Samsung Galaxy S24 review, and more.

Despite having its supporters, the Plus model in Samsung's Galaxy S lineup is consistently the least popular model. However, there is always the question of what Samsung can do to improve the Plus model's appeal to potential customers. The Galaxy S24+ presented the firm with a wonderful opportunity, but did it succeed?

What's more, has Samsung made any improvements to its Exynos chips this year? People find it difficult to trust the firm after years of being let down by its internal chips. The Exynos 2400, included in the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+, is the South Korean company's final opportunity to influence public opinion.

Has Samsung been able to do any of that? This review contains the answers to every one of those queries.

Design

Samsung has utilized its tried-and-true design for both the base and Plus variants once more. The Galaxy S24+ shares a similar appearance with the Galaxy S22+ and S23+. A somewhat stiffer body, entirely flat edges, and narrower, symmetrical bezels are among the few minor modifications.

In addition, the S24+ is comfortable to handle, and Samsung appears to have intentionally avoided appealing to as many people as possible with the design of the device. Because of its lightweight design and rounded sides, the Galaxy S24+ feels considerably more comfortable and small even though it has the same screen size as the Galaxy S24 Ultra.

Like the Galaxy S23+, the Victus 2 includes Gorilla Glass protection on both the front and back to shield the phone from small scratches. The back has a matte surface that effectively conceals fingerprints.

Samsung designed the Galaxy S24+ in a way that is inoffensive for as many people as possible

Samsung says that the Armor Aluminum 2 material used in the unibody frame is stronger than the one from last year, albeit being somewhat stiffer. It's not titanium, but we believe it should be sufficient for the majority of people. With its IP68 rating for dust and water resistance, you may feel secure when taking it outside on overcast days or deciding to spend some time at the pool or beach.

Additionally, Samsung offers a broad selection of colors. The Galaxy S24+ in Cobalt Violet is the color variety that we were given, and it looks great. It is arguable that Samsung has been using the same design for too long, but it is indisputable that the design is good: The Galaxy S24+ appears unimpressive, sleek and simple, and comfortable to use on a daily basis. Looks like

Display and audio

The largest improvement in the Galaxy S24+ is its 6.7-inch screen. Despite spending $300 less than the Galaxy S24 Ultra, any Samsung smartphone can still boast the finest display screen. It is identical to the Galaxy S24 Ultra in terms of peak brightness (2,600 nits) and QHD+ resolution.

In percentage terms, the S24+ display outperforms the Galaxy S23+ screen by 30% and 50%, respectively! The fingerprint sensor functions flawlessly, and the screen stays perfectly flat. The S Pen and the Gorilla Glass Armor screen protector are the only extreme features you're missing out on.

With the Galaxy S24+, you're getting an excellent display.

Even in strong sunshine, the content on the screen is easily accessible due to its sharp and vividly brilliant display. Comparing Samsung to the Galaxy S23 series, the colors are a little less vibrant. The screen doesn't appear as colorful as the Galaxy S23, even in the Vivid Color setting. Samsung might solve this with a future update.

Additionally, you can stream HDR content from video streaming applications like Disney+, Netflix, Prime Video, and YouTube because the screen is compatible with HDR10 and HDR10+. Excellent video footage has outstanding visuals because HDR scenes have high peak brightness and flawless blacks. Gaming appears fantastic as well.

The refresh rate of LTPO panels can be easily changed to fit the content that is being shown on the screen. When a video is playing at 30 frames per second, for instance, it is 10Hz or 24Hz; when scrolling or playing games at 120 frames per second, it is 60Hz.

For features like Always On Display mode, the refresh rate may decrease to 1Hz, though we were unable to verify this. Whichever way you look at it, the Galaxy S24+ comes with an excellent display. For the best experience, we anticipate Gorilla Glass Armor protection to arrive on the Galaxy S25+ in the upcoming year.

It appears that Samsung has also enhanced the dual speaker arrangement. The mid frequencies appear to be reproduced more accurately, and they have a somewhat louder feel. Though it's still not as good as we would want, the bass may have slightly improved—especially when compared to Apple's iPhone speakers.

