Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra review
Introduction
You look at the Galaxy S24 and S24+ and can't help but wonder if they really are the new models, or Samsung just went and reissued the old ones. The Ultra, on the other hand, is a different beast. The Galaxy S24 Ultra does make some significant strides towards improving on what was already the ultimate smartphone package.
Some of the changes are immediately visible and start with the even blockier design with a fully flat face and the less reflective display glass. You won't immediately tell, but that glass should also be tougher, and as months go by, you'll perhaps appreciate the switch to titanium for the exposed frame, too.
An even less obvious development, but one that has potential to be a major step in solidifying the Galaxy Ultra's position as a top cameraphone, is the new 5x zoom telephoto. Undoubtedly better at 5x than the old model, can it be as good at 10x?
The Ultra won't partake in the chipset divide that's now returned to the lesser models, and all of the ultimate Galaxies will feature a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 - no Exynos here if that makes any difference. Sure enough, the S24 Ultra will have all the AI smarts Samsung and Google came up with to fill an hour of Unpacked 2024.
Unchanged is the battery capacity on this year's model, and so too is the maximum charging rating, for better or for worse. No change can be a good thing too, and the S Pen remains another differentiator that elevates the Galaxy Ultra above all others when it comes to productivity and just general usefulness (it's the best camera remote is what it is).
You can have another look at the key specs below, before we proceed to get our hands on the Ultra, at long last.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra specs at a glance:
- Body: 162.3x79.0x8.6mm, 232g; Glass front (Gorilla Armor), glass back (Gorilla Armor), titanium frame; IP68 dust/water resistant (up to 1.5m for 30 min).
- Display: 6.8" Dynamic LTPO AMOLED 2X, 120Hz, HDR10+, 2600 nits (peak), 1440x3120px resolution, 19.5:9 aspect ratio, 505ppi; Always-on display.
- Chipset: Qualcomm SM8650-AC Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 (4 nm): 8-core (1x3.39GHz Cortex-X4 & 3x3.1GHz Cortex-A720 & 2x2.9GHz Cortex-A720 & 2x2.2GHz Cortex-A520); Adreno 750 (1 GHz).
- Memory: 256GB 12GB RAM, 512GB 12GB RAM, 1TB 12GB RAM; UFS 4.0.
- OS/Software: Android 14, One UI 6.1.
- Rear camera: Wide (main): 200 MP, f/1.7, 24mm, 1/1.3", 0.6µm, multi-directional PDAF, Laser AF, OIS; Ultra wide angle: 12 MP, f/2.2, 13mm, 120˚, 1/2.55", 1.4µm, Dual Pixel PDAF, Super Steady video; Telephoto: 10 MP, f/2.4, 67mm, 1/3.52", 1.12µm, Dual Pixel PDAF, OIS, 3x optical zoom; Telephoto: 50 MP, f/3.4, 111mm, PDAF, OIS, 5x optical zoom.
- Front camera: 12 MP, f/2.2, 26mm (wide), Dual Pixel PDAF.
- Video capture: Rear camera: 8K@24/30fps, 4K@30/60/120fps, 1080p@30/60/240fps, 1080p@960fps, HDR10+, stereo sound rec., gyro-EIS; Front camera: 4K@30/60fps, 1080p@30fps.
- Battery: 5000mAh; 45W wired, PD3.0, 65% in 30 min (advertised), 15W wireless (Qi/PMA), 4.5W reverse wireless.
- Connectivity: 5G; eSIM; Dual SIM; Wi-Fi 7; BT 5.3; NFC.
- Misc: Fingerprint reader (under display, ultrasonic); stereo speakers; Samsung DeX, Samsung Wireless DeX; Ultra Wideband (UWB) support; S Pen stylus (Bluetooth integration, accelerometer, gyro).
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra unboxing
Another uneventful unboxing experience awaits, but it's not like the slimline box is making any promises. A SIM eject pin is still included, though a line in the instructions that says 'use a paper clip or an earring' could be replacing that in the near future. That, or eSIMs.
Design, build quality, handling
Conceptually, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is very much like the S23 Ultra, but also different in a number of ways - both tangible, and visible. Sure, it does maintain the overall shape and proportions - the Galaxy Note DNA shines through - but another year of refinement means some actual changes.
