Review of the Samsung Galaxy S24

The normal Samsung Galaxy S24 may be the ideal phone for you if the features and performance of Samsung's flagship S24 Ultra appeal to you but you don't enjoy carrying such a large (and pricey) slab in your pocket. While having a more manageable and lightweight chassis, it provides much of the same functionality.

But will the smallest phone in the S24 family live up to the expectations of its bigger sister and top selection for our list of the best Samsung phones? It has very little hardware changed from the previous model, an Exynos CPU (in Europe), and restricted storage options.

Fortunately, this phone is a bit more complex than it first seems. The display is better than ever, slight design changes have a big effect, and Samsung's latest Galaxy AI capabilities are all here. Here are my thoughts after using it as my primary device for more than a week.

The cost and accessibility

The Samsung S24 went on sale in late January 2024 and may be bought anywhere in the world via the Samsung website or a number of independent retailers, such as Amazon.

Retailing at $799.99 / £799, the basic model has 128GB of storage; if you would like 256GB of storage, the cost goes up to $849.99 / £849. might you want more storage above that amount, you might choose Samsung's more costly S24 devices. Storage capacities for the S24+ and Ultra range from 512GB to 1TB.

It's crucial to remember that although the S24 and S24+ use Samsung's Exynos 2400 CPU in most of the globe, they both operate on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in the US. Other than that, the specifications are the same everywhere.

Details

Software and features

The Samsung Galaxy S24 is very feature-rich; pretty much everything the Ultra can do, the smaller phone can do too. It is powered by Android 14 and runs Samsung's One UI 6.1. All of the newest AI-driven features are also compatible with this model.

Because there is so much that one UI can accomplish, it may sometimes be a bit daunting. You never know where to look. However, there are some amazing features with this skin if you get accustomed to it. I like the amount of customisation that is possible for the lock screen and constantly visible. One of the few companies that still offers lock screen widgets is Samsung, and they're quite useful. It's also fantastic to be able to swipe through and stack widgets on the home screen. Every time I go to a non-Samsung phone, I miss it.

One UI is not only packed with functionality, but it also feels very fast. Something about the animations, I'm not sure whether it's just my imagination, makes everything seem quick and fast. It's very pleasant to live with.

The Galaxy AI features are the same on this device as they are on the S24 Ultra, so I won't go into too much detail about them here. But to sum them quickly, they operate with text and speech and are mostly productivity-focused. You'll have tools to alter the tone of your work, translation possibilities, and the capacity to write summaries and reformat notes. Although they functioned well and are quite nice, I didn't find myself utilising them very much.

The one exception is the function called Circle to Search with Google, which lets you circle anything on your screen and do an instantaneous Google search for it. This function is quite handy, and I used it a lot. Sadly for Samsung, however, it's not limited to the S24 series. It's now going out to Pixel phones, and I'm sure we'll see it soon enough on other Android phones as well.

There are AI technologies for picture editing as well. With generative AI painting in the corners, the S24 allows you to eliminate undesired people and objects from your photos, eliminate reflections, and straighten a picture without cropping in. Long-pressing any video while it's playing back in the Gallery app will also play it in slow motion.

Although Samsung promises long-term software support, many consumers will be more enthused by this than by the remarkable AI features. Theoretically, you could use this phone for a very long time since the S24 series receives seven years of security patches and seven years of OS updates. The Google Pixel 8 smartphones are the only ones that provide this level of compatibility, and the majority of rival models fall far short.

Design

You may find it difficult to distinguish between the Samsung Galaxy S24 and S23 at first glance due to their striking similarities. But if you examine very closely, you'll see some significant variations.

The new matte surface on the device's sides and back is, in my view, the most significant modification. It also looks prettier in use and is fairly grippy since it is considerably more resistant to fingerprints and smudges. This is fantastic if you like to use your phone uncovered since a lot of phones—even those with matte finishes—can be quite slippery.

In contrast to the S23, which had a slightly curved frame, the sides are now perfectly flat. Although there isn't much of a difference, I enjoy the phone's more boxy, iPhone-like appearance. It never feels uncomfortable in the hand because of the good radius around the edges; unlike the S24 Ultra, it won't stab your palms.

