Samsung Galaxy S24 & S24+ review: Flagship AI features at a lower price

A different Galaxy S

When we reviewed the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra in February, we were thoroughly impressed by its encapsulation of everything one could want in a premium smartphone in 2024. With a flagship processor, outstanding battery life, and top-of-the-line hardware, we voted the Galaxy S24 Ultra the best premium Android smartphone in our Tech Awards 2024. 

But what about its siblings, the Samsung Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+? These two phones might be overlooked by people who want the biggest and the best, but they’re still worthy of consideration. 

Both phones use Samsung’s Exynos 2400 processor in Singapore, which is one of the few major differences between them and the S24 Ultra. Both models also get 1.9x bigger vapour chambers for better thermal performance, 2,600-nits of peak brightness with Vision Booster, and a 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate.

TL;DR: The Samsung Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ are excellent options for those looking for smaller, more affordable options that still offer the new Galaxy AI features and great performance.



You can check out where to buy the Samsung Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ here.

The Galaxy S24 has only 8GB of LPDDR5X RAM, while the Galaxy S24+ has 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM. Both phones now have a base storage of 256GB or up to 512GB, and both use UFS 4.0 storage options.

Unfortunately, it does seem that the cameras have remained the same as those on the Galaxy S23, which has a 50MP main camera, a 10MP telephoto camera, and a 12MP ultrawide camera. The 12MP selfie camera is also retained. Not that we had any complaints when we reviewed them last year, but it's also a point of consideration that if you need the best cameras, the Ultra edition still trumps them easily.

So, are these phones the more affordable “lite” editions of the ultimate 2024 Android smartphone? And what about the controversial choice of processor that the Galaxy S24 and S24+ receive -- is its performance a concern? Let’s find out.

• Design
• OneUI 6 and AI features
• Imaging
• Benchmarks and battery life
• Conclusion

Design

There hasn’t been any big change made to the design of the Galaxy S24 series, since flat displays and edges were introduced with the Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23+ models. The sides are still using Samsung’s Armor Aluminium and it’s still the same Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the front and back. 

Display sizes have been increased slightly (+0.1-inch), with a 6.2-inch FHD+ screen for the Galaxy S24 and a 6.7-inch QHD+ screen for the Galaxy S24+ over their predecessors. Both displays are LTPO AMOLED 2X displays that have an adaptive 1-120Hz refresh rate and can now reach up to 2,600-nits of peak brightness just like the Galaxy S24 Ultra can with Vision Booster. Compared to last year, the Galaxy S24+ is a little more enticing thanks to the new 1,440p display (1,440 x 3,120 pixels resolution) as opposed to a 1080p display. That means the Galaxy S24+ is almost identical to the Galaxy S24 Ultra's display properties.

Samsung still offers a large variety of colours to choose from, with the standard Onyx Black, Marble Gray, Amber Yellow and Cobalt Yellow available for everywhere. For the Samsung Online exclusive colours, we have Sandstone Orange (seen on the Galaxy S24 unit we have), Jade Green and Sapphire Blue. The orange colourway feels a little more copper than bright orange, particularly the sides, which is lovely.

As usual, S Pen support is limited to just the Galaxy S24 Ultra, so Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ are great alternatives if you want to save a little money for the same core experience, sans stylus. Lastly, both phones also retain IP68 rated dust and water resistance, which is excellent.

OneUI 6 and AI Features

We’ve covered One UI 6 and most of the AI features here and here, so we won’t delve too deep into them. 

However, we must commend Samsung on bringing the AI features from the Galaxy S24 Ultra to the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+. Whether it’s the useful Circle to Search or other Galaxy AI features, they’re all available throughout the Galaxy S24 lineup, which isn’t the case with other competitors like the Google Pixel 8 series (where the Pixel 8 Pro exclusively gets Video Boost after launch) or even the Apple iPhone 15 series. 

Samsung offers seven years of software and security updates across the entire Galaxy S24 lineup, which is amongst the best software support for phones in the market. You’ll certainly be able to use these phones for longer than other competitors, who only offer two or three years of updates.