From this angle, you can barely tell the Galaxy S24 Ultra (left) apart from the S23 Ultra
One of the major developments this time around, and the first of the differences you can feel, is the switch to a completely flat display. Samsung's been gradually toning down the curves after being the pioneer of bent displays, and has now decided to leave that entirely to foldables. The S24 Ultra will now be a lot better suited to screen protector use, plus it will no longer be exposed to criticism for handling issues stemming from the curved sides.
The other big thing this year is the glass that protects the Ultra's display. The brand new formulation from Corning called Gorilla Armor features improved drop and scratch resistance, though Corning's promotional materials conveniently don't compare to their previous efforts; instead, they quote the new glass's superiority over competitors.
Ideally, you'll never have to find out just how much better Armor is than, say, Victus in terms of drop resistance, but you'll probably be appreciating the new material's much-reduced reflectivity day in and day out. At least one person in the office is raving about this new development; some acknowledge the improvement without fanfare, and there have also been a few indifferent shrugs.
Also contributing to the S24 Ultra's improved toughness is the new titanium frame. Unlike Apple which used diffusion bonding to connect the outer layer of the frame on the iPhone 15 Pros to the inner aluminum skeleton, Samsung's molded several nubs into the frame and then used plastic to connect those to the internal aluminum structure.
We can't be certain how and why one would be better than the other, but either way, your fingers will be touching titanium. Samsung titanium isn't the same grade as Apple's titanium, seemingly, and Apple's is supposed to be fancier, of course.
While still focused on the superficial, let's mention the colorways that you can have the Ultra in. As usual there are online-exclusive colors that you can only get from Samsung.com (there's three of those), and 'mainstream' liveries that carriers and retailers will be getting (the three below, plus our review unit's Titanium Gray).
Regardless of colorway, all Galaxy S24 Ultras feature a frosted back panel that's made from Gorilla Armor as well - in the same way that the S23 Ultra had Victus 2 front and back.
Nothing's changed when it comes to the Ultra's protection from the elements, and the phone carries an IP68 rating, meaning it's dust-tight and should be able to survive down to 1.5m of water for as long as 30 minutes. The S Pen will be good as well, and it won't matter if you dunk the phone in water with the S Pen missing.
Speaking of the S Pen, little has changed in its design and operation, though that's not to say there aren't things that bug us a little. One of them is the reshaped clicker end that now sticks out a bit more out of the bottom of the phone - hardly an issue, but something that came up naturally in conversations around the office.
One change on S Pen-wielding Galaxies that some of us are still trying to come to terms with, even though it was introduced on the Note20 Ultra in 2020, is the placement of the S Pen on the left side of the phone. Perhaps lefties appreciate it, but for the rest of us, it's still feels somewhat wrong.
What's more universally appreciated, is the fingerprint reader location in more or less the usual Samsung position - not too close to the bottom edge, but rather in a natural spot higher up the display.
This being an ultrasonic sensor, you don't get a bright flash when unlocking and speed and accuracy have typically been great for us. Mind that while the S24 Ultra's flat display may be welcoming to glass screen protectors, the fingerprint reader operation could suffer from those.
Display, battery life, charging speed, speaker
Top-tier OLED display with a couple of issues
The Galaxy S24 Ultra comes with an OLED display that is great in many ways and... odd in a handful of others. It has a 6.8-inch diagonal in a 19.5:9 aspect - a more 'conventional ratio than the 19.3:9 of the old Ultra. The resolution is 1,440x3,120px, which works out to 505pp
The bezels are minimal, as expected, but more important is the fact that the display is flat and the glass on top of it.
The other key bit here is that the new Gorilla Glass Armor is less reflective, but it's not immediately clear how transformative that development is.
High-end OLEDs have already gotten bright enough to overcome a lot of the midday sun's adverse effects on the viewing experience, so we're thinking of the Armor's low reflectivity is possibly more of a contributing factor for battery endurance (less brightness needed for same perceived effect) than a game-changing feast for your eyes. Or maybe not all of us spend enough time on the beach to fully appreciate the improvements - that and the fact that beach season won't be upon us for another few months here in the Northern hemisphere.
Galaxy S24 Ultra (left) next to Galaxy S23 Ultra
Anyways, the S24 Ultra supports HDR10 and HDR10+, but no Dolby Vision - Samsung has its battles to fight in the HDR video space.
They're claiming 2,600nits of maximum brightness, which is marketing speak for 'very, very bright', though Huawei, Honor, Oppo, OnePlus and the lot have quoted numbers nearly twice that. That's in conditions we can't really test in, though, and we'll be sticking to our 75% patch of white for the time being.
