Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra 256GB Prices On Optus Plans

For all of Samsung's AI-focused marketing of its latest phones - Galaxy AI is here, just in case you haven't heard - the new features haven't changed how I use the Galaxy S24 Ultra. There are a lot of interesting ideas here - and some genuinely useful additions - but they don't live up to the marketing.

Sure, the hype around generative AI right now ensures its place as a headline feature, but the Galaxy S24 Ultra has far more practical improvements. They may be less interesting on paper, but are more meaningful in execution. Better battery life, a more reliable zoom lens, and the best display on any phone. No big deal.

The AI hype train

Let's start with Galaxy AI, though. The features can by and large be broken into two buckets: language and images.

There's a whole slew of language-related functionality. The simplest is a voice recorder with transcription, effectively emulating what Google has done with the Pixel. As a writer, this is easily Google's best AI feature, so I'm thrilled to see it on more phones.

Other functionality is a bit weirder or more ambitious, with mixed results. The Samsung keyboard has text rework functionality built in. You type your message, tap the AI button, and it will give you suggestions on how to make your writing more casual, professional, and so forth. Some of the reworks are pretty cringe, especially the professional ones that needlessly add words for the sake of formality, and "social" ones that feature non-ironic hashtag usage.

I've not really felt the need to rework my words - I'm pretty comfortable with writing - but I could see the appeal in terms of turning a few quick sentences into a more professional-sounding email while on the go. The same tool can also be used to do a spelling and grammar check.

Live Translate is the most ambitious AI feature, designed for phone calls where you and your conversation partner don't speak the same language. After you've had a chance to say your bit, the AI will read it out in the language you’ve asked it to. The response you get is translated in a similar way.

This setup means conversations aren't quite natural. The pause of waiting for the translation breaks the standard flow of a phone call. You can set Live Translate to mute your voice in your original language, but you still end up with a weird cadence and silence on the other end of the line. The person you're speaking with does however get a notification that Live Translate is being used.

I tested the feature with my mum, in Polish, and it certainly works well enough. Mum's take was it's better than many of the attempts at Polish she's heard. Live Translate was able to handle shorter phrases with reasonable accuracy, but started to struggle with longer chunks of speech. Even with errors, you could kind of deduce meaning from the translation, but Live Translate isn't currently the kind of tool you could use to have a meaningful conversation. It's better suited to sharp conversations where there's a clear outcome, like making a booking.

Meanwhile, Summarise is the most problematic AI feature. If you're using the phone's default browser - Samsung Internet - you can tap the AI button to have it summarise a webpage. While some might find utility in turning a big article into a small series of bullet points, the Summarise feature is often wrong. I tried it on my news piece about the Galaxy S24 launch, and it straight-up lied. My summary said the Galaxy S24 Ultra has a larger battery, but my article explicitly states otherwise.

Further testing showed that Summarise works best with simple articles. The kinds that wouldn't really need summaries. The more complexity in a story, the greater the chance for error. AI hallucinations have been an issue we've been grappling with since the advent of products like ChatGPT, but this is the first time we've seen this tech directly baked into a phone. A phone that lies to you isn't just a weird quirk, it's bad.

Given existing issues with misinformation, I'm not a fan of the idea of a mass-market product that can add to it. At the same time, there's a good chance many won't even notice the functionality exists. It won't work in Chrome, which is by and large the default browser for most Android users. Samsung Internet represented about 7% of the Australian mobile internet browser landscape in December last year.

Summarise can also be used on your own notes and PDFs, but I'd be reluctant to trust it with anything important. You don't want to end up in a situation where you're presenting incorrect information at work because you asked software to do your job.

Circle to Search is one AI feature that doesn't neatly fit into the language or image bucket. This feature isn't technically part of Galaxy AI - it's a Google-led initiative and also available on the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro - but worth touching on nonetheless. Holding the navigation bar brings up an interface where you can circle anything on your screen, and then use it to start a search. Words can also be appended to it - say if you take a photo of a yellow flower but want to see it in red - and it's honestly very cool tech. It's like a more advanced version of Google Lens.