Cameras

The Galaxy S24+'s cameras are where it falls short in terms of upgradeability. You're looking at a 50MP primary camera with OIS and dual-pixel autofocus, a 12MP ultrawide camera with 3x optical zoom, a 10MP telephoto camera with OIS, and a 12MP selfie camera because it employs the same cameras as the Galaxy S23+. Concentrate automatically. Software and algorithms are the foundation for all quality enhancements in images and videos.

As always, the images captured during the day are excellent.

The Galaxy S24+ has a quick camera right out of the box. Because Samsung's new image processing pipeline manages image collection and processing simultaneously, there is noticeably less lag between shots. This allows the camera to continue taking pictures while previously acquired frames are still being processed for HDR and other enhancements.

As usual with Samsung, photos taken throughout the day are excellent. The dynamic range is fairly big, and colors are mostly true to life with a little boost. Although the noise reduction is less severe than on previous models, noise is still adequately controlled. This implies that when zoomed in, the image can appear a little grainy.

Neither the front nor back cameras' autofocus speed nor accuracy are problematic. We also found that Samsung has lessened the sharpness, which may occasionally give the impression that the phone captures less detail than the Galaxy S23+. However, we believe that the majority of consumers will be enthralled by the colors in photos taken with the Galaxy S24+ because they can be shared straight to social networking platforms or forwarded to loved ones without any retouching.

With comparable color calibration to the primary camera, the ultrawide camera performs adequately. While still broad, the dynamic range is not as good as that of the primary camera. In contrast to the photos taken by the primary camera, we saw that the shadows did not grow. You can't capture as many macro photos with the Ultra versions since Samsung has restricted autofocus capability, particularly for the ultra-wide camera.

The phone's telephoto camera is decent and does a fantastic job taking clear pictures and videos of far-off subjects. There are no problems with dynamic range, and the photographs include a good level of detail.

It's wonderful that Samsung has cut back on sharpening. All photos taken with a telephoto camera are upscaled to 12MP even if the camera has a 10MP resolution. You may not even be able to tell that these are altered photographs, even if you pixel-peep.

The Galaxy S24+'s primary camera functions incredibly well in low light, and we didn't have any issues with it. Both the dynamic range and the colors are excellent. Scenes with complicated lighting are reproduced more accurately in Night Mode because the phone takes numerous frames to restore highlights and shadows and increase dynamic range.

Even with Night Mode turned on, pictures still have a nighttime appearance. The night sky turning into the evening sky won't be visible to you. Because Samsung is preserving the core of that scenario, we believe that, in contrast to certain other manufacturers, it is an advantage.

We believe competing phones with larger or higher-resolution sensors can produce photographs with slightly greater detail or less noise in low light. The telephoto and ultrawide cameras are also beginning to show their age. Particularly in the image's darker areas, there is a lot of noise.

Their age is shown using telephoto and Ultraviolet cameras.

In low light, there can be color casts in darker areas of the photos, and there are differences in the white balance amongst the three rear cameras. Samsung needs to upgrade the camera sensors in its non-ultra high-end phones. We believe that Samsung could have done better if it had employed better hardware, even though the photographs aren't that poor.

The inability to swap between cameras while recording 4K 60 frames per second is one item that does annoy us. This is exclusive to the Galaxy S24 Ultra. We think the hardware on all three phones is sufficient for that feature, but Samsung is purposefully limiting an incredibly helpful feature on its Ultra phones.

All of the cameras on the Galaxy S24+ do a great job capturing video throughout the day. The primary camera can record footage at up to 8K 30 frames per second, while the front and back cameras can record footage at up to 4K 60 frames per second.

Videos in 4K resolution have good color and detail quality. On all three cameras, there is a good dynamic range and excellent stabilization. The three rear cameras' colors hardly differ from one another. Particularly when using the phone's telephoto and ultrawide cameras, noise can be seen in dimly lit environments.

8K videos taken during the day are fully functional, and the image stabilization is superior to that of rival phones. While Samsung's flagship smartphone still has somewhat better video recording than the latest iPhones, no other Android smartphone maker can match it.