Imaging Performance

With the same cameras from the S23 series, it’s hard to say there’s any improvement in imaging performance this year, hardware-wise, at least. It’s still the same 50MP rear camera, 12MP ultra-wide camera (f/2.2 aperture,1.4µm, 120˚ FOV) and 3x optical zoom 10MP telephoto lens (f/2.4 aperture, 1.0µm).

Most of the changes come from the software side, with the AI editing features from the Galaxy S24 Ultra also present in the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+. 

The 12MP pixel-binned photos from the main camera are excellent, with bright, vibrant colours and plenty of detail and sharpness. 

Main camera 50MP shots

As per usual, the 50MP photos offer a better resolution for cropping in, but it’s usually unnecessary if you’re just posting them to social media. Surprisingly, the 50MP shots also seem slightly more saturated and contrasty compared to the pixel-binned 12MP shots.

Ultra-wide camera

The ultrawide shots from both phones are good, with a bit more saturation compared to the main camera. 

3x optical zoom

There’s no 10x optical zoom here, but the 3x optical telephoto is serviceable for getting closer shots of a subject.

 

Nightography (aka Night Mode)

As always, Samsung’s Nightography is fantastic. Dark images are brightened considerably, although moving subjects are always a no-no in this mode due to the longer shutter speed required. Despite the trees being almost pitch black in the actual scene, the phones managed to show the green of the leaves while not overexposing the lights in the corridors. 

As mentioned earlier, most of the upgrades are software-based. Like the Galaxy S24 Ultra, you get features like Edit Suggestion, which suggests tweaks, and Generative Edit, which fills in parts of a photo with more appropriate content. Read our Galaxy S24 Ultra review and this article to check out our experience with the Galaxy AI features available on the S24 phones.

Benchmark Performance

In an interesting turn of events, Samsung has switched back to using Exynos chips (the Exynos 2400 specifically) in the Galaxy S24 and S24+ after offering Snapdragon processors across the Galaxy S23 range. While Exynos chips have been improving in recent years, plenty of people are hung up about the lack of chipset parity,  whether it’s because of its perceived differences in thermal management or benchmarking performance.

Therefore, we’ll see if the Exynos 2400 processor in the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ can match up to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip in the Galaxy S24 Ultra.

We’ll be comparing the Samsung devices against recently reviewed phones in their price range, as well as against the Galaxy S24 Ultra and older Galaxy S23 models.

Putting it to the test

To find out how the competitors line up specs and price-wise, check them out in this link.

To find out more about the tests we conduct and what they relate to, we've jotted them down here.

Benchmark Performance remarks

The performance of the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ are relatively similar when you check out tests that assess its browsing performance and storage speeds, but their graphical throughput is miles behind the Galaxy S24 Ultra. This clearly demonstrates where the Exynos processor tries to match up against the Galaxy S24 Ultra in general day-to-day usage, but the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 still appears to be the better choice for graphically intense workloads like gaming or editing different types of imaging or video content. Even the regular Xiaomi 14 in the chart makes a really good comparison, since the Xiaomi rival uses SD8G3 processor but it's far more affordable than these two Samsung devices tested here.

The next question some might have is if the Galaxy S24 and S24+ any better than their previous year's counterparts using a Qualcomm processor. In a nutshell, we found them to be marginally better, so that's not too bad. Check out the Galaxy S23 and S23+ performance here if you would like to compare scores.

Battery Life

Our battery benchmark uses PCMark for Android’s Work 3.0 Battery Life test to determine a modern Android-based smartphone's battery uptime in minutes. This controlled benchmark simulates real-world usage with a combination of both web and social media browsing, video and photo editing, parsing data with various file formats, writing (on documents), and more. 

The Galaxy S24+ has a 4,900mAh battery while the Galaxy S24 only has a 4,000mAh battery. Despite that, both phones have excellent battery life, with the Galaxy S24+ almost matching the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s insane battery performance. The smaller Galaxy S24 isn’t a slouch either, beating out competitors like the Google Pixel 8 Pro and Xiaomi 14 with 13.5 hours of battery life in the tests. Not only do they have a good uptime, but both phones fared much better than the Galaxy S23 and S23+, thanks to increased batter capacity offered in this year's models. This also means that the Exynos processors are reasonably efficient enough to not affect the phone's battery uptime.

