If you want a cutting-edge phone these days, you don’t go for a sick foldable phone or some Pro Ultima Max of a beast. But for those of us who want a phone that can be held conveniently in our hands and pockets, as well as in the wallet, it should cost fairly reasonably while offering us the high-quality experience which is expected by those who have electronic devices as the most vital parts of their lives.
First, while the Galaxy S24 Ultra was able to look unimpressive even to the most loyal Samsung fanboys, this year’s base-model changes are, dare I say it, some of the most impactful of the series.
Not the Galaxy AI, but small and some significant changes to the screen and the overall efficiency of the device make S24 the least incremental of what Samsung has to admit is a very ‘copy-paste’ year. While it is sandwiched between the excessive Ultra and the perfectly priced Galaxy S24+, don’t underestimate Samsung’s smallest Galaxy S24.
Availability, network and What’s in the Box
The game is free with most carrier trade-ins and readily downloadable from the PlayStation Store worldwide.
You can purchase the Samsung Galaxy S24 for 800 dollars right now at almost any electronics store and virtually all of the big phone companies.
128 GB remains the minimum, although 256 GB is just $60 up, at $860. AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon all have it where when you buy or upgrade to an unlimited plan, you can get a free Samsung Galaxy S24 if you trade-in a device or add a new line for specific unlimited plans.
Some of these include Samsung, which provided a free upgrade to the 256GB model during its pre-orders. Though that is no longer active at the moment, it might be back for the lovely S24 on bigger sale days such as Memorial Day and Prime Day.
In this review, the unlocked Cobalt Violet Galaxy S24 Android Police bought was used for testing on AT&T’s 4G and 5G, mostly 5G and 5G+ which is AT&T’s awkward name for mmWave and C Band (mid-band). There was only one time when the patch of nodes became overloaded – during a Lord of the Rings concert in downtown Orlando.
Wrapped in a paper cover attached to the screen of the Galaxy S24 are a Galaxy S24, an incredibly thin USB-C to USB-C cable, a SIM ejector tool, and a mini-manual that is actually a double-sided pamphlet. The box itself is astonishingly thin, and I absolutely, positively strongly suggest opening it on a bed, a couch or any
other soft, plush surface; the lid pops off with a jerk, and the only thing between your N is not the sides of the box but about 1 cm of plastic.
Specifications
- SoC
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3
- RAM
- 8GB
- Storage
- 128GB, 256GB
- Battery
- 4,000mAh
- Ports
- USB-C
- Operating System
- Android 14 and One UI 6.1
- Front Camera
- 12MP, f/2.2
- Rear camera
- 50MP, f/1.8, OIS main; 12MP, f/2.2 ultrawide; 10MP, f/2.4 zoom (3x)
- Connectivity
- NFC
- Dimensions
- 147.1 x 70.6 x 7.6mm
- Colours
- Onyx Black, Marble Gray, Cobalt Violet, Amber Yellow, Jade Green, Sapphire Blue, and Sandstone Orange
- Display type
- AMOLED, 120Hz
- Weight
- 168g
- Charge speed
- 25W
- IP Rating
- IP68
- Price
- From $800
- Stylus
- No
- Display dimensions
- 6.2″
- Display resolution
- 2340 × 1080
- Charge options
- USB-C wired, Qi wireless
- SIM support
- Dual SIM (Nano-SIM and eSIM)
- Cellular connectivity
- 4G, 5G (incl. mmWave)
- Wi-Fi connectivity
- Wi-Fi 6E
- Bluetooth
- Bluetooth 5.3
Design and display
Substantial flat sides, very bright screen, more of a general look assistances
Let’s not mince words here: this phone is 98.5% the same as the Galaxy S23 and 87% the same as the S22 and S21 before it. The build quality is just as solid and premium-feeling as it’s been for half a decade, and we’re even dealing with the same materials:
A new addition to those lists is Gorilla Glass Victus 2 and Armor Aluminum. No titanium or glare-resistant Gorilla Armor is included: these are on the $1,300 Ultra.