It's also worth noting that Samsung has said that Galaxy AI features will only be provided for free until the end of 2025. It certainly seems like a subscription model for at least some AI features is on the cards after the date, even if there are no firm details yet. For reference, OpenAI charges USD$20 per month for ChatGPT Plus, where customers pay a mimimum of AUD$44.90 per month for Microsoft Copilot.

While the pricing of other AI products doesn't necessarily reflect what Samsung may or may not charge in two years, the fact that's on the cards is worth considering. If you're buying a Samsung phone for a certain feature, how would feel about having to pay a monthly fee to keep using it from 2026?

The computer in the camera

Image-related generative AI features can be even more hit-and-miss. Samsung's approach here is largely what we've seen on the Pixel family. There's an image editor tool that lets you select objects in your photo, resize them, move them, or even remove them entirely. The results are pretty inconsistent, where any element of complexity makes the edits very obvious. Moving Billie in the below photo did a poor job of filling in the table behind her, and also couldn't account for her shadow.

There's also a generative fill tool that lets you rotate a photo, and then generate outside of the photo. Once again, any level of complexity in your shot makes the AI additions immediately obvious. The tool can expand a skyline, but will struggle if there's a tree.

Conversely, there's some lower-touch AI functionality that’s a bit more useful. The remaster tool is essentially "auto" edit on steroids, where it tweaks elements like brightness, contrast, and the such in generally quite tasteful ways. And there's also a tool for removing reflections from photos, say, if you're taking a shot from a plane window. It won't work miracles, but it can still improve a shot.

Here's the before:

And here's the after:

Note that I took this photo on a Pixel 6a a few years ago. AI tools will work on photos taken elsewhere, provided you're using Samsung's gallery app. 

In terms of the cameras themselves, the Galaxy S24 Ultra takes the kind of photos you'd expect from a phone that starts at $2,199. While the results are consistently good, it has some key strengths and weaknesses.

Samsung easily has the best portrait mode of any phone manufacturer right now. The depth looks realistic, and even flyway hairs tend to blur accurately. It can even handle complicated shows like the one below, where it correctly blurred the small gaps in Billie's leash.

Night mode, on the other hand, is weirdly inconsistent. There've been times when I've gotten lovely photos from it, but others where the end result is awful. Colours are wildly oversaturated, and there's weird blooming around objects. Here's one such shot:

The good news is you don't need night mode to take a good low light photo with the Galaxy S24 Ultra. Even with it off, it captures a surprisingly bright image:

If you were to pixel peep, the iPhone 15 Pro and Pixel 8 have a slight edge in low light. The Galaxy S24 Ultra tends to introduce slight artifacts to photos taken at night, while the other phones don't.

The major camera change this time is a 50MP 5x optical zoom lens, replacing the 10MP 10x zoom lens we saw on previous Ultra models. While the optical zoom is shorter, the aperture is wider, so results end up more consistent. You're less likely to get a blurry shot due to hand movement. The Galaxy S24 Ultra lens doesn't match the speed of the iPhone 15 Pro Max or Pixel 8 Pro, but it still represents a big improvement in usability. Unless you're shooting a moving subject or in a dark enviornment, you're a lot more likely to get the photo you want.

Galaxy S24 Ultra camera samples

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Check out these camera samples taken on the Galaxy S24 Ultra. Click or tap on any photo to see a larger version. 

The real meat

Now that we've gone through the AI checklist, let's dig into the improvements that genuinely excited me.

Battery life on Android flagship phones has been inconsistent over the last few years, but the Galaxy S24 Ultra will easily give you six hours of screen time per charge. Even heavy users should comfortably get a full day of usage, and moderate users could even get a day-and-half between top-ups. I did my testing solely on 5G, with the always-on display switched on. Using WiFi should help extend the Galaxy S24 Ultra's battery life even longer. While the physical battery isn't any larger than last year's model, Samsung says processor efficiencies give it more longevity.

For a broader comparison, I was only getting around 4.5 hours of screen time per charge with Google's Pixel 8 Pro. The iPhone 15 Pro Max is still the flagship phone to beat in terms of battery with up to eight hours of screen time per charge, but the Galaxy S24 Ultra certainly doesn't disappoint.

