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00:00Hey guys, I'm Tom the tech chap and I've got my titanium gray galaxy s24 ultra with me here
00:05And also my s23 ultra to add a little bit of context for this first review if you will and by now
00:11You've probably watched a bunch of hands-on videos
00:13You know the specs and the deal but once it actually been like to use is it much of an upgrade is the camera better
00:18Are the AI features actually useful or they just gimmicks and ultimately should you buy one?
00:24Well, let's start with a little bit of a blind test
00:26Can you tell me which is the new one between the s23 ultra and the s24 ultra? It's tough on the right
00:33Yes is the US 24 ultra, but certainly they are very similar looking
00:38The new phone is a tiny bit wider, but also a little bit thinner
00:41We also now have a flat rather than slightly curved screen, which I must admit I do prefer
00:46Although Samsung say it so that you can run your finger or the s-pen right to the edge of the frame and it not sort
00:51Of fall off the cliff
00:52We also have this matte
00:54Titanium armor frame as opposed to the glossy armor aluminium from before which is a little bit tougher and more durable
00:59Plus we also get the latest gorilla glass armor, which again is tougher and more scratch resistant and apparently more anti reflective
01:06But I'll put that to the test in a second and you can also just about see they've reduced that lower bezels
01:12So we do actually have a fully symmetrical bezel right around the edge, which is quite nice
01:15And that chin is a little bit thinner
01:17But we're still getting that gorgeous 6.78 inch quad HD AMOLED display
01:23IP68 water-resistant stereo speakers the s-pen of course, which functionally is the same
01:27Although they have slightly reduced the overall size of it this year
01:30And of course we have that new 5x zoom lens replacing the old 10x, but we'll dive into that in a second
01:37So I've taken them both outside with me
01:39It's like the first sunny day we've had in the UK in months and if you can forgive they're pretty scratched up s23 ultra
01:45Hopefully that's not gonna be the case with the new guy. You can see this new screen is a good deal more anti-reflective
01:50It's less of a mirror and paired with the high brightness. We're talking about
01:551750 nits peak outdoor on the s23 versus
01:592600 on the new model, although apparently up to 3000 with their vision booster
02:02But you can certainly see the brighter screen and that better anti reflectivity does make it a better screen particularly to use outside
02:09Although credit to my friend super staff who pointed this out to me
02:12But you can see the s23 ultra is actually a little bit more vibrant a little bit more saturated
02:17These screens are set up identically quality maximum brightness vivid mode
02:21But you can see the s24 is just a little bit more muted
02:25Although you may actually prefer that
02:26Now because I'm a massive nerd one of the first things I wanted to do was we've run a couple of benchmarks to see how
02:31Much faster this new snapdragon 8 gen 3 for galaxy is versus the hn2 for galaxy
02:36We're looking at a 35% jump in the peak performance
02:40Although by the end of the test
02:41We're only looking at about a 13 and a half percent optic and you can actually see the stability is
02:45Lower and that's despite having an almost double the size vapor chamber cooler
02:50It also has a higher peak temperature
02:52It hits 43 versus 40 and it did use 2% more battery than the s23 ultra in
02:57Geekbench 6 the single-core performance is about 10% higher but an impressive 30% in multi-core and look at that in the Geekbench
03:04Open CL GPU test the s24 ultra is 61% faster and firing up a bit of war thunder maxed out
03:11120 FPS mode with ray tracing cranked up. You can see we're getting a good 20 FPS more on the new s24
03:17Are you gonna notice this in everyday life outside of high-end gaming?
03:21Well, probably not although the new chip with its much faster NPU will speed up some of the AI features
03:27Okay, let's play with the new camera. So
03:30You probably guess where I am I figured the old clock face might be a good
03:35Demo for the zoom lens. Although first, I'm actually recording this with the selfie camera
03:404k60 on both at arm's length and
03:44Looking at the screens can't see a ton difference if I'm honest
03:47Let me know if you can see or hear much difference
03:50They really talked about any changes with the selfie beyond the pro visual engine
03:55That's now sort of using more AI to upgrade the camera throughout across all the lenses
03:59But if I still get the Sun on me there
04:03Spin around
04:04Have everyone look at me. Like why is this guy holding two phones in front of him?