Samsung has altered a grand total of six exterior design components on the Galaxy S24 as opposed to the S23. The flash falls beneath by less than half an inch, the phone itself is a millimetre taller, the screen size is 0.1 inches bigger and much brighter, and with an improved ability to adjust brightness and contrast, one microphone hole goes from the bottom of the device to the top.
I mean that, instead of six separate stripes, it now has one continuous stripe of speaker grill; and instead of the ‘frame’ being made up of thin, elongated segments, kind of like one iPhone.
Switching from a curved slide to a flat one is not a very big issue on the frame, but the improvement in the finish is significant. The S23 has a frame that almost gleamed and even looked like a mirror, so fingerprints clung to it like a magnet. Our darling phone became so slippery to hold. The S24’s frame has a brushed or matte touch that conceals imperfections and provides the hand with a tiny amount of grip.
This texture is further complemented by top and bottom flat edges and the not-so-beveled edges, making it easier to get a firm grip on the S24.
Build the flush of that frame; the matte Gorilla Glass back is a bit duller than I like it to be, especially on the Cobalt Violet, which arguably is not violet at all, more just a bland, subdued grey – but when the light hits the right angle, it is quite stunning indeed. Which spoils that smooth glass? That’s the most memorable feature of the S24 – three camera lenses, each filmed separately and left just a gap allowing dust and lint to stick to naked seams.
I still crave the unified, integrated camera bar that was the defining design element of the S21 and S22 – these discrete, standalone camera modules on an otherwise characterless, millquached phone just feel so pedestrian, so indistinct, rather than the most significant Android series of the year.
Primarily as a result of the fact that the general layout change of the S24 makes it resemble a competitor, Samsung has now lacked any identifiable style that it once possessed. Thank god for Galaxy S24 cases at the boss level that add some liveliness to this slab of device.Getting back to the Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 screen,
I actually feel incredibly disappointed that we failed to get the Gorilla Armor on the S24. Most of the time it is like using some breach like this (Yes, I know; no room in the budget.) You see, don’t get me wrong, the Victus 2 is by no means flimsy, and I did not accidentally chip, crack or scratch either the front or the back
glass during the shots for this review when I proactively positioned the phone right on the rough concrete or rocks. Yet, ridding the screen of glare outdoors would be a boon; after all, the new max of 2,600 nits of brightness can handle full-sun exposures in most cases.
By far, Google Maps in situ on the Samsung Galaxy S24 at Disney’s Animal Kingdom
Admittedly, such a number is fun to toss around, but in the most common use cases, you’re only going to get the same brightness as the S23 and S22 due to Adaptive Brightness. The other screen is helpful on all occasions and at any place of one’s convenience.
It’s now standard across all three, and that efficiency does mean this phone gets more screen on time out of a charge, not to mention that an adaptable 1-120Hz Refresh rate makes for a silky smooth experience be you playing hard, kinda wishing you wore pink to that thread on Reddit, or reading several thousands of comic panels worth of Webcomics.
Once the fix is released, I’ll expand this review, giving more details on colour gamut and dynamic range because the ‘washed out’ display issue affected my S24 Galaxy Note. The screen seems fine, which is just as well since this bug makes the Screen mode look the same whether you’re on Neutral or the bolder Vivid, but I need to re-evaluate this screen with it all working.
Currently, the night mode on mine is a hair less vivid than the S23 in Screen mode, which, even at Neutral, is vibrant. Samsung Spain has claimed that this is how it wanted the device to behave, but I believe this cannot be the case as the feature is nearly useless.
My last criticism regarding the hardware of the base-model S24 is that it still doesn’t come with the UWB support that both the S24 and S23 Ultra have had for some time now. I don’t think you’ll notice this lack often; maybe if you wanted to use digital car keys or are a fan of smart tags this would come in handy, but it’s only fair the little one gets this too!
