
The S24+ is the quiet sweet spot only if the Snapdragon rumors for most markets pan out. You’d get the upgraded QHD display, solid base RAM and storage, and fewer compromises than the vanilla model. But until the SoC matrix is crystal clear, that’s a question mark.
The regular Galaxy S24 is shaping up to be the compromise child. Likely Exynos-only, no Gorilla Armor, and some of the same camera complaints as its siblings, with less hardware padding to cover the gaps. It’ll still be a very capable compact flagship, but not the obvious enthusiast default.
The bigger picture: Samsung is selling an idea — Galaxy AI, long updates, and Ultra as the aspirational Android — while patching fundamentals in the background. As long as people keep buying, that incentive structure won’t change.
If you’re okay being a paying participant in that experiment, go for it. If not, you might want to sit out the first wave of updates and see what One UI 6.1.1 actually delivers.
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