Samsung's Galaxy S23 series was a success any way you measure it. From the improved sales numbers to the improved experience over the S22, Samsung really knocked it out of the park in 2023.
So how about the company's 2024 entry, the Galaxy S24 series? We'd be surprised if Samsung took any steps backward, but improvement last year doesn't mean there isn't room for even more improvement this year.
From bigger batteries to faster charging, better camera zoom detail, and even more RAM, Samsung looks to be pushing the envelope once again with the Galaxy S24, likely earning a stop atop the best Android phone list when it's scheduled to arrive in early 2024.
Samsung Galaxy S24: Price and availability
Samsung has held prices of the Galaxy S series fairly consistent for the past few years and we don't expect much to change there. With the Galaxy S23 FE rumored to debut sometime in the coming months as the affordable Galaxy S flagship experience, it makes perfect sense for Samsung to continue to offer the Galaxy S24 at the same prices as the Galaxy S23.
More specifically, we'd be surprised if the Galaxy S24 debuted at anything more or less expensive than $799. Likewise, the Galaxy S24 Plus is expected to be $999, while the Galaxy S24 Ultra should debut at $1,199.
The only caveat here is that Qualcomm's latest processors are rumored to cost more and Samsung may have to pass that extra cost onto customers if it can't cut a deal with Qualcomm.
For many years now, Samsung has used the gap between two monster electronics trade shows, CES and MWC, to put its latest Galaxy S phones in the spotlight. As such, we fully expect Samsung to debut the Galaxy S24, Galaxy S24 Plus, and Galaxy S24 Ultra sometime in the first two weeks of February 2024.
Historically, the next Galaxy S phones are available roughly 2-3 weeks after being announced which usually happens near the end of February. Some years we saw this happen in March but there are no obvious production issues that we've heard of that would delay the phones any further than that.
Samsung Galaxy S24: Design and displays
Just as the price and release date won't likely be very surprising, we also expect very few changes with the series' design or display types. Samsung marked 2023 as the year its phones got incredibly boring designs, ensuring that the most expensive phones look nearly identical to its cheapest phones in many ways.
There's always the possibility that Samsung will offer the Galaxy S24 in more interesting colors but little likelihood that we'll see a major change in design this year.
Initial rumors suggested that Samsung would be dropping the middle Galaxy S24 Plus model after years of poor sales relative to the smaller and Ultra models. The Galaxy S22 Plus, for instance, only accounted for about 17% of the total number of Galaxy S22 units sold.
Word now is that Samsung will continue production of the Plus model for now but that could change in future years. After all, Apple sells four models of iPhone each year with an additional SE model every so often, so why shouldn't Samsung?
The Galaxy S24 and S24 Plus are said to sport LTPO OLED displays this time around, bringing them up to par with the Ultra model.
And while the designs and sizes of the phones aren't expected to change, it looks like Samsung will be bringing some of its Ultra display tricks down to the other two models this coming year.
The Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus are rumored to get LTPO displays. LTPO technology allows a phone to scale the refresh rate dynamically between several different refresh rates, helping to improve battery life.
Samsung Galaxy S24: Cameras
Next year looks to be another snoozer for the Galaxy S24 and S24 Plus cameras, with rumors suggesting that we'll see no big changes or improvements with these models. But the Galaxy S24 Ultra is apparently changing things up in a big way.
For the past three years, Samsung's Galaxy S Ultra model fit four cameras on the back: a main camera, an ultrawide camera, a 3x telephoto camera, and a 10x telephoto camera.
The telephoto sensor is said to be jumping from 10mp to 50mp on the S24 Ultra.
The Galaxy S24 Ultra is said to bring the number of sensors down to just three: a main sensor, ultrawide sensor, and telephoto sensor. This could leave room for larger sensors for both the ultrawide and telephoto cameras, as those camera sensors have traditionally been smaller than the main sensor.
Increasing the sensor size would enable Samsung to utilize better digital zoom for those situations where you're not quite zooming in 3x or are in-between 3x and 10x. To be more specific, Samsung is rumored to upgrade that telephoto sensor from 10mp on the Galaxy S23 Ultra to 50mp on the Galaxy S24 Ultra.
Additionally, Samsung looks to be changing up how the zoom lens works, although we're not yet sure what they have decided on. The most recent leaks suggest that the newly improved 50mp sensor will be behind a 3x telephoto lens — giving it the ability to zoom in to 5x without detail loss.
Samsung could be removing the extra telephoto lens in favor of a continuous-zoom lens capable of 3-10x mechanized zooming.
Other leaks suggest that Samsung will be using a continuous-zoom lens for its telephoto camera. This would use a mechanized zoom lens somewhat similar to a DSLR camera to optically zoom between 3-10x.
This wouldn't be the first time Samsung opted to use a mechanized lens on its smartphones. Samsung previously used something similar in the Galaxy S9 and S10 when it introduced variable aperture but didn't continue using the feature in future models.
Other rumors even suggest that Samsung could use that new 50mp telephoto sensor behind the 3x lens and stick the old 10mp sensor behind the 10x lens. While we're not sure which decision Samsung will make yet, it's clear the company is looking to further improve the Galaxy S Ultra's already class-leading zoom levels.
The main 200mp sensor looks to be also seeing a slight upgrade this year thanks to a new sensor. The Galaxy S23 Ultra debuted the ISOCELL HP2 sensor and the Galaxy S24 Ultra is said to replace that with an ISOCELL HP2SX sensor.