Software and performance
It offers good performance for Gaming and Productivity, but The AI is complete immersion till the last moment.
The AP Slack app On the Galaxy S24 close to a calm water channel
The only launch bug I encountered on the Galaxy S24 is screen mode related, and overall performance highlights the resilience of Samsung’s One UI 6.1 and the flagship capacity of Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip.
Though, Township and Merge Dragons, which are games filled with resources, didn’t lag — well, they don’t need to lag, with all their IAP optimizations and inefficient code — and switching between applications was as fluid as if a few moments ago I hadn’t left my initial one. It makes me optimistic that the S24 will continue to work efficiently even as it undergoes the promised seven years of system and security enhancements.
Samsung placed the Galaxy AI suite at the heart of the Galaxy S24’s differentiation strategy. However, its specificity should be expected to push you to forget its existence unless, of course, you are the kind of person who will use Samsung’s keyboard over Gboard or SwiftKey. When it comes to a phone call or voice recording interpretation, the live translation is wonderful when effective, which gives away when dialects are included.
The sole new experience I got actively using was Circle to Google Search, which can indeed be considered a reinvention of Google Lens and is based on machine learning, not AI. Samsung Keyboard’s tone-changing feature was more often worse than better — my original submitted text was superior to what it was turned
into more often than not when I used SwiftKey with the Bing version and Google Messages with the Bard/Gemini version. The differences are the One UI features that you’d easily spot and like are the same ones you’d have seen in your previous 2-3 Samsung phones.
As minimalist as One UI looks, and even more so as I did not download Good Lock to get down and dirty with my phone theming, Samsung’s interpretation and management of Material You and wallpaper adjustments makes bibbing my S24 into the look that I desire incredibly effortless.
Another one is customization. I have hundreds of pictures set on my lock screen, and the backgrounds of my countless daily alarms, ringtones, the colour of the quick settings toggles, and everything of that nature is not very hard to match to one’s personality. It doesn’t matter, but under no circumstances should you open Galaxy Themes. They’re old and janky.)
One more primary function that is widely scrutinized is the so-called Modes and Routines executed by Samsung. While Focus/Work mode and Sleep mode are ubiquitous on pretty much all smartphones nowadays, the ability to set other device modes — including, for example, a concert/movie, or lounging at the weekend — actually does save me time and minimizes distractions without leaving me in the dark.
When it comes to Samsung’s annoying defaults, the worst /best software on the whole phone is not in the Galaxy AI; it’s in the camera software, and if you’ve ever used a Samsung phone in the last 8 years, you will know what he is talking about.
Camera
They are uninformed Writing professionals; nothing here is new, and that is not acceptable.
While Phones Editor Will Sattelberg and Gadgets Editor Taylor Kerns were a bit more gentle with the camera performance on the Galaxy S24 Ultra and S24+, I don’t have quite the same attitude.
All that was wrong with Samsung’s camera experience for the last five years is still wrong with S24: from subtle overbrightness and oversaturation to make the images pop for the postcard-perfect shot to Samsung’s inability to deal with any motion at all to the complicated and overblown camera app.
In a well-lighted environment with scenic views or non-moving objects, it’s possible, with some effort and the right place at the right time and luck, to get some great shots with the Galaxy S24. However, both Google and OnePlus offer very good flagship-level phones that have nowhere near the motion or brightness problems as the S24 for the same price or less.
Samsung has not been able to take the title of a camera leader aside from Pro mode for years, but the cameras on this phone are undeniably Samsung’s deal-breaker.
Battery life and charging
This battery is a seriously tough nut to crack, but these speeds are killing me. The Samsung Galaxy S24 speaker, USB-C port and SIM tray are on a wooden table. Another department Samsung decided to revolutionize is charging technology where the company did not change a single thing. The built of the Galaxy S24 still remains at 25W wired charging and 15W normal Qi wireless charging.