In addition to switching between the primary and ultrawide cameras, you can capture extremely stable QHD video at 30 frames per second. Samsung has introduced the capability to record video with two cameras at the same time; however, this feature is limited to 1080p at 30 frames per second and is not available on the S24 Ultra.

4K 30 frames per second portrait films are possible, and they're far superior to the feature that came with the Galaxy S21 series. The capability to record slow-motion recordings at 4K quality and 120 frames per second is another new feature. The films have excellent quality; we think this is a more helpful feature than the previous one when 720p videos were captured at 960 frames per second.

The selfie camera is excellent and may be the greatest available.

The selfie camera is excellent and possibly the greatest available. Dual-pixel autofocus on the 12MP camera produces very good results. Selfies appear amazing in the daylight, with lots of detail, a broad dynamic range, and beautiful colors. Noise-related issues don't seem to exist

With the phone held at arm's length, you can fit the faces of three people within the selfie camera's broad field of view. Videos also offer good color and dynamic range, and they are stable.

The selfie camera works quite well, even in low light, and we didn't encounter any significant problems. Even if there is occasionally more noise than we would prefer, this is still one of the greatest selfie cameras. With Night Mode, you can get even greater dynamic range, but it will require you to steady your hands for a brief period of time..

Functionality and Connectivity

Let's now discuss the big issue at hand, which is the Exynos 2400. Samsung has resumed production of its in-house semiconductor following a one-year absence. The third-generation 4nm process (4LPP+) from Samsung Foundry is used in its production, and the FOWLP chip packaging technology is used to reduce heat and increase power efficiency. In theory, this should indicate that the Exynos 2400 is on par with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, but is it really?

Animations and transitions are smooth, and switching between apps is instant

The Galaxy S24 Ultra and S24+. The transitions and animations are seamless, and navigating between apps is quick. But there are real differences between them in terms of raw performance, at least in terms of benchmarks.

The S2+ received 6,665 points on the multi-core exam and 2,081 points in the single-core exam on Geekbench 6. Although marginally less than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, these CPU performance ratings are superior to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 model.

The phone achieved an average frame rate of 24.37 frames per second and 4,069 points in 3DMark's renowned Wildlife Extreme test. As we observed with the Galaxy S24 Ultra, the Galaxy S24+ decreased its peak performance in the Wildlife Extreme Stress Test by 65%.

We used the OpenCL compute benchmark from Geekbench to measure GPU compute performance, and the Galaxy S24+ received a score of 16,785 points. Using TensorFlow Lite, we loaded Geekbench ML (version 0.6.0) to evaluate the phone's AI and ML performance. The device received 1,135 points.

What about the phone's actual performance, though? We discovered that the Snapdragon-powered Galaxy S24 Ultra and the Galaxy S24+ were comparable. When you first unlock and use the phone, it feels more responsive than the S23+ and doesn't lag. Additionally, app switching is quick.

In relation to gaming, we utilize Call of Duty Mobile extensively for testing the Galaxy S24+. We adjusted the frame rate to 120 frames per second and played nonstop for sixty minutes. It's excellent that the phone maintained a frame rate of 112 frames per second.

But we also observed that the delivery of successive frames, or frame timing, isn't very good. This can give the impression that there is stuttering even at high frame rates; the S23 Ultra from last year did not have this issue. It is possible that this will be resolved by the game creators or in a future Samsung update, but this cannot be assured.

The Exynos 2400 significantly improves power efficiency.

In the past, there have been problems with the Exynos chips' cellular modems not being power-efficient; the Exynos 2400 offers noticeable improvements in this area. The phone's battery only lost 2-4% throughout the course of the night when it was in sleep mode.

In sleep mode, phones using Exynos CPUs from the previous generation undoubtedly use more battery life. Before the Exynos chips match the superiority of iPhones or gadgets with the newest Snapdragon processors, there is still opportunity for development.

We're not delighted about the Exynos 2400's limitation, as the Galaxy S24+ lacks Wi-Fi 7, in contrast to the S24 Ultra. However, we experienced no problems with Wi-Fi or 4G/5G connectivity. During the review time, there was also good call quality and signal reception.

