S24 Ultra 5G 1TB/12GB RAM
Dubai - UAE
(This is a Subjective Personal experience Review)
How do you beat a beast? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, just improve it.
Now that the dust has settled, let’s talk about the S24U.
In terms of design, almost the same, but refined: Beautiful colour finishes, solid titanium frames, flatter screen... When in a case, you will not feel or see all that, I’m so tempted to use it without a cover, because I want everyone to see how classy it is.
The main upgrades are the Chipset(Snapdragon 8 Gen 3) the dragon that is AI capable thanks to its NPU(Neural Processing Unit) and the Software. I said it before, all the phones reached a saturation in terms of revolution, same technology everywhere you look, almost same design, almost same everything. The game changers from now on are Services, and Software. AI is taking over the world at a fast pace, and that will be in my opinion the war of manufacturers moving forward. It’s not enough for you to be the Pioneer, you need to keep on improving every year, because when you’re number 1, everyone will be coming for you, look at Blackberry.
But there's a plot twist, the AI features are coming to the Already Amazing S23Ultra, and are free only till end of 2025… more on this later.
As every year, I daily use the same apps, same amount of time, phone is always on 30% brightness, WQHD+ and at 60HZ with the Standard Performance profile.
At first, I was averaging 9+ Hours on my S23Ultra! That was almost 30% more in 1 year from the S22 Ultra, and almost 50% more in 2 years from the Note 20 Ultra! As the days went by, this dropped to around either 8 hours max of SOT, or 16 hours of standby along with 6 hours of Screen On Time (SOT)
I didn’t honestly see any improvement in the battery life, I am getting similar SOTs and similar stand by times. The only difference is the discharge when the phone is left alone, I can feel the difference.
This year again just like last year, the “Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 For Galaxy” that has Higher Clock Speeds for CPU and GPU only on the Samsung S Devices, combined with the LTPO3 Screen, has for the 2nd year in a row the best efficiency there is. The phone is not heating or over-heating as it has a bigger vapor chamber, and honestly feels faster and snappier thanks to the UFS4.0 Storage and DDR5 Ram than the S23 Ultra.
The "main camera" upgrade is minor, I have seen online some full-fledged tests, people are not 100% satisfied with the upgrade, but I’m sure it’s not hardware related and can be updated with rolled out updates. What’s amazing now is the integration of the camera and its power and tools, in the social media apps like Instagram without any quality loss, you can put it to full power and good use directly from your favourite app.
The video stabilization is vastly improved, also the night shots are slightly better especially on video, and the camera app is slightly better now, simpler to use and snappier, as the shutter lag has decreased, I hated the S22 and S23 shutter speed, now I don’t have any issues with it.
The One UI 6.1 combined with Android 14 is still going strong and I got used to it and love to navigate around. It’s awesome for people who don’t upgrade every year, especially when the device will be getting 7 years of Android and security updates compared to the 4 years of the S23 Ultra.
What I Personally didn’t like for my daily usage and personal needs:
- No evolution of the S-Pen or new features.
- Few camera hardware changes that made it slightly worse, like the zooms.
- No improvement on the also very important camera, the selfie one. This is used in all video calls, Zoom Calls, and group shots, it deserves some attention.
- The launch issues like the Vivid Colours etc. that till today were not addressed the way it should.
- The fact that the AI feature are now coming to the S23U after we were under the impression that AI is coming to that device only.
The AI features are listed everywhere, I’m not going to dive in and repeat what was said, but hear me out, for me personally, half of them are just gimmicks i will never use or just once every blue moon.
I never was in a situation where the person on the phone with me does not speak English, maybe you might, but for me, never before. So this live translate and interpreter is an option that I personally might use one day, it’s nice to have it, it’s powerful, it definitely works, it will always improve, but not always for me.
I don’t want to bash each and every one that I won’t use, so I’ll talk a bit about the ones I love:
- The Google circle to search is very handy and I use it daily, at least twice, super fast and accurate.
- The Samsung Notes is also handy to me, using it 3 to 4 times a week.
- Voice recorder was used once in an external meeting, super handy, but I don’t know if I will always be allowed by the client to do it, maybe my internal meetings later as it summarizes, identifies who is saying what, etc.
- Samsung internet integration and the ability to summarize article is amazing.
- The photo editor is what wins it for me, unfortunately u need internet for most of the features, but it’s out of this world.
The rest honestly are just gimmicks.
Besides the items above, the phone is once again, for the 2nd year in a row, an absolute power house, a beast, and on a personal level and based on my daily usage of a phone (Work, emails, chat, media consumption, need for battery life) I love it as much as the S23, they took my ultimate most favourite S23 Ultra and made it better with software and AI upgrades. Great job Samsung, you nailed it again this year after last year, worth the discounted pre-order price I paid for, maybe not the full price if you have an S23 Ultra.
If you want to upgrade, since the pre-order is done, go so Samsung online if available in your country, get it, benefit of their offers, and if available, trade in. But now that the AI features are coming to the S23U, and if you’re an owner of one, you might want to wait for a price drop or just skip the upgrade, the S23Ultra is an absolute beast, and if your phone will be in a Case, where you will not appreciate the design and screen, I don’t see any reason for you to pay the extra money.
if you want to know more about the Trade In Program, check the below link: https://r2.community.samsung.com/t5/Galaxy-S/Trade-In-Program-Benefits/td-p/11297449
UAE Trade In Website: https://samsungtradein.ae/
If you are coming from an older than the S22 device and thinking of changing, don’t think twice, pre order from here www.Samsung.com as it’s the best deal you can get if combined with the Trade In, I went for the trade in twice before and would safely recommend it to others.
Let me know if you have any questions and thank you for taking the time to read since 2016!
Cheers, J.