Yup, no MagSafe, and no 45W charging — but even that makes me feel slow compared to OnePlus and any other Chinese-based brand — and still there’s no feature to check battery health after the full charge, at least no option to check battery level after, say, 24-hour full charge cycle, and only after 2 hours.
The battery itself is 200mAh larger, is 4,000 mAh, and the victory of a proper variable refresh rate screen and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 enabled it to get 8-10 hours of usage on one charge on adaptive brightness.
During one shoot on a morning when the sun’s rays were bright and clear, and every camera was being tested, the max brightness did affect the battery a little, but on getting to lunch, I was still over fifty per cent charged, and I didn’t need to top up throughout the day.
Competition
Samsung’s hardware? Well, nobody matches it, but almost everyone offers better cameras.
Light panels in the background with a hand holding back of the OnePlus 12.
As stated in our camera section, with Google’s special algo and OnePlus’s cooperation with Hasselblad, the Pixel 8 and OnePlus 12 are capable of delivering more reliable images, and both cost less than or equal to the S24.
The OnePlus 12 has hardware that’s almost even with Samsung: an absolutely gorgeous screen, 80W wired charging & 50W wireless charging that just puts the last decade of Samsung Super Fast Charge to shame, & the mesmerizing marbled glass on the Flowy Emerald colour option.
The cameras here are not at the same level as the Pixel 8 Pro, but you won’t have overblown photos, and every twitch makes your cat photos blurry.
The only issue I have with it is that OnePlus’s software is not nearly as refined as One UI. You get adopted, though, if Galaxy’s top-most-full OPulence toolbox is your cup of tea, the half-empty tool belt of Oxygen OS might taint your flavour of the OnePlus 12.
Priced $100 lower than the Galaxy S24 but increasing its price this year, the Google Pixel 8 cameras have to be witchcraft compared to the Galaxy. You get crisper colours, better low-light performance and less noise, and movement – children and pets, for example – are handled better by the Pixel Camera than by anyone besides Apple.
There, albeit for some companies, offer truly monstrous cameras (at least for their machines) here in the United States; some international brands get downright insane with their cameras.
I wouldn’t recommend going from the S23 or S22 to the Galaxy S24, but if you are coming from the S21 or earlier, you’ll be happy with this phone so long as you’re not continually capturing lots of pictures of your cats or kids.
They’ve kept the Galaxy S23 around for $700, but it would scarcely be wise to purchase this instead of the S24 unless it is getting sold for $600 or below, which is pretty impossible due to the Galaxy S23 FE selling at this price range. The FE’s cameras are even more of a rollercoaster than the S24, and it has a variable refresh rate, a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, meaning it is two full generations behind it.
Should you buy it?
The S24 is great if you’re after a small yet mighty smartphone, if not for its rather unsteady cams.
A photograph of a smartphone the Samsung Galaxy S24 taking another photograph with a convoluted Camera application
It doesn’t break the mould or even dares to bring substantial style to itself, but the Galaxy S24 is essentially the Good Ol’ Reliable of the smartphone market: when it’s good, you are guaranteed quality, and for the other times, you definitely get what you deserve on the bad side.
And as much as I boast about these cameras, if you will be taking pictures of foods and tourist attractions for the new Insta Reel or the new TikTok trend, the Galaxy S24 is more than adequate. It’s that I feel both you and I should get more out of a phone that is so costly.
Surprisingly, you can exist rather well with this phone, and since I use my Galaxy S23 for 6-14 hours a day, it is my intention to do so on this new Galaxy S24.
Launch bug aside; one UI’s tweaks feel comfortable, the screen will be absolutely perfect once that is dealt with, a magnificent mag-safe case, and a reliable phone grip — pinky propping, Text thumb, the RSI cannot handle much else — this lithe yet luxurious pocket-friendly phone will be annoying camera app from perfect.
