1 Month With the Galaxy S24 Ultra - REVIEW
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TechTranscript
00:00What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the channel. In this video, I'm going to review
00:05the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. We're going to take a close look to this phone, both to the
00:11internal components and the external components to find out if it's worth it for all that money
00:16or if it is all marketing and you don't really need it. As always, let's begin by talking about
00:22the exterior of the phone, about the design. In this case, we can find a phone that's
00:26very well built with simple but elegant lines and, of course, incredibly high-end materials,
00:33worthy of a flagship phone. It has titanium on the side frames, which is a first for Samsung,
00:38and glass in the front and back panels. Although, well, as you can see, the design is almost
00:43identical to the one on the Galaxy S23 Ultra with only one small difference, which is that the S24
00:49Ultra now has slightly flatter sides. It is not a big difference and it's 100% about personal
00:55preference. Some people like it, some people don't, but it doesn't really add any functionality
01:00and, well, when you put a case on the phone, it stops being noticeable altogether, so I wouldn't
01:05really worry about this. The only thing that I didn't like about it was that the volume buttons
01:10are located in the top right corner of the phone and, therefore, they are completely unreachable
01:17when you're using the phone with one hand. Although, well, everything said, I am left-handed,
01:22so my hand is in the opposite side of the volume buttons and it's extra difficult to reach. If
01:27you're right-handed, it is going to be a little easier, but even then, it is incredibly complicated
01:32to reach the volume buttons. They're way too high. Then, when it comes to the internal components,
01:37it obviously has the best of the best, the Snapdragon 8 Generation 3, optimized for Samsung.
01:45Pay close attention, my friends. This is not the normal Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 like on the rest of the
01:50high-end phones. This is a special version of the processor, customized to take the most out of the
01:56S24. So, of course, it is as fast as it gets in the Android game. It's even neck-to-neck with the
02:02A17 Pro from Apple. Even though it is a little bit faster on the single-core score, realistically,
02:08they are very, very close, which is incredibly impressive. When it comes to my personal
02:12experience with the phone, I think performance is impeccable. It loads up every app and game that I
02:18want in no time, and they all run like butter on a hot pan. I even decided to compare it against
02:24the iPhone 15 Pro in a real-life usage test. And even though, as you saw earlier, the iPhone has a
02:29little bit better Geekbench score, the S24 Ultra opened up a ton of apps faster than the iPhone.
02:36Only for a couple milliseconds, nothing to get excited about, but it did open the apps faster.
02:41The only thing it lacks is a decent game catalog, like the one we can find on the new iPhones,
02:46because, sure, Genshin Impact and Call of Duty are great games, but Android still needs a lot
02:52of improvements to compete against a gaming console. If you think about it, it's kind of a
02:57shame. This has a hundred times more power than a Nintendo Switch, but nobody is buying it for
03:04gaming because it doesn't even have 1% of the gaming catalog the Switch has. Samsung could do
03:09something about it. Google could do something about it. Please, guys, do something. This could be a
03:14Switch killer, but it's not because it doesn't have any games. What I did like about this phone,
03:20of course, are all of the new AI features it brings. As many of you know, we are in the middle
03:25of an AI revolution, and there's exponential changes happening in this industry every year.
03:31So, of course, as they should, Samsung decided to hop right into the AI bandwagon. With the new S24,
03:39we're going to be able to circle anything we want on the screen, and the phone will do an AI
03:44search to tell you exactly what it is you're looking at and where to buy it. We're going to be
03:49able to eliminate objects from any photo by simply touching those objects. We're going to be able to
03:54move those objects around the image as we please, and even better, we're going to be able to live
04:00translate a call to any language we want. Meaning, if you're calling a Chinese person, and of course,
04:06you're not going to understand anything they say, the phone can translate what the Chinese person
04:11is saying to English, and what you're saying to Chinese in real time, block the audio from the
04:17Chinese person, show you the audio in English, and vice versa, so you can have an actual conversation
04:22with a Chinese person in real time via phone call. It's absolutely insane. And sure, this is something
04:29we could already see in the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro last year, but Samsung is taking it to the next level.
