Samsung Insiders confirm three surprising decisions about the Galaxy S24 Ultra

Updated January 1: article originally published December 30.

Samsung’s Galaxy S24 Ultra will enter a crowded smartphone market, but three features will stand out to consumers looking to fall in love with their new phone.

The first decision is around the camera. This is crucial to the Galaxy S24 Ultra and Samsung’s smartphone story. If the S24 Ultra camera is seen as the flagship smartphone camera, the halo effect for the other S24 devices—and all Galaxy devices coming in 2024—then the Galaxy brand is a much easier sell on photography.

The quad-lens rear camera is built around the main 200-megapixel primary lens. It’s backed up with a 12-megapixel ultra-wide lens and two telephoto lenses at 10-megapixel and 50-megapixel, which between them offer x2, x3, x5 and x10 optical zoom. There was talk of Samsung abandoning the x10 potential, but the current feeling is that this feature will be retained.

Then you have the S-Pen. Originally a part of the Galaxy Note series, when those larger smartphones were discontinued, Samsung’s S-Pen became part of the flagship Galaxy S device. Using a stylus offers many advantages over a sturdy finger. To pick three, photos can be edited more precisely, handwritten notes are much easier to compose, and design ideas are cleaner and more accessible.

Samsung is rightly regarded as the leading manufacturer of stylish smartphones and it is a lead that no other manufacturer has challenged. With new S-Pen hardware certified by authorities ahead of the upcoming launch, the Galaxy S24 Ultra will extend Samsung’s lead.

There’s an argument to suggest the titanium frame as the third factor, but I think Apple’s PR team has ensured that relying on titanium as a selling point will benefit the iPhone just as much as the S24 Ultra.

Instead, I will choose to use Artificial Intelligence. Samsung has been keeping a close eye on how it will approach AI in 2024. Its AI framework—Samsung Gauss—was released in November, and since then, deals have been published on training data, evidence of AI use in smartphones that are in code and discussed the balance between AI running locally and running in the cloud.

Update: Sunday, December 31. Thanks to Walmart’s incorrect Galaxy S24+ listing Ahead of the yet-to-be-announced official launch, we get to see Samsung’s AI in action. This Galaxy S Plus handset will be the first to launch with 12GB of RAM, offering more memory to help with AI routines.

Many of the features mentioned are powered by AI and built around the camera and photography. Notable in the leaked details is the inclusion of Live Translate, Generative Edit and Nightography Zoom. Samsung called the wide range of features to the launch of the Samsung Gauss AI systemnaming Samsung Gauss Language, Samsung Gauss Code and Samsung Gauss Image.

Update: Monday January 1st. More details have been revealed about one of the key AI tools that will debut on the Galaxy S24. Sagar Naresh wrote the details of the ever popular Sammobile.

Samsung Gauss’s Generative Edit feature will help you add or remove details when editing photos. This could be as simple as removing small elements from an image and creating what would be behind the removed object. If the photos are rotated to any degree, the missing information in the outlines can be filled in using the same software.

Available details indicate that this feature will require both a Samsung account and an active internet connection, suggesting that at least some of the work will be done in the cloud.

However, it is an easily described feature with easily understood results. For all the technical talk around AI, practical examples like genetic editing will go a long way in demystifying AI and offering an enticing possibility for prospective buyers.

Google opened the door with the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro by calling it AI-first smartphones. Samsung is clearly not going to be the first, but with the expected sales volume and the desire to stand out from the competition, it wants to be the best AI smartphone of 2024.

One of the highest spec cameras on the market, unique stylus support that offers a mature and natural user interface and software that will take advantage of the latest technological advances in computing. Consumers looking at the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra will see an impressive set of features when the smartphone hits the market.

The Galaxy S24 family, including the S24 Ultra and S-Pen, will launch in early 2024 at a “Galaxy Unpacked” event widely expected to take place on January 17.

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