Believe it or not, the Galaxy's 1447nits achieved in our test with the phone placed under bright light and the 755nits when adjusting the slider manually are more middle-of-the-road results than class-leading ones. It's probably a race that Samsung doesn't really care to win, rather than not being able to.
For kicks and giggles, we measured the brightness of a 20% white window, and we got 2408nits on the Galaxy S24 Ultra, compared to 2235nits on the iPhone 15 Pro - that's probably a win of sorts.
Refresh rate
The Galaxy S24 Ultra's display refresh rate can vary in the 1Hz to 120Hz range, and its two modes act as ceilings - Standard limits things at 60Hz, while Adaptive allows it to reach the maximum 120Hz. In either mode, the phone will drop down when idling or for specific frame rate video content. In Adaptive mode, you can also have high frame rate gaming.
Streaming and HDR
The Galaxy doesn't support Dolby Vision, but it does have HDR10 and HDR10+ capability. We got HDR streams from YouTube and Netflix, and YouTube does this thing where only the actual HDR video is displayed in HDR mode while the rest of the UI is dimmer. You also get Super HDR in the Gallery - Samsung's name for Google's Ultra HDR functionality for displaying extra bright highlights in your photos. It also works in Google Photos.
We'll admit that we did experience it on our unit, though it can be argued that if you're at the leftmost end of the slider and at 0.9nits (the minimum brightness we measured on our Galaxy S24 Ultra), perhaps you're not in an environment where absolute image perfection is paramount.
Still, we hadn't seen that phenomenon before - perhaps we hadn't been keeping an eye out for it - and in any case, it doesn't look too great that Samsung's absolute flagship's display is anything but perfect. Whether it's only the early production runs or that's just how it's going to be for all S24 Ultras will perhaps be made clear in the coming months. We don't think it's an issue from any practical standpoint, but it's definitely bad for optics.
The other thing is the lack of... excitement in the color reproduction in the default Vivid mode. Indeed, the S23 Ultra and pretty much any other Samsung phone's display has been more vibrant in its Vivid mode than what we're seeing here. Word on the street is that an upcoming software update may introduce a setting allowing the user to tweak that bit of the phone's performance. Not all of us are particularly irked by the less vivid Vivid mode, but having the option to adjust that parameter to your liking is certainly most welcome.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra battery life
The Galaxy S24 Ultra is powered by a 5,000mAh battery - the same number as on the previous generation. Meanwhile, both the S24 and S24+ got minor bumps in capacity, but perhaps a larger battery wasn't an option for the Ultra, which even now sits at a barely bearable 232g.
In our Active Use test, the S24 Ultra showed improvements in all three of the routines that are carried out with the display on - tiny ones, but improvements nonetheless - while the call test result ended up being somewhat shorter. Overall, the new generation is slightly better in terms of endurance than the previous model, and slots inbetween the Pixel 8 Pro (worst least good) and the iPhone 15 Pro Max (best).
Charging speed
The Galaxy S24 Ultra is rated for 45W charging, and the way Samsung goes about it is through a relatively specific implementation of the PPS protocol of the USB Power Delivery standard. The result is that if you use any other charger that isn't the Samsung 45W charger, you're likely going to be getting lower charging speeds - slightly lower, but lower nonetheless.
There's also the matter that the bundled cable in the S24 Ultra's box is only good for 3A, while maxing out the 45W rating using Samsung's PPS would require going above that. The Samsung EP-T4510 charger (the "new" one, v2) does ship with a nice 1.8m 5A cable (with robust connectors unlike those on the cable that came with v1 of the 45W adapter, EP-TA845) so technically, if you get the Samsung adapter you'd be all set, but that's not going to be the case if you have third-party chargers and want to use the Ultra's included cable.
Using the Samsung 45W adapter, our S24 Ultra got to 69% (nice) in 30 minutes and took 65 minutes to reach 100%. It wasn't until another 20 minutes had passed that it actually reached a fully charged state and stopped drawing power from the adapter, which makes it among the worst offenders when it comes to communicating its charging state.
EP-T2510 (v2 of the 25W adapter)
If you think of the Ultra's competitors, from a limited westerner's perspective, or even more specifically from a US vantage point, the Galaxy is the fastest charging large premium smartphone - the Pixel 8 Pro is close, but not too close, and the iPhone 15 Pro Max is barely competing in this race. If you broaden your horizons, however, it quickly becomes evident that Samsung doesn't really have charging speed anywhere in its priorities.