04:09Well, there you go
04:11It's chiming
04:14Yeah, so that's the selfie but let's switch around play with the zooms and see if the camera is actually much better
04:20Okay. So here we are central London beautiful, but very cold day and we've got the same 0.6 times ultra-wide same 200 megapixel main
04:28Same 10 megapixel 3 times optical, but this is where things change now
04:32We've got the 5 times optical on the new guy versus the 10 times on the s23, which is quite a controversial change
04:39But let's have a look at what they've taken and see how they compare and in good light
04:42There isn't an awful lot between them
04:44The main thing that strikes me though is actually the color the white balance
04:47You can see that the clock face of the Elizabeth Tower Big Ben, of course is the bell
04:51this is the Elizabeth Tower is white as opposed to that bluish tint it has on the old phone and
04:56Stepping up to 5 times. We do get a slightly crisper image on the s24 ultra
05:01Although it's not pushing it much beyond that 3 times optical on the s23, but this is where it gets interesting 10 times zoom
05:07we've got the native optical telephoto on the s23 and then we've got this sort of hybrid cropped in zoom of the 5 times on
05:14The s24 ultra although at 30 times there isn't a lot between them again
05:18The color is the main difference and actually even if we go into the space zoom a hundred times
05:22They're still kind of oil painting II but certainly the differences seem to be less significant the further we zoom in
05:28Let me show you a couple of other examples and one theme one pattern
05:32I am seeing is the s24 seems to handle dynamic range and colors a bit better
05:36You can see here. The s23 is a little bit blown out
05:39It's a bit overexposed and zooming into 10 times. There is a marked difference here in the detail the quality
05:45I mean just look at this chap's face and his fantastic helmet
05:48You can see a little bit more fine detail on his jacket on the older phone
05:52But that just seems to be because their shadows have been raised too much and it's not a naturally pleasing image
05:57And you can also see with this lady's blonde hair that the highlights are a little bit blown out on the s23
06:02it handles that dynamic range better on the s24 and
06:06Again here the new s24 is just doing a better job at pulling those shadows down
06:10Retaining detail and not looking as washed out and certainly not bringing that blue tint that seems to keep cropping up
06:16So it's not always vastly different, but I would say the s24 is a noticeable upgrade in terms of the camera
06:22I
06:28However, I'm not entirely convinced I like the quote-unquote upgrade here certainly the s23 is quite soft
06:35It looks a little bit like an oil painting
06:37But the s24 just looks like they've put it into lightroom and dragged sharpness and clarity way up
06:42I don't know if I love that but certainly it is more detailed
06:46All right, so let's switch to video and I'm recording the audio now on the phones internally
06:51And I'll switch between them so you can get an idea of how it deals with the London busy traffic and school kids around me
06:57So this is shooting at 4k 30 on both. We've got Westminster Cathedral over there and
07:04David Lloyd George
07:06Hanging out saying I should go that way probably so let's do a little zoom test again going between 0.6
07:14the 1
07:15the 3 and
07:17Then 5 on the new guy 10 on the old one
07:20And then match the 10
07:23So this is a 4k 30
07:25I'm still reasonably stable and then punching back out and
07:30Then back in
07:33You get the idea back in back out
07:38So now I've switched to 4k 60 and it should obviously be a little smoother nothing new there
07:43We've got old Winnie Churchill just hanging out
07:47But one thing that is immediately different is that I can use all the different lenses while recording on
07:52The s24 so I can go to the 3 the 5 the 10 the ultra wide
07:58I can't switch any lenses once I start recording at 4k 60 on the s23
08:03So as someone who does shoot a lot of 4k 60 because it allows you to you know
08:07Make it slow motion in the edit if you're half a speed. I kind of like the smoother frame rates
08:12You have a lot more versatility now with the new phone so regardless of image quality, that's just a functional
08:19nice little upgrade
08:20As for low-light video. Well, this is being shot at 4k 30 on both. I can't see much difference
08:27I've watched this clip back like 10 times and maybe there's a little bit less noise and compression on the s24
08:32But I mean these are side-by-side and I just can't see much difference
08:36So I guess I would have liked to see a bit more of a marked difference in low-light video
08:42What is new though is the ability to shoot 4k 120 it is limited only to the pro video mode
08:48So, of course and you can play around with the white balance and shutter speed and all that good stuff
08:52Stabilization definitely takes a hit at this resolution, but it does give you more options if you are keen videographer
08:58And I think it's the first time we have seen it on a smartphone
09:02Now one thing I really hope they'd improved is the shutter lag and I have good news
09:06S23 on the left s24 on the right and it does seem to be quite a bit faster
09:11What's interesting though is if we go to intelligent optimization by default is set to maximum
09:15It's the amount of processing it does for the camera
