Galaxy S24 Ultra gets titanium, flat display, no 10x telephoto, and higher $1,300 price

Ben Schoon | Jan 17 2024 - 10:00 am PT

Samsung has just announced the Galaxy S24 Ultra, its latest flagship phone, which gets new specs, a slight redesign, and a higher starting price. Here’s what you need to know.

The series of “Ultra” phones from Samsung have always been about providing the best of the best in terms of specs and features in a traditional “candybar” style smartphone. The new Galaxy S24 Ultra is no exception to that, with a powerhouse package of specs. That starts with the 6.8-inch display which is QHD+ and supports variable refresh rate between 1Hz and 120Hz. The new display is also brighter at 2,600 nits, almost 1,000 nits brighter than the Galaxy S23 Ultra.

Galaxy S24 Ultra also gets a couple of hardware changes. With that new display, the glass on top is now flat. Gone are the curves Samsung has been so obsessed with in years past, replaced with a flat panel that’s perfect for the embedded S Pen. The S Pen, notably, is pretty much unchanged this year besides stripping color and using a grey stylus on all color variants.

The other big hardware change is that, like Apple’s iPhone 15 Pro, the Galaxy S24 Ultra now uses titanium. This doesn’t result in any big weight savings, as the phone still weighs in at 233g, but the side rails do have a matte texture and one of two grey colors which don’t change between the core color variants.

Other specs are as you’d probably expect. A 5,000 mAh battery that charges “up to 65% in 30 minutes” with a 45W wired brick, or at up to 15W with wireless charging. There’s no Qi2 here.

Cameras are most unchanged, with a 200MP primary camera, 12MP ultrawide camera, 12MP front-facing camera, and a 10MP 3x telephoto camera. The only change is to the other telephoto shooter, which is now using a 50MP sensor and a 5x zoom lens, down from 10x on the past few “Ultra” releases. Samsung claims that zoom will be better, though, using new AI enhancements, and that it will be better in low-light with a 60% larger pixel size versus the Galaxy S23 Ultra.

All variants of Galaxy S24 Ultra have 12GB of RAM paired with either 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB of storage, and the whole package is powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. The phone also runs Android 14 with One UI 6.1 out of the box.

And, on the software front, AI is a huge focus for Samsung. There are several AI features being added including to Samsung Notes, to the keyboard for messaging apps, and to the Gallery app. Samsung has also partnered with Google for a new “Circle to Search” feature.

The other big news in software is that Samsung is matching Google’s promise of 7 years of security and Android updates for the Galaxy S24 series.

The Galaxy S24 Ultra comes at a higher cost, though. Samsung is raising the starting price to $1,299, up $100 from the previous generation. That’s still considerably less than the starting price of 2020’s Galaxy S20 Ultra which retailed for $1,399, but it’s not cheap. During pre-orders, though, Samsung is offering doubled storage (512GB for the price of 256GB and so on) and you can score an additional $50 off using our exclusive links, and you can get $750 in trade-in value. Best Buy is offering similar deals with doubled storage as well as a $150 gift card with your pre-order.

Pre-orders are open today and shipping begins later this month. Four colors will be available everywhere – gray, black, violet, and yellow – with three more – blue, green, and orange – exclusive to Samsung.com with a darker titanium rail.