The S24 Ultra has just been released, and I can finally get some breathing space from switching devices. Honestly, it’s kind of been endless.
We’ve had the iPhone 15 and the Pixel 8 launches already, the Samsung Flips and Folds, then OnePlus surprised us with the Open, but now I’m actually excited to stick with one device for a long-term review.
You know, it’s really hard not to get FOMO when making these posts. I see everybody else uploading videos on their first impressions, 24 hour later reviews and 72 hour later reviews, but I can never bring myself to making those sorts of videos.
I think to be able to make an honest review about a phone, or really anything, you have to spend a decent amount of time with it to form an opinion.
Although, I have to say, the phone doesn’t look very Orange, do you think?
I have to say, regardless of what anyone thought of Samsung Unpacked this year, I’m really glad to see Samsung brought all the new AI features to everywhere, globally, as long as you speak one of the 13 languages they support.
With Google, you don’t get that. I feel that Google is very good at wowing the world with their announcements, but at least here in the UK, not all of them make it over to this country. I’m still waiting to have my Pixel book appointments and make reservations for me all automatically using the Google Assistant.
The S24 has actually really impressed me this year, but not for the reasons you’re probably thinking.
I’m really excited to see what the new version of Android Auto is like, and I was genuinely surprised at how fast Quick Share was when transferring some photos and videos last week. It was incredibly fast, way faster than Airdrop. The new Gorilla Glass Armour also, 4x as strong as the previous Victus which I hope will prevent any of the micro scratches which I had on my S23 Ultra, 75% less reflections which will be a blessing when we get that 1 week of sunshine here in the UK.
And also, I already own a tonne of Samsung things in my house. I got the S95C TV a few months ago, we’ve already got a Samsung Air Conditioner, a Washer, Dryer - and I’m interested to see what a Samsung Ecosystem looks like and how well it actually works in real life.
So today is going to be a case of getting everything transferred and setup properly, because I’m going to literally lock my iPhone and Apple Watch Ultra into a lockable box which I recently bought from Amazon.
Mainly to make sure I don’t fall into bad habits and just go pick up my iPhone, and secondly because not everyone believed me last year when I said that I switched to the S23 Ultra. Not that I should really care what a stranger on the internet thinks.
So first thing is to get all of my apps installed and everything setup to how I need them. And whilst I could restore from my S23 Ultra, when I get a new phone I always like starting fresh.
There’s a quick way to install all of the apps I need from the Play Store but one thing I need to mention is customising the notifications, because it’s very quick to get overwhelmed with them. So, I like to switch notifications off for anything that I don’t want to see, including pretty much all social media apps.
Overall, I’m really happy and excited to get some new features day to day which I haven’t had before.
I can’t wait to see what the slightly tweaked Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy chip does in terms of long-term performance and also battery life.
Although being able to charge my phone at up to 45watts and get a 50% charge in just 30 minutes really will come in clutch for those long days or when I just need a quick charge before a night out.
I’m interested to see if I actually start using the S-Pen, or to see if it’s a bit of a gimmick.
And of course the cameras - I can’t avoid the fact that when I took my S23 Ultra to Dubai with me for a family holiday last year, my wife loved every single photo I took with that phone. I’m glad they kept the 10x telephoto option with the new 5x 50mp cropped sensor.
Sure it’s not an every day kind of thing, but it’s so cool to be able to zoom right up close when watching a band play, and it’s going to be fun having access to Google Pixel level editing like Magic Erasor, being able to re-touch my photos to make them even better after taking the photo.
I’m also keen to see how well the all the new ProVisual Engine works and how it compares to the iPhone and the Pixel.
And the fact that finally the hardware is properly being passed through to the likes of Instagram so you get all the features such as OIS and HDR previews in the social media apps.
I do think lots of the AI translation features are cool, and it’s about time this sort of tech is available, and it’s incredible tech. I’m not sure I’ll use it a huge amount because we don’t have much in terms of travel plans this year. But I do think we were all expecting to get some sort of AI into the Voice Assistant.
I'm a little bit disappointed that there’s no ChatGPT-type integration with Google Assistant or Bixby to take us beyond the fairly significant limitations and reliability issues we currently have.
What I AM looking forward to testing, though, is Android Auto. I have never used it before, never owned a car that had it. But now I do, and I’m really interested to see how the new AI features work with Android Auto to summarise messages and send replies without using the voice assistant which gets things wrong 9 times out of 10.
Also the AI Notes feature, which lets you record and transcribe a whole meeting, organise everything, and even summarise things, which saves a huge amount of time taking notes. Coincidentally it would have been a huge help when in the Samsung S24 briefings recently. But I see this feature being something that will come in useful in my general day to day life.
Don’t get me wrong, the features like Circle to Search I’m sure will become super useful and a new way to quickly search for something, it’s going to take me a while to re-train my muscle memory to tap and hold, then circle to search, instead of just instinctively opening up a browser and typing for what I want to search for.
There’s the new titanium frame, which doesn’t make any difference in weight compared to the S23 Ultra, but there are some big changes on the inside when it comes to gaming. With almost double the size vapour cooling chamber inside which means the phone should perform great whilst also staying cool when gaming. Something I’m definitely looking forward to doing more of with the new Backbone controller I’ve bought recently.
But of course one of the biggest changes is with the new flat display, that’s 2600 nits, and when speaking with the guys at Samsung about the Vision Booster feature that gives an extra perceived 300 nits of brightness for a pretty much 3,000 nits of brightness. It’s just insane.
But for now, I’m going be putting my iPhone and my Apple Watch in that lock box, keeping them safe for 30 days.
So, all in all, it will be a very fun and very interesting six months of me switching to the S24 Ultra.
I’ll be sure to post about my progress, probably one in 30 days and another at six months, to give you the full experience of switching, including what the Garmin Watch, is like.
See you soon!