Speaker test
The Galaxy S24 Ultra has a stereo setup with one speaker firing out of the bottom of the handset, and another one at the top end, which outputs sound forward through a slit that also serves as the earpiece. Each speaker only plays its own channel's track, and that's the left one for the top speaker when in vertical orientation and whichever channel is correct, depending on the way you're holding the phone in landscape.
The S24 Ultra earned a 'Very Good' rating for loudness in our speaker test, on par with the S24 and S24+, as well as the previous generation. Sound quality is great too - the Ultra's output sounds bigger than that of the regular models with a bit more low-end presence. We'd still prefer the iPhone over the Galaxy when it comes to speakers, though, but the Ultra does sound better than the Pixel to our ears.
Connectivity
The S24 Ultra is a dual-SIM 5G device. It can do concurrent SA and NSA Sub-6 on two SIM cards. Depending on the market, you probably won't get to choose your actual physical SIM configuration. Most regions seem to get two physical Nano-SIM slots and an option to attach an eSIM card through software.
Variants do exist with a single physical Nano-SIM slot and eSIM as the only "second line" option. And as far as we can tell, at least some US units are eSIM only, without physical slots.
While rumors did point in the opposite direction, the S24 Ultra lacks satellite connectivity. This goes for the S24 and S24+ as well.
There is no microSD card slot on the SIM tray - not that we'd expect there to be one.
For local connectivity, the S24 Ultra gets the new Wi-Fi 7. It is tri-band as well, so you can make use of the 6GHz band too. The S24 and S24+ only get Wi-Fi 6e support.
Bluetooth is version 5.3 with LE support. You get NFC on board as well as UWB (Ultra Wideband), but there is no FM radio or IR blaster.
We tested the USB capabilities of the S24 Ultra, and it's identical to the S24 and S24+. It has Host/OTG support, Display Port 1.2 over USB Alt mode, and it's backed up by a USB 3.2 Gen 1 connection, which tops out at 5 Gbps transfer speeds - not too shabby at all for a smartphone.
As expected, the S24 Ultra has a long list of on-board sensors. There is an STM LSM6DSV accelerometer and STM LSM6DSO gyroscope. These are likely a combo unit. There is a Sensortek STK33F11 light sensor, an AKM AK09918 magnetometer, and an STM LPS22DF barometer.
To our surprise and disappointment, there is a virtual proximity sensor - Samsung Palm Proximity Sensor V2. It works quite reliably to turn off the display while in calls. Technically, there is an actual hardware proximity sensor inside the phone, but it appears inaccessible by any third-party app without workarounds. The dialer appears to use the sensor, but that's about it. These Samsung proximity oddities aren't new, however, and seem to date back at least to the S23 generation, where every phone, including the Ultra, has the same Samsung Palm Proximity Sensor V2 sensor that behaves in the same odd way.
Software and performance
One UI 6.1 with Galaxy AI
Samsung's S24 family is launching with Samsung's latest One UI 6.1 on top of Google's latest Android 14. Despite the fairly small ".1" numbering update, One UI 6.1 brings some new stuff to the table - most notably Galaxy AI features, which we hope will eventually trickle down to other Galaxy models as well.
As part of its green initiative, Samsung is quite ambitious with the S24 generation, offering the remarkable seven years of OS and One UI updates and security patches. That's up from four years of OS updates and five years of security patches on the previous S23 flagship generation.
The Galaxy S24 devices can eventually expect to end their support cycle running Android 21, whatever that ends up being called. Hopefully, many S24 family devices will stay out of landfills for much longer, perhaps with a mid-cycle battery replacement. Here's hoping.
Every S24 model essentially has the same software functionality in its roster, including the new AI. The only major software difference stems from including the S Pen in the Ultra. As has been the case for several generations of S Pen-equipped Galaxies, the stylus here is an active one, and it has a battery inside as well as a gyro, an accelerometer and Bluetooth connectivity for communicating with the phone without immediate proximity. This enables Air actions - a set of gestures that can execute actions in various apps, including the Gallery and browsers (Samsung's own, and also Chrome), but perhaps most usefully - the Camera.
Other than that, the S Pen has all of the functionality users have come to expect. You can scribble, draw, and use handwriting recognition in about 100 languages, or at least that's how many options there are in the menu.