Software

One UI 6.1, which is based on Android 14, is preinstalled on the Galaxy S24+. It is loaded with features, as usual. The user interface's intuitiveness is very noteworthy. Every animation and transition is incredibly fluid and seamless. This is One UI's most user-friendly iteration in a very long time.

The ability to customize the typeface for the lock screen clock widget, new widgets for the AOD and lock screens, a new transition from the AOD to the lock screen and vice versa, and Super HDR are a few of the new features.

Afterwards, there are dozens of new AI-powered features, such as Circle to Search, generative wallpapers, webpage summaries in Samsung Internet, auto summaries for Samsung Notes, live language translation during voice conversations and messaging, transcription and tagging of voice recordings, and generative AI-powered consist of. For video and picture editing, instant slow motion.

We enjoyed the new animations, Super HDR, generative wallpapers, auto-summarization of webpages, new lock screen widgets, and AOD. The Instant Slo-mo option, which converts regular films into slow-motion ones, was another one that we enjoyed. Grammar suggestions and language translations function incredibly well, but depending on what you're trying to do, generative AI-powered image editing can range from amazing to strange.

Similar to other S24 models, the Galaxy S24+ will receive security upgrades, One UI, and Android updates for seven years. See our review of the Galaxy S24 Ultra for more details on the software and AI experience on the S24+.

Battery life, charging

Similar to the screen, the Galaxy S24+'s battery has seen significant improvement. With a somewhat smaller screen to power, the 4,900mAh battery is now nearly as big as the 5,000mAh battery of the Galaxy S24 Ultra, which could help it run longer.

However, that isn't the case, and the Exynos 2400 CPU may be mostly to blame for it. Even though this is a significant performance and efficiency improvement over the previous generation Exynos CPUs, it is still not as good as the Snapdragon chips.

The Galaxy S24+ lasted a full day under heavy use and up to a day and a half under more moderate use during our study period. Despite having a smaller battery capacity than the S23+, the S24+'s battery life felt a little weaker overall. Nevertheless, this is a minor complaint, as most people will be happy with the device's single-charge longevity.

Galaxy S24+ can survive for an entire day.

This year's 45W fast charging seems to be a tad quicker. In thirty minutes, the phone reached 70% charge, and it took less than an hour to reach 100% charge. With a 30-minute charge time, that's a pleasant improvement over the Galaxy S23+.

A full charge, however, only results in a slight speed increase. You'll need to utilize your current charger or purchase a new one as there isn't one included in the box, especially if you want to use the 45W charging.

Samsung has included some safeguards against battery degradation in order to fulfill its pledge to provide updates for seven years. When the battery falls below 95%, basic mode begins charging the phone again when it has reached 100%.

When you are about to wake up, Adaptive Mode allows the battery to resume charging, which ends at 80%. The phone needs a few days to learn about your regular sleep schedule and adjust its charging schedule.

Maximum Battery Protection mode is designed to preserve battery health by stopping charging the battery when it reaches 80% of its charge level, but it results in 20% reduced battery life when used regularly.

Conclusion

The best Galaxy S phone that Samsung has offered thus far is the Galaxy S24+. This phone is a fantastic media consumption tool because of its huge, gorgeous screen and excellent stereo speakers. Despite its seemingly straightforward design, the phone functions behind the scenes and lets consumers enjoy it. It is fairly slender and pleasant to grasp. Additionally, battery life is good.

It provides exceptionally balanced front and back camera performance. The primary and selfie cameras work incredibly well in still photos and movies, regardless of the environment. However, we'd like to see improved hardware next year as the telephoto and ultrawide cameras are beginning to show their age.

Despite not being as good as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, the Exynos 2400's performance was really good. Additionally, battery life is good. The majority of the AI functions function effectively, and the One UI's intuitiveness is definitely worth a try.

Though several features, like Gorilla Glass Armor, Wi-Fi 7, and the ability to switch between cameras, are only available on the Galaxy S24 Ultra, we can't help but feel that Samsung purposefully limited the Galaxy S24+ from being absolutely spectacular. when capturing video in 4K at 60 frames per second. The Ultra variant is still your best option if you want the finest that the Korean behemoth has to offer, even though the S24+ is still a great phone.

Samsung Galaxy S24+