Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra vs Galaxy S23 Ultra: Evolution is a slow process

Well, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is now official, proudly waving its titanium design in our faces. Succeeding the Galaxy S23 Ultra is a pure Android flagship phone that heavily relies on AI and comes with a faster processor, much brighter and finally flat screen, a different camera setup, and finally, higher price. 

But should you consider upgrading from the Galaxy S23 Ultra? If cooler heads prevail, you'd probably be wise to hold off on upgrading, as the differences in-between such close device generations are not that big. And yet, who's to say the Galaxy S24 Ultra wouldn't be the hottest commodity on the market come 2024? 

Let's see how the new Galaxy S24 Ultra stacks up against the older but still perfectly capable Galaxy S23 Ultra:

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The 256GB Galaxy S23 Ultra in Green is available at Amazon. The device is currently $150 cheaper at the merchant. The same discount is available on the Cream paintjob.

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With the Galaxy S24 Ultra, Samsung keeps same general design language as the Galaxy S23 Ultra, but ditches aluminum in favor of titanium, the premium new material to grace super high-end phones. The display on the Galaxy S24 Ultra is now completely flat, whereas the one on the Galaxy S23 Ultra has a very slight curve to the extreme sides: the Galaxy S24 Ultra is therefore more utilitarian. 

Both phones feel excellent in the hand, with the Galaxy S24 Ultra providing a bit more grip thanks to the brushed titanium frame. Yet, let's face it: you'll slap a case on it, so doesn't really matter. 

 

There is still an S Pen on the Galaxy S24 Ultra, but there isn't anything new in terms of features in comparison with the Galaxy S23 Ultra. Speaking of features that persist, the IP68 water- and dust-resistance is here to stay.

The Galaxy S24 Ultra colors are Titanium Yellow, Titanium Violet, Titanium Black, and Titanium Gray; the intriguing Titanium Orange, Titanium Green, and Titanium Blue are exclusive to the Samsung.com store. Meanwhile, the Galaxy S23 Ultra is available in Lavender, Cream, Phantom Black, and Green; there are a few more Galaxy S23 Ultra colors exclusively available on Samsung.com.

The Galaxy S24 Ultra doesn't change the essential display specs and comes with the same 6.8-inch LTPO OLED display with a dynamically switching 1-120Hz refresh rate. This makes its screen smooth, vibrant, and gorgeous. In all honesty, the Galaxy S23 Ultra isn't that much different, but it has a slight drawback.

The Galaxy S24 Ultra's display can achieve the super-high peak brightness of 2,600 nits. After two years of mostly staying one step behind most of the competition when it comes to maximum display brightness, Samsung finally joins the eye-scorching club. 

This would make the Galaxy S24 Ultra a phone that's perfectly legible in even the brightest environments. It's yet another top Android phone that employs superb peak brightness, just like the OnePlus 12 and the Google Pixel 8 Pro. 

In our display tests, the Galaxy S24 Ultra fares much better than the Galaxy S23 Ultra, achieving higher maximum brightness as well as better default color accuracy. The lower reflectivity of the Gorilla Glass Armor also does an outstanding job at keeping those pesky reflections away. This is especially helpful under direct sunlight, elevating screen legibility to the next level.

No changes in the biometrics department: an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner built into the display is the main biometrics unlocking mechanism of choice on the Galaxy S24 Ultra. Face unlock is also on deck, so generally, no changes in comparison with the Galaxy S23 Ultra.

Unlike the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy in all regions around the globe (the smaller phones only have this one in the US).

Just like the S23 Ultra's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy chip, which was a slightly spiced-up version chip that most other Android flagships got, the Galaxy S24 Ultra gets a slightly better Snapdragon from the get-go as well.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy is an octa-core affair consisting of a prime Cortex-X4 core running at 3.3GHz, triple high-performance Cortex-A720 3.15GHz cores, dual Cortex-A720 clocked at 2.96GHz, and two efficiency Cortex-A520 cores that hum at 2.27GHz. The chipset will boast the Adreno 750 GPU, which is much faster than the one on the previous Snapdragon generation. Samsung boasts a much better performance in ray-traced graphics, as well as optimization for some of the most popular mobile games out there, good news for gamers worldwide.

In our benchmark tests, the Galaxy S24 Ultra totally dominates its predecessor in both Geekbench 6 and 3DMark Extreme. In real life, however, both phones feel quite snappy, so you might not notice such a large difference between the two devices. 

In terms of storage and RAM, the Galaxy S24 Ultra comes with 12GB of RAM in all 256, 512GB, and 1TB storage versions. At the same time, the Galaxy S23 Ultra was available with 8GB of RAM in its most basic version, but also came with 12GB of RAM in the 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB storage tiers. 

Software-wise, the Galaxy S24 Ultra will likely come with One UI 6 based on Android 14, and will be supported for the massive amount of 7 years! This is huge, as it means you will be able to use your next Galaxy until the end of the decade and beyond if you wish so! 