There isn't anything new about the S Pen this generation, which was also the case with the S23 generation. Not that the S Pen has been lacking it in the past - it's just that things should all be familiar.
Performance and benchmarks
The Galaxy S24 and S24+ dual chipset arrangement does not affect the S24 Ultra. No matter where you get your unit, it will have the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset by Qualcomm. The chip is made on a 4nm TSMC N4P manufacturing node.
Samsung has a customized version of the chipset yet again, with a slightly higher-clocked prime core. The CPU config, as reported by the device, includes one prime Cortex X4 core, clocked at 3.4 GHz, three Cortex-A720 ones, working at up to 3.15 GHz, another two Cortex-A720 ones working at 2.96 GHz and finally two Cortex-A520 cores working at up to 2.27 GHz according to official specs and 2.26 GHz as per the phone's reporting. There's not much of a difference, but it's worth noting.
There is an Adreno 750 in the GPU department, clocked at up to 1,000MHz. It is rated for about the same performance as the Xclipse 940 GPU inside the Exynos 2400 and the Immortalis-G720 MC12 inside the MediaTek Dimensity 9300.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is paired with quad-channel 4,800 MHz LPDDR5X RAM, 12GB of it across all of the storage tiers. Storage options include 256GB, 512GB and 1TB, all with UFS 4.0 flash chips.
Let's kick things off with some CPU benchmarks and GeekBench. Devices with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 span the entire range of the chart, including the top where we would expect them, as well as near the bottom of it. It's an interesting development, but one that comes down to how these devices have their performance profiles tuned.
Both the ROG Phone 8 Pro and OnePlus 12 tend to go for power-saving in their default performance profile. Anyway, the Galaxy S24 Ultra spreads its wings nicely and pretty much squeezes the most it can from the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. Let's not forget that this is the special "for Galaxy" variant of the chipset with a slightly higher prime core clock. This is shown by the higher scores in single and multi-core tests compared to the Realme GT5 Pro, rocking the regular Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 variant.
Some slight variances in score aside, we can see that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy inside the Galaxy S24 Ultra basically performs the same or slightly better than Samsung's Exynos 2400 in CPU tasks. The MediaTek Dimensity 9300 has a bit of a lead in all-core workload scenarios but not so in single-core scenarios. Apple and its A16 and A17 Pro chips remain at the top of the single-core food chain.
AnTuTu is a compound benchmark that has GPU tests and also takes into account things like memory speed. The Galaxy S24 Ultra is positioned pretty much where we would expect, amid the rest of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 crowd. It's hard to say whether the extra 100Mhz prime core clock speed is helping the particular SM8650-AC variant of the chipset all that much in this specific set of tests.
Once again, we see that Samsung's new Exynos 2400 inside the Galaxy S24 and S24+ is not far behind in score, and definitely not by a margin that would be noticeable in real-world use.
Finally, we have GPU testing and 3DMark. In case you were wondering, we did test the S24 Ultra both at its default FHD+ and its maximum QHD+ resolution. But, as expected, since 3DMark tests employ off-screen rendering, there was no difference in results. The Galaxy S24 Ultra and its Adreno 750 basically led the pack in most tests, though blows were traded with the Immortalis-G720 MC12 inside the MediaTek Dimensity 9300.
Regarding traditional raster rendering, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy does seem to hold a small but noticeable lead over the Exynos 2400 and its Xclipse 940 GPU. Once we step up to the more difficult Solar Bay test, however, with its ray tracing graphics, the Exynos 2400 quickly makes up lost ground. Make of that what you will.
Samsung upgraded its vapor chamber cooling solutions across the S24 lineup. Most notably, the S24 Ultra has a chamber 1.9x the size of the one inside the S23 Ultra. That, however, seems to be done to account for the increased heat production by the new chipsets rather than better sustained performance.
The S24 Ultra exhibited massive thermal throttling in our testing and lost a huge chunk of its maximum performance over time, a whopping 53% in 3DMark. This is notably worse than both the S24+ and the S24, as well as the S23 Ultra. While you could call this an okay showing, it's still more on the disappointing end of things.
CPU-based throttling isn't quite as bad (35% performance loss), but is still far from ideal. The only potential positive observation to make is that the surface of the phone never got too hot or uncomfortable to hold, even after an hour-long torture test.
