Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2024 – New Samsung Galaxy S24 series lead the pack with Galaxy AI

Samsung is hitting the ground running and their latest Galaxy Unpacked 2024 event in San Jose revealed their new trio of flagship smartphones to the world – the Galaxy S24, the Galaxy S24+ and the Galaxy S24 Ultra that not only have new hardware running under the hood with improved performance across the board but an unusual new feature that puts them leagues of the competition – onboard artificial intelligence that Samsung has coined as Galaxy AI and which was teased earlier on in a few earlier communiques.

Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2024 – New Galaxy AI features in the Galaxy S24 series phones

Common across all of the new Galaxy S24 series phones, the new Galaxy AI combines both on-device and cloud access artificial intelligence to resolve a number of tasks and to perform a number of unique tricks.

Among the key highlights that Galaxy AI was capable of performing was a ‘Call Assist’ mode that allowed simultaneous translated communication in different languages for phone calls, a messaging tweak feature that lets you modify the tone of a message and even craft one with a few given prompts as well as in different languages too and a ‘Note Assist’ summarise note feature that lets you hack down a presentation into bite sized readable bits. 

Galaxy AI is also able to help primarily in photo taking tasks especially in remastering and editing captured photos dubbed ‘Photo Assist’ for remastering tasks such as removing photo bombers and filling in extra bits in a shot out of frame in a feature dubbed as Generative Fill. 

Galaxy AI is also able to perform multi-frame processing when zooming in shots for crisper results. A particularly important feature that Samsung was keen to share was a Circle to Search with Google which lets you sketch a circle around images in your search engine and the AI will identify and suggest where to acquire said item or image. Fortunately, Galaxy AI is baked into the phones and is ultimately free to use though this may change in the future. 

Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2024 – Samsung Galaxy S24, Galaxy S24+ and Galaxy S24 Ultra specs overview

Aesthetically speaking, the new Galaxy S24, Galaxy S24+ and Galaxy S24 Ultra bear somewhat of a resemblance to their immediate predecessors the Galaxy S23 series with the same vertically aligned triple camera arrays for the S24 and S24+ and the penta-sensor array in the S24 Ultra with roughly similar builds though the Galaxy S24 Ultra has a flatter screen this time around with the new line-up boasting new colourways across the board that will vary depending on region.

The new Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ use Gorilla Glass Victus 2 for their front displays which is the same tough glass that first saw service in the Galaxy Z Fold5 along with an upgraded formulation of their original Armor Aluminium dubbed as Armor Aluminium 2.0 that’s 10% tougher than the earlier Armor Aluminium which is quite an impressive upgrade seeing as the original variant was relatively scratch resistant to begin with.

What has changed is that Samsung has lavished the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra with the latest grade of armoured glass called Corning Gorilla Armour Glass that’s even tougher than Gorilla Glass Victus 2 along with the use of a titanium chassis for additional durability that is a whopping 56% tougher than Armor Aluminium and resistant to nicks and scratches. Regardless of material, all of the Galaxy S24 series have the same robust IP68 dust and water resistance expected of Samsung’s flagship phones.

Aesthetics aside, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra uses a flat 6.8-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X Quad HD+ Display with 3,120 x 1,440 pixels resolution and a 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate and exclusively uses a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy processor that’s faster than the stock models paired with the latest Android 14 and their latest One UI 6.1 and 12GB RAM for all regions.

The phone gets up to 1TB storage depending on region with 256GB and 512GB options as well. Like its predecessor, it also retains the same S Pen stylus albeit a slightly flatter design on the left side embedded in a stylus well.

On the imaging side, the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s rear camera hosts a 200MP F/1.7 primary camera with OIS, a 12MP F/2.2 ultra wide angle camera, a laser autofocus sensor and a dual telephoto camera array that consists of a 10MP F/2.4 camera with 3x optical zoom and a 50MP F/3.4 camera with 5X optical zoom with the same prior 100x Space Zoom albeit more stable and sharper thanks to Galaxy AI with 8K video capture.

Of note with the new telephoto array is that it’s even capable of 8K video with 5x zoom which is quite a feat. The front hosts a 12MP selfie camera and the phone has a 5,000MaH battery with 45W fast wired charging, 15W wireless charging and reverse wireless charging. 

The Galaxy S24 Plus has a 6.7-inch Quad HD+ (3,120 x 1,440 pixels) Dynamic AMOLED 2X display with a 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate and has options for using either the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy processor or Samsung’s own inhouse Exynos 2400 for Galaxy processor depending on region.

Regardless of processor, the phone will run Android 14 and OneUI 6.1 paired with 12GB RAM and either 256GB or 512GB storage options along with a 4,900mAh battery with 45W wired fast charging, wireless charging and reverse wireless charging. 

The baseline Galaxy S24 has a smaller 6.2-inch FHD+ (2,340 x 1080 pixels) Dynamic AMOLED 2X display with a similar 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate which is a welcome upgrade over its S23 predecessor, uses either the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy or Exynos 2400 for Galaxy chipset running Android 14 with OneUI 6.1 and has 8GB RAM and 128GB, 256GB or 512GB storage options depending on region along with a 4,000mAh battery with slightly slower 25W wired fast charging and 15W wireless charging as well as reverse wireless charging .

Screen size aside, the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ both use a similar rear triple camera array. You get a 50MP F/1.8 with OIS, a secondary 10MP/F2.4 telephoto with 3x optical zoom and a 12MP F/2.2 ultra wide angle camera with the whole affair capable of 8K video capture. Both the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus both also have an identical 12MP F/2.2 autofocus camera for selfies.

One of the biggest takeways at Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2024 is that Samsung will offer up to 7 years of OS and security updates whichmakes for unpredecented longevity for a mobile device.

Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2024 – Galaxy S24, Galaxy S24+ and Galaxy S24 Ultra global price at launch and colour options

At Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2024, the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ was announced to come in Onyx Black, Marble Gray, Cobalt Violet and Amber Yellow colourways with online-exclusive colourways consisting of Jade Green, Sandstone Orange and Sapphire Blue.

The Galaxy S24 Ultra will come with paint jobs unique to it tubbed as Titanium Black, Titanium Gray, Titanium Violet and Titanium Yellow along with a trio of online exclusive colours when purchased at Samsung online dubbed as Titanium Green, Titanium Orange and Titanium Blue. 

Prices start from US$799 for the Galaxy S24, from US$999 for the Galaxy S24+ and from US$1,299 for the Galaxy S24 Ultra. For pricing and details on the preorder programme for the Galaxy S24 series in Malaysia, check out our feature here. In the meantime, you can also preorder the new Galaxy S24 series at www.samsung.com/my