Similarly, the Galaxy S24 Ultra's display is the nicest I've seen on any phone. Samsung has a reputation for its phone screens, but the Galaxy S24 Ultra ups the ante with its Gorilla Glass Armor. While a key part of the Gorilla Glass Armor pitch is durability, it also minimises reflections like no phone I've seen before. Sun and bright lights simply don't cause glare or impact readability in the slightest. It's seriously impressive. Since the tech comes from Gorilla Glass, it will almost certainly end up on other phones. But for now, Samsung's early adoption means the Galaxy S24 Ultra trumps the competition.

The screens on the Galaxy Ultra series have progressively been getting less curvy over the last couple of years, and the S24 Ultra brings that to its logical end-point: a flat display. Samsung has killed the trend it started, and we're better off for it.

There's one last screen-related change worth calling out: a new always-on display, seemingly inspired by the iPhone. While Android always-on displays have been largely monochromatic affairs, the Galaxy S24 family's are a bit more vibrant. As with the iPhone, you can still show your wallpaper in a slightly dimmed version. Some rich information, like what music you're listening to, will also appear.

The Galaxy S24 Ultra's new titanium build is another new feature that follows the footsteps of the iPhone 15 Pro family. The pitch is entirely on durability, however. While titanium made the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max noticeably lighter than their iPhone 14 Pro predecessors, the Galaxy S24 Ultra weighs the same as the Galaxy S23 Ultra. Apple moved from heavy stainless steel to titanium, whereas Samsung was previously using already lightweight aluminium. The Galaxy S24 Ultra does feel great in the hand, however, and it's hard to fault Samsung's industrial design

Performance is unsurprisingly great. It's very likely the best you'll get from an Android phone this year, unless Qualcomm rolls out a Plus version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 as it has in some years. No notes.

Finally, it's great to see Samsung match Google and offer seven years of major operating system and security updates for the Galaxy S24 family. This means the Galaxy S24 Ultra should still be receiving updates in 2031, which is an excellent lifespan for a phone. Even if you don't plan on keeping a phone for that long, the extended support is nice to have if you plan on handing it down or selling it.

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra - Final Thoughts

Galaxy AI is largely an exercise in marketing, but that doesn't stop the S24 Ultra from genuinely having some neat software features. Live Translate is very first-gen, but has a lot of potential. Circle to Search is excellent, even if it's not Samsung-exclusive.

When combined with hardware improvements like the Gorilla Glass Armor display, faster zoom lens, and more efficient battery, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is less iterative than it looks on paper. I wouldn't rush out and upgrade from a Galaxy S23 (which are set to get Galaxy AI features later this year) or Galaxy S22, but I think anyone on a Galaxy S21 or older will be pleasantly surprised by the step forward.

There is, however, the matter of price. The Galaxy S24 Ultra is Samsung's most expensive non-foldable phone to date. You're paying a minimum of $2,199, which is a $250 increase over the Galaxy S23 Ultra last year.

That puts a $500 delta between the Galaxy S24 Plus and the Galaxy S24 Ultra, and it's fair to ask if it's worth spending extra. The Galaxy S24 Plus is only 0.1-inch smaller, has all the new AI tech, dynamic refresh rate on the display, and an equally robust battery life. The main features you miss out on are the 5x optical zoom lens and the Gorilla Glass Armor display. Both are certainly nice to have, but maybe not $500 nice.

You'll also get a 50MP primary lens on the Galaxy S24 Plus instead of a 200MP on the Galaxy 24 Ultra, but most won't notice a difference in day-to-day usage. Other Ultra-exclusive features fit into the same bucket. A titanium build doesn't matter if you're putting a case on the phone, you won't notice the difference between the Exynos and Snapdragon processors in all but the most demanding of applications, and while there are S Pen lovers, I'm pretty ambivalent about it.

The Galaxy S24 Ultra definitely represents the best of Samsung's mobile efforts. There's just the question of if you really need the best.