The Galaxy S24 offers 25W wired charging while the Galaxy S24+ offers faster 45W wired charging, although there’s only a cable included in the box. The Galaxy S24 took 75 minutes to charge from 0-100%, while the faster charging speeds of the Galaxy S24+ meant it took around 59 minutes. 

There’s also wireless charging available, although it’s slower than what most other brands offer at just 15W for both models.

Conclusion

Similar to last year, we still feel that the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ phones offer some of the best features you can expect out of flagship-class phone in the market. The feature set is relatively consistent across all three models in the Galaxy S24 lineup, and the new AI features are present across the board.

The one big issue would be the change to using Exynos chips in these two phones instead of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 used on the Galaxy S24 Ultra. Due to that change, the phones are no longer quite as equal to the Ultra variant on the benchmarks. It has somewhat stripped away the choice of stylus/no stylus between Ultra and the Plus variant, and the lack of parity between models may hurt the overall Galaxy S series branding.

Fortunately, the performance hasn't taken a big hit. The Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ still perform well compared to competitors like the Google Pixel 8 or the Honor Magic6 Pro and most importantly, faster than last year's Galaxy S23 series. Plus, with the increased battery capcacity on both the models, the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ have excellenty uptime stats you can be proud of.

Another silver lining is Samsung’s guarantee of seven years of OS updates and security updates. This means that someone who buys a Galaxy S24 phone in 2024 will be able to use it (theoretically) until 2031.

However, our quibbles from last year remain. We wish for an upgraded camera system next year and faster charging speeds that can match some of the ultra-rapid charging speeds we’ve seen from Chinese flagship smartphones. Including the charger in the box also feels crucial seeing as its best rivals are also doing that. It's also a touch disappointing that Samsung has increased their prices this year, while not really offering a lot of upgrades.

The Samsung Galaxy S24 starts from S$1,288, while its equivalent edition from last year was only S$1,148. Likewise, the Galaxy S24+ now starts from a hefty S$1,528, while its predecessor was only S$1,328. Granted, the larger model has faster wired charging, improved screen resolution, more RAM, and hence has a higher price differential than the smaller Galaxy S24, there still exists a $140 price jump between 2023 and 2024 models.

While we'll still happily recommend Android fans to get the Galaxy S24 series if they wish to experience the best of what Android platform offers, including the Samsung ecosystem advantage, support, features and Galaxy AI, it's not as easy to convince people with the price hike and the minor updates bestowed on these devices. Not to mention the raw performance parity difference to factor in for enthusiasts closely guarding every dollar they are investing into their phone. But if you don't need the S Pen functionality or the best camera kit, the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ can still accomplish a lot really well, without the exorbitant price tag (and heft) of the Galaxy S24 Ultra.

For those, who've specific needs to accomplish out of the next top Android phone you're investing in, you can check out our tried and tested Tech Awards recommendation list.

	Design	Features	User-friendliness	Performance	Value	Overall
Samsung Galaxy S24	8.0	8.5	8.5	8.0	7.5
Samsung Galaxy S24+	8.0	8.5	8.5	8.0	7.5

The Samsung Galaxy S24 and S24+ retail in the following configurations at these official prices: 

• Samsung Galaxy S24 (8GB RAM + 256GB storage): S$1,288 
• Samsung Galaxy S24 (8GB RAM + 512GB storage): S$1,458
• Samsung Galaxy S24+ (12GB RAM + 256GB storage): S$1,528
• Samsung Galaxy S24+ (12GB RAM + 512GB storage): S$1,728 

You can find the Samsung Galaxy S24 and S24+ at the Samsung Official Store, Lazada and Shopee. The phones are also available at our consumer electronics retailers (Best Denki, Challenger, Courts, Gain City, Harvey Norman) and local telcos (M1, Singtel, StarHub).

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