Samsung made some radical changes to the camera setup on the back of the Galaxy S24 Ultra. It got rid of the 10X periscope and instead opted for a 5X telephoto camera with significantly improved resolution, enabling optical-grade zoom up to 10X. This is a departure from most previous Galaxy Ultra phones, where the 10X periscope camera was the standout feature delivering 100X Space Zoom. As luck would have it, the Galaxy S24 Ultra's 50MP telephoto still supports 100X Space Zoom.

The main camera on the Galaxy S24 Ultra sticks to 200MP, but boasts more capable software supercharged by AI. Samsung boasts much greater low-light capabilities (Nightography) on the Galaxy S24 Ultra, for example. 

There's also a plethora of AI features that aim to make the Galaxy S24 Ultra camera experience better than before. Some of these include Magic Eraser, Generative Edits, and improved remaster are coming to the Galaxy S24 Ultra. You can also remove reflections from photos with the power of on-device Galaxy AI. 

As a refresher, the Galaxy S23 Ultra came with a 200MP F1.7 main camera, a 10MP 3X F2.4 telephoto, a 10MP 10X F4.9 periscope, and a 12MP ultra-wide camera, along with a 12MP front-facing camera. 

As far as image quality goes, we have some preliminary camera samples taken with both the Galaxy S24 Ultra and the Galaxy S23 Ultra. These are just to give you a general idea of what each phone is capable of.

Main Camera - Day

With the Galaxy S24 Ultra, Samsung is toning down the image processing in comparison with last year's Galaxy S23 Ultra. We can observe a much more natural image processing on the newer phone, with a more natural color rendition as well as less sharpening. 

Compared with that, the Galaxy S23 Ultra looks overdone and a bit too much, all things considered, but if over-sharpened details and boosted colors are your thing, there's nothing wrong with liking how the Galaxy S23 Ultra camera produce looks.

Main Camera - Low-light

In low-light conditions, we can see that the Galaxy S24 Ultra and the Galaxy S23 Ultra perform mostly the same. 

Zoom Quality

In good daylight, both the Galaxy S24 Ultra and Galaxy S23 Ultra perform similarly when it comes to zooming. Surprisingly, 10X looks equally good on both the new and the old phone, so one should totally not mourn the lack of a 10X dedicated periscope. Using the 50MP 5X telephoto seems to deliver mostly similar results, which is great. 

The same can be observed at nighttime. One can see some slight differences here and there, but those could be attributed to the marginal differences in taking the sample photos with each device.

Ultra-wide Camera

Selfies

If you're one that occasionally dabbles with selfies, then you won't really be disappointed with either, as both the Galaxy S24 Ultra and the Galaxy S23 Ultra are more than capable of capturing a superb selfie. 

Both phones capture excellent video. Colors, dynamics, and sharpness are exceptional; both are also quite competent and can zoom up to 10X during video recording at 4K@30fps. The Galaxy S24 Ultra does a slightly better job at exposing the scene and delivers better dynamics. That's especially true for the Galaxy S24 Ultra at night, which is noticeably better. The Galaxy S23 Ultra still does an outstanding job as well. 

Like the Galaxy S23 Ultra, Samsung's next flagship phone employs a dual speaker configuration. If it's anything like its predecessor, we'd be happy campers, as the Galaxy S23 Ultra is one of the better-sounding flagships of 2023, so our hopes for the Galaxy S24 Ultra are quite high. The same applies to the haptic feedback as well: Samsung has nailed the accurate vibrations, which enrich the premium flagship experience. 

If you've been hoping that Samsung could have pulled out a magic wand and magically enlarged the Galaxy S24 Ultra's battery to larger proportions, then you're out of luck. There's a 5,000mAh battery making the rounds on the newest Galaxy flagship, which is just as much as the battery on the Galaxy S23 Ultra. Thus, don't expect the Galaxy S24 Ultra to last considerably longer than the Galaxy S23 Ultra, which isn't a bad thing at all: the latter isn't too shabby when it comes to battery endurance. 

In our custom browsing benchmark test, which has us replicate a regular browsing experience with the screen set at 200 nits, the Galaxy S23 Ultra surprisingly comes on top of its successor with a slightly better result. However, in our custom video playback test, the Galaxy S24 Ultra successfully regains some lost ground.

Charging-wise, Samsung sticks to 45W wired charging and 15W wireless charging, as well as reverse wireless charging that can top up your Galaxy Watch or earbuds. We didn't get a boost in charging speeds, but then again, we didn't expect to score one either, so it's mostly all good. You don't get a charger in the box of either phone, too. 

Below, you will find a brief summary of the Galaxy S23 Ultra vs Galaxy S24 Ultra specs: 

When it comes to breaking the existing state of affairs, the Galaxy S24 Ultra might not be it. The latest Samsung phone touches upon the more important pillars of a great smartphone experience, delivering improved performance, a brighter display, and a camera experience enhanced by AI. However, the core essence of the large S Pen-wielding Samsung flagship remains largely unchanged. 

And that's fine: the Galaxy S23 Ultra is easily one of the best phones you could get in 2023, so if the Galaxy S24 Ultra further improves on that, everybody wins. There's slim chance that the Galaxy S24 Ultra won't be another slam-dunk success.