Camera quality & Video
New 5x telephoto, 200MP main camera
Samsung hasn't changed much with the S24 Ultra's camera system, but it's not all the same either. Spicing things up is a new 5x telephoto camera that replaces the 10x module of the last generation - that way you'd be getting both 5x and 10x zoom shots. The rest of the setup has been carried over, including the 200MP primary unit that bins 16 pixels into 1, and the only ultrawide camera with autofocus in the Galaxy lineup.
Not to be disrespecting that ultrawide, but its not a particularly large-sensor unit and other than the iPhone 15 Pros, pretty much every other phone at this level (and several lower levels) has more competent hardware.
The 3x telephoto is also on the small size, but since the setup is such that it's not really being used for further zooming, we won't be complaining too much.
- Wide (main): 200MP Samsung ISOCELL HP2 (1/1.3", 0.6µm-2.4µm), f/1.7, 23mm, multi-directional PDAF, OIS; 8K@30fps, 4K@120fps
- Ultrawide: 12MP Sony IMX563 (1/2.55", 1.4µm), f/2.2, dual pixel PDAF; 4K@60fps
- Telephoto 1, 3x: 12MP Sony IMX754 (1/3.52", 1.12µm), f/2.2, 67mm, PDAF, OIS; 4K@60fps
- Telephoto 2, 5x: 50MP Sony IMX854 (1/2.52", 0.7-1.4µm), f/3.4, 111mm, PDAF, OIS; 4K@60fps
- Front camera: 12MP Samsung ISOCELL S5K3LU (1/3.2", 1.12µm), f/2.2, 26mm, dual pixel PDAF; 4K@60fps
We do have some complaining to do about the way the Galaxy handles close focusing, because it will tend to switch down to the camera in line once you go below the current camera's minimum focusing distance. While you can disable that behavior from the main to the ultrawide, there's no immediate way to do so for the telephotos. Other than that, there's not a whole lot to talk about when it comes to the One UI camera app - it's full-featured and straightforward at the same time.
Video recording
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra records video up to 8K30 with its primary camera as well as the 5x telephoto. All 5 cameras, front-facing one included, can shoot 4K60 (and 4K30, of course), while the main camera on the back can also do 4K120 but from the slow-motion mode.
Further options are available in the Pro Video mode - 4K120 'regular' recording on the main camera, but also on the ultrawide, plus 24fps modes for 4K on all cameras and 24fps 8K on the main and 5x telephoto.
The pre-set video codec is h.265 (HEVC) and you can further choose between prioritizing for quality (the default setting) or smaller file sizes. Alternatively, you can opt for the older and less efficient h.264 codec.
Audio is recorded in stereo at 256kbps, while the bit rates for video are a nice round 40Mbps for 4K30, 60Mbps for 4K60, and 80Mbps for 8K30 (h.265, quality priority). There's a toggle for 'High bitrate videos' in the settings, which will raise the values to 96Mbps and 144Mbps for 4K30 and 4K60, respectively, but it's grayed out for 8K. HDR10+ video recording is also on the menu.
Video stabilization is available in all modes on all cameras, but you can disable it in settings if you have other means of ensuring stability.
The Galaxy S24 Ultra's video quality is generally great. In broad daylight all rear cameras deliver consistent color and can be used together in a more serious 'project'. Exposures are well judged and dynamic range and contrast are excellent, with only the ultrawide potentially raising an eyebrow for its less than perfect highlight rendition.
Detail is very good on all three rear modules at their native zoom levels. 10x zoom clips from the S24 Ultra aren't as detailed as those we're getting from the S23 Ultra, but they're not too bad either and we're inclined to consider the new generation's much better 5x clips to be a more important development. There's no detail penalty when shooting at 60fps - it's all the same between the two frame rates.
The selfie camera also delivers high quality clips and its field of view is wide enough that you can comfortably fit an entire head with some shoulders in landscape orientation at arm's length.
Stabilization is properly excellent on the S24 Ultra. Walking shake is nearly perfectly removed on both the main camera and the ultrawide on the back, as well as on the selfie camera. Panning is smooth on all cameras and you can count on nearly tripod-like stability when just pointing the camera in one direction.
In low light, you can expect good quality footage from the main camera. The exposure is on point, dynamic range is quite wide, and colors don't suffer from desaturation. Detail isn't too shabby either. The ultrawide's footage is softer and noisier, though still respectable. The telephotos aren't in their element at night and their videos are hard to like.
Post a Comment