04:35If you're a geek like me, you will agree this is an exciting time to be alive. But anyways,
04:40let's move on. Let's talk about the battery life. Another very strong point on this phone. As you
04:46can see, I ran a very intensive drain test on it, and it lasted more than nine hours of use, which
04:52is absolutely insane. It is more than enough for 99% of people. And I would even say that for those
04:58of you who only use the phone for basic things, you can easily get up to two days of use without
05:03touching a charger. But funny enough, it was actually 20 minutes worse than the new iPhone 15
05:10Pro Max. So yeah, technically, all the Apple fans watching this video can say that the iPhone beats
05:16the Galaxy in battery life. And well, as it has been the case for a long time now, we can do
05:21wireless charging, we can do reverse wireless charging, which is actually turned off by default.
05:26And obviously, we also have fast charging up to 45 watts. Although well, to do that 45 watt fast
05:33charging, you need this. This is a special 45 watt wall brick that doesn't come included with the S24.
05:41You have to pay extra money for it because Samsung said that it is bad for the environment to include
05:48it in the box. They just wanted to save a little bit of money. But don't worry, because I found a
05:53way for you to get it for free. I left a link in the description to Amazon that's going to send you
05:58to a discounted S24. So you can with the money that you're saving by buying it on Amazon, get
06:05the wall brick because it actually is very handy. It charges the phone in about an hour from zero to
06:10100. So yeah, remember at the end of the video, if you're interested on the S24, check the link in
06:16the description. But hey, let's talk about the display. Another very strong point on this phone
06:21because in this case, it has everything and everything is everything. 120 hertz LTPO panel
06:30that varies the refresh rate for maximum fluidity, a top tier OLED display with 2600 nits of brightness
06:36and extremely thin frames. The only bad thing I can say about the display on the S24 Ultra
06:42is that it's absolutely massive. It has a 6.8 inch display with absolutely no compromises
06:49in favor of ergonomics. For a 5'11 person like me, it is very complicated to use with one hand.
06:55And I can only assume that anyone shorter is going to have an even tougher time with it. I mean,
07:00don't get me wrong. It is not something bad necessarily. A lot of people want a big display,
07:05even if it means losing some versatility and ease of use. But it is something you should keep in
07:10mind. This is not a compact phone you can use while you're walking and doing something with
07:16your other hand. This is a small tablet, a two handed device. And of course, we also have to
07:22talk about the cameras, probably the most important component on any phone in 2024. And well, in the
07:28case of the S24 Ultra, this is probably the most impressive component on the phone. Well, components
07:34because there's multiple cameras. I'm recording 4K video at 30 FPS right now, and maybe it's not
07:40as good as a professional video camera, but it is damn near close. Like this is incredible
07:47selfie video for anybody trying to make tech talks or YouTube videos. This is as good as a
07:53$1,500 vlogging camera. You could buy it in a different store. Yes, it doesn't have interchangeable
07:59lenses like that other camera would, but the quality is pretty identical. So like video quality
08:04on the S24 Ultra is very impressive. But anyways, more specifically, we get four cameras on the back
08:10of this phone. We get a main sensor with 200 megapixels, the one you were looking at right now.