Samsung claims that by strengthening the Armour Aluminium frame, its damage resistance has increased by 17%. I'll have to take them at their word, but to be honest, I don't really care that much about the frame strength—the front and back glass on a phone, for example, are much more delicate.

Although there is a little difference in size between the gadget and its predecessor—just a few millimeters—you are unlikely to notice it too much. Even by today's standards, it is a pretty little phone. It was rather nice to hold something so little and light after trying a few larger flagship phones. It felt so thin in my pocket.

Display

This year, Samsung improved the Galaxy S24's display; it now features an LTPO screen and is brighter. This implies that it can dynamically change its refresh rate to fit what's on screen, ranging from 1Hz to 120Hz. In other words, it will seem very fluid while scrolling quickly and playing games, but it will save battery power when the screen is still.The panel's maximum brightness of 2600 nits is a significant improvement over the previous generation's 1750 nits. Putting theoretical statistics aside, the screen becomes bright enough for my requirements, and it never seemed in danger from the early spring sunlight. On this screen, HDR material also seems fantastic, with deep, rich blacks and brilliant highlights. In contrast to the S24 Ultra, what I really missed was the superior anti-reflective coating. My hopes are crossed that Samsung will include it in additional models for the next year.Although it doesn't have the biggest display since it is a smaller phone, this model makes the most of the available space because the bezels are hardly apparent. Even while viewing YouTube videos in full screen mode, I never felt like it was too tiny for daily usage, and it's convenient to be able to reach the top of the display without having to stretch too far. But for gaming, I could use a little more room; while testing, first-person shooter titles like PUBG and CoD Mobile seemed especially crowded.Compared to its bigger brothers, the S24 features a screen with a lesser resolution of just FHD+, while the S24+ and Ultra have panels with QHD+. But I never had any problems with it in usage. For a monitor this large, the pixel density is rather respectable, and everything always seems crisp and detailed. The colours look amazing right out of the box, but if you'd want, you have some options to adjust the colour balance.With its two stereo speakers, the S24 has better-than-average sound quality. Although there may be a little more bass, overall the sound is pleasing with loads of clarity and well-staged. It was also uncommon for me to mute the speakers with my hand while using the S24 Ultra—something I struggled with all the time.Cameras

Sadly, there isn't much to get excited about here since the Samsung Galaxy S24's camera specs are the same as those of the S23. However, there are a few minor variations in the camera quality when compared to the model from the previous year, mostly because of adjustments made to Samsung's image processing.I noticed that images taken with the Galaxy S24 had a somewhat more realistic tone and less saturated colours in the grass and sky. Overall, the sharpening seems to be less forceful. It's a little adjustment, and you could essentially duplicate it with fast picture adjustments, but it's still a positive update.The S24's huge sensors and high megapixel counts may not wow on the spec sheet, but what matters most is that it can take some amazing pictures. As usual, the primary camera performs the best; it gets the finest details and shines while shooting in low light, an area where the other two start to falter.Nevertheless, the 3x telephoto and ultrawide are also excellent focal lengths. The 3x lens was really fun to use for macro and portraiture, while the ultrawide is a must for architecture and landscapes. However, I find myself wishing the ultrawide had autofocus. You cannot use it for any close-up photography since it is fixed at infinity.Contrarily, the selfie camera has focusing, so regardless of the situation—whether you're taking a headshot with precise framing or a group of people—it always appears crisp. Along with a wealth of beautifying choices and filters, the S24's portrait mode also performs quite well, resulting in some extremely attractive self-portraits.You can shoot in video mode at up to 8K 30 frames per second, but you're best off sticking with 4K since the files are huge and the maximum storage capacity is 256GB. S24 videos seem excellent. Videos sound as nice as they appear since the stabilisation is strong and the microphones are superior than those of most rivals.I was very happy to discover that the S24 Ultra's 4K 120 frames per second slow motion filming capabilities were carried over to the smaller model. When compared to the 1080p slow-motion options seen on the majority of other flagships, it's a significant quality upgrade. Naturally, this phone's AI capabilities allow it to convert any video, regardless of frame rate, into slow motion. Although strange artefacts usually occur when utilising it, it's a fairly interesting function. I think nothing compares to actual 120 frames per second video.Performance

