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Samsung unveiled its latest lineup of flagship phones, the Galaxy S24 series, during the company’s Unpacked event on January 17. 

Samsung’s new lineup includes the Galaxy S24, Galaxy S24 Plus, and Galaxy S24 Ultra. Beyond the usual processor upgrade that comes with every new generation, each Galaxy S24 model got other updates, ranging from design tweaks, changes to screen sizes, and a big change to the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s headlining camera specs.

Samsung’s leading upgrade, however, is AI powered by Qualcomm and Google, which enables helpful features and enhancements to photography. 

Samsung Galaxy S24: Price and release date

Samsung

The base Galaxy S24 starts at $799.99, the Galaxy S24 Plus at $999.99, and the Galaxy S24 Ultra at $1,299.99. That’s familiar pricing for Samsung’s premium flagship phones, except the Galaxy S24 Ultra is $100 more than the previous generation. 

The Galaxy S24 phones are available to preorder now from Samsung, retailers like Amazon, and carriers, and the phones will be fully released and available to buy at carriers and retailers on January 31.

During preorders, it’s worth knowing you can get a Galaxy S24 model with double the storage for no additional cost from Samsung’s website and carriers like AT&T and Verizon. Also, trade-in values for your old phone are at their highest during preorders from Samsung and carriers, and trade-in offers can go a long way in making the new Galaxy S24 phones more affordable. Depending on your old phone, and which Galaxy S24 model you’re looking to buy, you could get a new phone for free.

Samsung Galaxy S24: New features

Samsung

For the Galaxy S24 lineup, Samsung made a few changes to every model, but the Galaxy S24 Ultra received the bulk of the updates over previous models. 

All of Samsung’s Galaxy S24 phones run on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Optimized for Galaxy processor from Qualcomm. We have yet to test the Galaxy S24 phones at the time of writing, but they’ll likely have the top performance among the best Android phones in 2024.

Samsung made some minor changes to screen size compared to previous generations. The base Galaxy S24 model is now 6.2 inches instead of 6.1, and the Galaxy S24 Plus is now 6.7 inches rather than 6.6 inches. The Galaxy S24 Ultra is the same 6.8 inches as previous models, but Samsung did finally, and thankfully, ditch the curved display edges for flat edges.

The Galaxy S24 Ultra’s metal body has been changed from aluminum to titanium, which may have contributed to a slightly thinner design. Otherwise, the Galaxy S24 Ultra isn’t any lighter than previous aluminum models.

The base Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus also got a slight redesign with less rounded, more rectangular edges.

Samsung switched the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s second zoom camera from an expected 10x optical zoom lens to a 5x optical zoom lens. Still, the Galaxy S24 Ultra can take photos with 10x zoom with a pixel binning technique, which basically crops into the 5x lens’ 50MP sensor. That’s a fairly major change to one of the Galaxy Ultra lineup’s biggest party tricks.

It seems like a downgrade, but the reasoning behind the move to switch from a 10x lens to a 5x lens was driven by the way most people use the Galaxy Ultra’s zoom cameras, according to Samsung. More people take photos around the 5x zoom range than in the 10x range, the company said. With that in mind, switching the second zoom lens from 10x to 5x makes more sense, as you’d get better quality photos in the 5x zoom range. Additionally, Samsung said that zoom ranges beyond 5x would be enhanced with AI — a claim we’ll have to fully test.

On the topic of AI, Samsung made a big deal about AI and the features it enables in the new Galaxy S24 lineup. In collaboration with Google, Samsung has applied its “Galaxy AI” to photo editing and search features, for example, including a new “Circle to Search” function from Google where users can circle or highlight any aspect of the phone’s screen to search for the entailed image or information. 

Samsung

The phones also have typing-based AI features designed to help you write in an appropriate tone of voice depending on who you’re writing to. Among the other new features in the Galaxy AI suite is a “Live Translate” function that enables two-way voice and text translations of calls in real time. 

And for the Galaxy S24 Ultra with the S Pen, AI can give you summaries of your hand-written notes, automatically format them into digital format, and check spelling and grammar.

Samsung Galaxy S24: Specs 

Antonio Villas-Boas

Senior Tech Reporter

Antonio is a senior tech reporter for Insider’s Reviews team, where he helps lead coverage, reviews, and guides of smartphones, tablets, accessories, wearables, smart home products, as well as audio devices from Apple, Google, Samsung, OnePlus, and other major tech companies. Before joining Business Insider, Antonio was a consumer-electronics analyst at PCMag. He graduated from Colgate University in 2009 with a bachelor’s degree in history.
You can contact Antonio with tips and cool tech via email at: [email protected]
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