While I’m currently an iPhone user – mostly for work purposes – my secondary Android phone nearly always tends to be a form of Google Pixel; right now the Google Pixel 7 Pro as I await a Pixel 8 Pro to come my way.
But with the Samsung Galaxy S24 range almost certainly set to be revealed at Galaxy Unpacked on January 17, I’ve been thinking about what the phones could do to draw my attention away from the Pixel.
Now, I’m no anti-Galaxy person; in fact I have several Galaxy phones around me as I write this, have used plenty in the past and adore how Samsung pseudo-resurrected the Galaxy Note with the Galaxy S22 Ultra and Galaxy S23 Ultra; the latter I’ve been using on and off for a bit.
But something about the clean take on Android 14 that recent Pixel phones offer, along with the slick Pixel Launcher, the generally excellent camera performance, and how the phones’ tend to have a design that treads the line between attractive and utilitarian, has always appealed to me.
Samsung’s phones on the other hand are gorgeous bits of hardware, but I find that their feature set isn't as smart as those on the Pixels or just gets in the way of my daily phone use. But going by the leaks so far, I feel there are three areas in which the Galaxy S24, notably the Galaxy S24 Ultra, could draw me out of my relationship with Google’s Pixels.
1. Powerful onboard AI
Recent smartphones haven’t been lacking in smart AI-based tech and features, what with the ability to smartly transcribe and translate speech, as well as identify images. But so far AI has mostly been supportive on phones rather than generative (the new buzzword in AI).
Only the Google Pixel 8 phones have brought generative AI to mobiles last year, most notably in the form of the Magic Editor that uses clever algorithms to help people change the composition of photos without needing Photoshop skills. However, Google’s AI tech mostly needs the support of cloud-based processing and thus an internet connection.
With Samsung having coined the term ‘AI Phone’ and hinting at adding generative AI in the Galaxy S24 models, it could steal the march on the Pixels a bit by facilitating wholly onboard AI; by that I mean all the processing needed to support smart tasks, like AI photo editing, takes place on the phone with no need for data to be sent to and from external sources.
Equally, I don’t want to just see Samsung ape the Pixel 8’s AI smarts, but to also do its own thing. For example, I’d like to see the rumor that the Galaxy S24’s AI-powered keyboard can detect one’s tone of writing come to fruition. And for the Galaxy S24 Ultra, I’d love to see the S Pen used in conjunction with AI, maybe to properly figure out what the heck it is I’m trying to write in my awful scrawl, or even what I’m trying to draw with my utter lack of artistic talent.
And I’d like such features to be available at launch. It irks me that Google will tout smart features for its Pixels but then mention they’ll be coming at a later date; I hope Samsung doesn't do this.
2. Creative cameras
OK, bit of an obvious one here, but I’d like to see the Galaxy S24 Ultra deliver a quartet of stunning rear cameras. While the Galaxy S23 Ultra tops our list of the best camera phones, I’ve often been left a tad cold by the photography performance of Galaxy phones in general.
Samsung has refined a lot of its tendency to over saturate colors or over-sharpen details. And it’s got better at delivering natural-looking photos from its camera suite. But I’m still not convinced Galaxy flagship phones deliver as consistent photos as Pixels or iPhones. Galaxy photos sometimes lack the contrast offered by Apple’s phones or the dynamic range served up by Pixel handsets. Sure, some people may love the style of photos that Galaxy phones spit out, but I still feel there’s room for refinement.
And with the Galaxy S24 Ultra tipped to use a 50-megapixel telephoto camera with a 5x zoom instead of the S23 Ultra’s 10MP 10x zoom camera, it has the scope to deliver improved zoom photos at an optical range and resolution that's more practical than before.
This needs to be backed up by improved image signal processing, hopefully facilitated by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, and integrated AI chops that smartly serve up the best camera mode and options for a scene or subject one’s trying to shoot. I’ve often enjoyed the flexibility of the Galaxy phone cameras, but a myriad of modes and hidden settings tend to get in the way of me taking the shot I want. The Samsung Galaxy S24 range could borrow from both the iPhones and Pixels here to offer a camera app that’s slicker, smarter and just simpler to use when pointing and shooting.
That being said, with the generative AI tech mentioned above, I’m really keen for the Galaxy S24 and S24 Ultra to serve up creative options for phone photography. They could start with fusing data from all the sensors and end with AI nudging users to take a shot at a particular angle or focal length to get a more artistic photo than simply a great one.
3. Greater gaming grunt
In terms of pure performance, the likes of the Galaxy S22 and Galaxy S23 phones with Snapdragon silicon have trounced the Pixel 6, Pixel 7 and Pixel 8 with their respective Tensor chips. But despite the higher performance, I’ve never really felt that the Pixels have struggled with smartphone gaming, even on more demanding titles.
However, the Galaxy S24 Ultra and its standard and Plus siblings look set to support hardware-accelerated ray-tracing. This is something the A17 Pro chip in the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max can do, and those phones can run true console-quality games like Resident Evil 4 Remake.
If the Galaxy S24 Ultra can use such power and graphics wizardry to not only support games the Pixels might not be able to, but to also render better visuals for some of the best Android games, then that might just see me pick a new Galaxy phone over a Pixel.
As Samsung has worked with Microsoft before on bringing Xbox Cloud Gaming to its Galaxy phones, I’d also love to see the Galaxy S24 family launch with some form of Xbox-centric features, say being able to run some Xbox games directly on the phones. After all, the Exynos 2400 chipset, which the standard Galaxy S24 could come with in some regions, has a GPU built around AMD’s RDNA 2 graphics architecture, which is what the Xbox Series X uses.
If any of the above comes to fruition then we could see the Galaxy S24 Ultra pull double duties as one of the best gaming phones in 2024, as well as be a contender for one of the best phones overall.
In conclusion, I feel there’s definitely scope for Samsung to tempt me to use a Galaxy flagship as my main Android phone.
And if the combination of hardware refinements, such as a tipped titanium frame for the Galaxy S24 Ultra, and AI tech delivers a truly slick and smart Android experience, then I may finally be tempted to put my SIM in one of the Galaxy S24 models. I’ve already chewed over how the Galaxy S24 Ultra could beat the iPhone 15 Pro Max, so I’m definitely open to persuasion and change.
We’ll find out what Samsung officially has in store for the next-gen Galaxy phones in a few days. Yet so far, I’m quietly optimistic they could be the standard bearer for phones across 2024.