08:15We get a 3x telephoto camera with 10 megapixels, a 5x telephoto camera with 50 megapixels, and we
08:22get an ultrawide camera with 12 megapixels. As always, let's begin by talking about the main
08:28sensor, the main camera. We have a behemoth 200 megapixel sensor with insanely high-end optics. I
08:36don't want to dare to say these are the best photos you can take with any phone in 2024,
08:42but it is up there. Technically, it doesn't differ that much from what we could see on the S23 Ultra,
08:47but because of this new AI processing engines and algorithms Samsung uses to improve photos
08:53after you've taken them, we can see insanely good results both when it comes to exposure,
08:59color, sharpness, dynamic range, everything feels very, very, very high-end. The only thing that I
09:05feel the need to clarify is that this is not because the camera has 200 megapixels. All of
09:11the photos you've seen have been taken in the 12 megapixel photo mode because the more megapixels,
09:17the smaller the pixels, the less light comes in, and the more light you need to take advantage out
09:23of those more megapixels. So in practice, you could only take advantage out of 200 megapixels
09:28with perfect lighting conditions. Then we have a 3x telephoto camera, which is very stupid in my
09:35opinion because it has considerably lower quality than the rest of the cameras on the S24 Ultra,
09:40so most people are not even going to use it. And because we also have a 5x telephoto camera,
09:46that is not only way better than the 3x telephoto camera, it actually serves a better purpose most
09:52of the time you're using it because if you want to take a picture at something that's far away,
09:57most of the time you're going to take as much zoom as you can get. So a 5x is more convenient
10:03than a 3x. And if you want to take a picture at something that's up close, you're most of the time
10:08going to use the main camera. So that 3x telephoto is kind of in this middle ground where most of the
10:14time, and I can tell you from experience, you're not going to want to use it. And of course, we
10:18also get an ultrawide camera, which is a very good ultrawide camera, by the way. Without being
10:24as good as the main sensor, it is surprisingly close. We get a lot of detail, we get very,
10:29very good dynamic range, a lot of sharpness, and even though we still see a little bit of
10:34distortion on the side edges, it is way less than it used to be a couple of years ago.
10:39And then of course, we get a bunch of video features on the camera of this phone. We can do
10:448K video recording, which even though, sure, it is not useful for the most part, because the
10:49sensor is very small, so we don't really take advantage of that higher resolution. When you're
10:53making a video at broad daylight, and you do have enough light, you can notice a sharper image and
10:59a better looking video. So that's great. We can also do, for the first time now, 4K video up to
11:05120 FPS, meaning 4K slow-mo video, which is just incredibly pleasing to look at. Because not only
11:12it's smooth and slow, but it is high resolution, so yeah, the combination of those two things makes
11:18an insanely attractive and appealing video. And of course, I also have to talk about the
11:24selfie camera, which without being as impressive as the other cameras, because it's a little bit
11:29smaller, it is pretty good too. I mean, I'm recording 4K video with it, it's incredibly
11:35sharp. Maybe we don't get as much background blur because of the tiny sensor, we don't get as much
11:40dynamic range, but for like a normal TikTok, for a normal, even a YouTube vlog, this is more than
11:47enough. It's sharp, it's what people want. The only thing you have to take care of is the audio.
11:52You don't ideally want to make a video with when your neighbor's mowing the lawn because the audio
11:56is going to get ruined. There's nothing I can do about it. I'm sorry. Anyways, I don't want to get
12:00off topic. Video quality using the selfie camera is amazing. Probably the best selfie camera on any
12:06phone in 2024. So conclusion, is the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra worth it? Well, I believe so.
12:14Yes, it is a top tier phone, the most expensive phone Samsung makes, and the best phone Samsung
12:21has ever made in their existence since they became a company. Some people of course would say the
12:26iPhone 15 Pro Max is better. A lot of other people are going to say this one's better. In my opinion,
12:31they are very close when it comes to hardware. So it is all about software. Do you like Android?
12:37Do you like iOS? That's what should make you make the decision. If you're an Android fan,
12:41and you have a ton of money to spend on a new phone, this is incredible. The only flaw that
12:46it has, as I said, is that it's very big. If you don't like big phones, I think you're going to
12:50have to go for the S24 and sacrifice some features because this is absolutely massive. But if you're
12:55willing to compromise versatility, it is the best of the best ever made. And as I said earlier,
13:03you have an Amazon link in the description with an amazing price. Now that the video is about to end,
13:09I recommend you go take a look.