09:17But if we turn it to minimum you can see it does speed it up on both phones
09:21But still faster on the s24, but if we put it back to maximum
09:25Which is by default and how you'd probably want to use it
09:27It is a good deal faster now, and if I play the same clip again at half speed, you can really see the difference
09:34and
09:35So now versus the iPhone 15 Pro Max, they're a lot closer
09:39I still think the iPhones are touched faster
09:41But I am very pleased to report that Samsung has improved the shutter speed with the s24 ultra
09:48Okay, it's too bloody cold to be out here I've taken a lot of photos
09:51But I want to try out some of the camera AI features. Let's head back home for that
09:56Okay, so let's open up the gallery and I want to show you a couple of the new AI photo editing features
10:00So for example here, we've got a nice photo
10:02But in the background we have this lady and that bag just lying there
10:05So if we go to edit and then tap this new magical AI button
10:09We can now draw around or highlight objects and then move resize or simply delete them
10:14And then if we press generate after about 15 seconds or so, it'll fill in the image and you have a nice clean photo
10:20You would never have known a lady in a bag were there. Let's try another one
10:23So if I draw around the Elizabeth Tower, you can see it actually highlights it immediately
10:28I can then change the size of it move it around or simply erase it and as if by magic
10:32It's completely gone. And now I'm pointing at the sky like an idiot. You can even straighten your image
10:38So if you're a little bit wonky like I am well
10:40This photo is at least you can rotate to either straighten it or I don't make it even more wonky
10:45And then as it says on the screen, it will fill in the missing pieces
10:48Let me try one more again. My pictures a little bit skew if there so let's try and straighten up
10:52Quite a bit of background for it to fill in there press generate
10:55Let it do its magic and all its reticulating splines and all that. That's a pretty convincing edit. You wouldn't know
11:04But my absolute favorite new AI feature and the first thing I show my friends when they ask about this phone is
11:10Instant slow-mo this uses AI to interpolate or create new frames
11:14So even if you shoot a 30 frames per second video just tap on the screen and in a second
11:19It will turn it into slow motion
11:21It is pretty magical and then you can open up the video in the editor and change the speed and the duration and then save
11:27A new clip although it's worth mentioning a 30 FPS video can either be slowed to half or 1 quarter speed
11:33But a 60 FPS video can go down to 1 8th speed and in the edit
11:37You can have multiple slow-motion segments so you can do a little bit of speed ramping almost
11:42This is also fun to play around with if you open up the wallpaper
11:45Menu from the home screen and then go to creative
11:48You've got this new generative AI option other Android phones also offer this
11:52But I do quite like the implementation on the s24 ultra because rather than writing in a full prompt
11:57you just fill in a few different options like a
12:00surreal castle made of chiffon in shades of pink and purple or perhaps a painting of a lake and
12:07Spaceships in a baroque style perhaps. Let's give it a few seconds to work. It's magic and that's pretty cool
12:13I think I might actually use that as my home screen wallpaper. What do you think?
12:17Samsung's also very proud that they are the first to implement the new circle to search from Google long press on the home button or
12:24If you're using gestures in this case, just the bottom of the screen like that
12:26You'll get this fancy animation and then just draw around anything you want to search. Let's see what happens if I draw around myself
12:33Okay. All right. Let's try again from my Instagram profile. See if it picks up anything
12:38I was picked up clicks. Clearly. I'm not important enough. This phone is rubbish. Don't buy it
12:43I'm also really pleased to see Samsung now offering seven full OS updates seven years of Android, which is way beyond everyone else
12:50So hopefully they all start to catch up because this is the cast of what we want. The only downside is it's very expensive
12:56We're talking twelve hundred and forty nine pounds or twelve ninety nine dollars and that gets you 12 gigs of RAM 256 gigs of storage
13:03So, what do you think so far? Are you impressed by the new s24 ultra? Have you pre-ordered one?
13:08Are you gonna get one for yourself or not convinced? Let me know what you make of this in the comments
13:11But so far I'm having a really good time with this
13:14I really like the brighter more anti-reflective screen. The performance is obviously quite a bit better
13:19Although you don't really get to notice it that much but certainly with the AI features
13:22I do find myself using it quite a bit
13:24However, Samsung has said that these AI features will also be coming to the s23 series later in the year in the first half of
13:312024 so if you already have an s23, then it's one less reason to upgrade
13:34But if you are on an s22 or anything older than I reckon this could be worth the upgrade
13:39Thank you so much for watching guys
13:40Hit that like and subscribe button if you enjoyed my first review and I'll see you next time right here on the tech chat