As my test sample is the European basic model, it is powered by Samsung's Exynos 2400 CPU and has 128GB of storage in addition to 8GB of RAM. The lack of storage choices here is really disappointing, considering there are several mid-range phones these days that come with 256GB storage as standard, some of which cost half as much as the S24.Although this phone still multitasks well with 8GB of RAM, the storage situation is quite constrained. When you only have 128GB available, Genshin Impact alone takes up nearly 30GB of space, thus you'll probably reach that limit much sooner than you'd want. I believe Samsung made a mistake by saving up greater storage capacity for its larger phones. You may be a power user and yet want a smaller phone.The switch to Samsung's Exynos 2400 CPU also made me a bit anxious, but I shouldn't have been since it performs on par with the best of them. In graphical benchmarks, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 performs somewhat better, but in practice, it's difficult to distinguish between the two. Whatever I was doing, the phone always seemed very responsive and lightning-fast.One of the hardest things you can expect of a phone is to play at a steady 60 frames per second, and I managed to do it by maxing all the settings in Genshin Impact. After around 15 minutes of playing, the phone becomes rather warm, although to be fair, the Snapdragon-powered Ultra also experiences this. In my perspective, the CPU is not as much of a barrier to gaming as the screen size, however smaller fingers may have different thoughts.

Lightning

While most flagship smartphones have batteries that range from 5000 mAh to 4000 mAh, the Samsung Galaxy S24 has a somewhat lower battery capacity. Given its size, it makes sense, but I was still concerned about whether it would hold me through the day. Once again, it turns out I didn't need to be, as the Galaxy S24 easily got me through a typical day of usage.Naturally, if you play a lot of games or take a lot of pictures, you could run out of battery before bed, but even on days when you use the phone a lot, the S24 generally lasts well into the evening, and by then, a charger is usually close by.Like other Samsung phones, there is simply a USB-C cable in the package instead of a wall adapter. With a maximum power of just 25W, it's also the slowest phone I've used in a long time to charge. With the right charger, you can still charge a phone completely in just over an hour, so that's not too bad, but if you're accustomed to the 100W+ speeds that many Chinese flagship phones provide, it could be a bit startling.Wireless charging is also enabled by the S24, albeit it only allows 15W of power. It's not the best option if you're in a rush, but if you plan to spend a lot of time at your work or have a charger in the bedroom, placing the S24 on a charging pad and allowing it to gradually charge again is quite useful.

Is the Samsung Galaxy S24 a good purchase?

Because the Samsung Galaxy S24 is essentially the same as last year's Galaxy S23 with just modest updates, I believe the older model to be its main rival. In summary, the S24 receives a brighter, bigger LTPO display, a new Exynos (or Snapdragon) CPU, and a redesign including matte textures and flat corners. The two phones aren't drastically different, however I do like the new design and it's a little quicker.Although the new Galaxy AI capabilities were a major selling point when they were first released, they are now being rolled out to S23 smartphones via software updates, so that may not have as big of an impact as it might. You'll have a very similar experience elsewhere, so for the time being, the S23 seems like the superior option.Nevertheless, the Galaxy S24 is still a fantastic phone in and of itself, and if you'd rather have a smaller phone at a reasonable price, this is a great option. The S24 will undoubtedly continue to be among the greatest little phones available even after the S23 supply runs out. Well, until the S25 shows up.

Replacements

Here are a few other fantastic little flagship smartphones to check out if you're not convinced the Samsung Galaxy S24 is the best option for you.Xiaomi 14

This is yet another little Android phone with specifications fit for a flagship. It has a triple 50MP camera array, a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 CPU, lightning-fast charging, and up to 1TB of storage. These features make it somewhat bigger and more expensive. The lack of AI, less sophisticated software, and lack of long-term software support are the drawbacks compared to the S24. See our comprehensive Xiaomi 14 review if it seems like the right phone for you.The iPhone 15 Another great flagship phone in a comparable compact form is the iPhone 15, if you're OK with the concept of using an iOS device. The performance is excellent, the cameras are strong, and the Apple platform has a tonne of unique games. It's also highly recommended that you read our iPhone 15 Pro Max review if you don't mind handling something a bit bigger.