While both sensors feature the same specs on paper — that's 200mp resolution, 0.6μm pixel size, and a 1/1.3" sensor size — new sensors often employ new and better ways of getting the same old tasks done. For instance, the Google Pixel 8 is said to be using a new ISOCELL GN2 sensor that keeps the same resolution as the Pixel 7 but uses staggered HDR to improve the phone's photo quality.
We haven't heard about specific new tricks up Samsung's sleeve with this new sensor but, undoubtedly, they'll have something brewing.
Samsung Galaxy S24: Specs and performance
Samsung launched the Galaxy S23 line worldwide with Qualcomm Snapdragon processors for the first time in nearly a decade. Typically, Samsung would release different models in different regions of the world, some of which would contain Samsung's own Exynos processors.
Rumor has it that Samsung will go back to this strategy much to the chagrin of users worldwide.
Further breaking this down, a recent rumor shows that Samsung's Exynos 2400 will power the European models of the Galaxy S24 family. This processor will utilize a deca-core configuration with a main Cortex-X4 core at a 3.19GHz maximum clock speed.
Another cluster will reportedly consist of a pair of Cortex-A720 cores at 2.9Ghz, three Cortex-A720 cores at 2.6GHz, and a final four Cortex-A520 cores at 1.95GHz.
Exynos processors typically underperform Snapdragon processors and often have issues with thermal management, making phones hotter and reducing performance when playing games for long periods of time. Hopefully, for European Samsung fans, Samsung Semiconductor will have used the extra year in development to iron out these problems.
For the regions that do get Snapdragon processors, it looks like Samsung will indeed go with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 which is said to be up to 25% faster and even more power efficient than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 inside the Galaxy S23 series.
Samsung is, unfortunately, rumored to use Exynos processors in Europe while the rest of the world gets Snapdragon processors.
But, no matter which model is available to you, Samsung is reportedly working on battery upgrades for its phones, and it's about time, too. These new stacked batteries are said to be designed similarly to electric vehicle batteries and could offer bigger capacity and faster charging.
While the rumor doesn't say the S24 Ultra or smaller S24 will have a bigger battery, it does note that the S24 Plus will be using the same battery as the S24 Ultra. That's a 300mAh upgrade from the S23 Plus.
Additionally, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is said to have up to 65W charging with this new battery tech. Samsung's previous 45W charging "upgrade" was a bit of a bust as it only improved overall charging speeds by about 9 minutes despite nearly doubling the wattage input. Hopefully, this new charging speed is a better upgrade.
The S24 Ultra could see a charging speed upgrade to 65W, and the S24 Plus is rumored to get a battery size increase.
Lastly, it looks like Samsung may upgrade the amount of RAM in all three Galaxy S24 models. The Galaxy S24 and S24 Plus are rumored to pack in 12GB of RAM — that's 50% more RAM than the S23 — while the Galaxy S24 Ultra should see an upgrade to 16GB of RAM.
It's not likely that everyday users will see much of a change with this RAM boost but power users will certainly see some multitasking improvements.
Samsung Galaxy S24: Wishlist
From what we can tell, Samsung looks to be fulfilling quite a bit of our Galaxy S24 wishlist already, but it's certainly worth noting our expectations, regardless.
Every year, we like to take a look at phones and break them down by components, taking into account what technologies are in development and what are already being used by the competition. If we were to assemble our own dream Galaxy S24 line, here are the changes that would include over the Galaxy S23.
More interesting design
This year, many of us lamented the extremely boring design Samsung used on all of its 2023 phones. Samsung didn't just go for a simple, unified design with its products. It went with something so generic it's impossible to tell that Samsung even made it!
With the Galaxy S24, we'd love to see Samsung return to the more interesting and beautiful design language of the Galaxy S21 series. Those phones featured a gorgeous dual-tone color scheme and far more interesting, unique designs that were immediately identifiable.
In a world of black mirrors in everyone's palms, why wouldn't you as a company want your phone to truly stand out? Google did it with the Pixel series, and we think Samsung could pull this off, too.
Bigger battery on the small S24
It's no secret that even the best small phones get the shaft when it comes to specs. But there's no reason to keep putting such tiny batteries in smaller phones, especially when everyone is just going to slap a case on their phone the moment they unbox it.
Manufacturers like Asus recognized this and put a giant battery in the Zenfone 10 and it makes that phone much, much nicer to use on a daily basis. Samsung needs to stop worrying about how thin its phones are and just focus on ensuring that battery life is what users expect.
Faster charging
Rumor has it that Samsung will introduce 65W charging with this year's Galaxy S24 Ultra, but what about the rest of the models? At this point, Samsung is one of the only companies still using slow 25W charging and it really sucks for those times when you need to top up the battery.
Samsung's previous 45W "upgrade" also wasn't much of an upgrade as it throttled the wattage the second the phone got lukewarm. Samsung is clearly still haunted by the Note 7 tragedy and seems content with stagnation on its phone batteries instead of giving users what they want.
Reduced flicker displays
As more and more phones utilize flickering OLED displays, more and more people are starting to get headaches, eye aches, feel nauseous, and generally just have a bad time with Samsung phones.
Instead of just worrying about refresh rates and brightness levels, I'd love to see Samsung take into account the number of users it has alienated by switching all of its phones to flickering displays.
Companies like Motorola offer reduced-flicker OLED displays on phones like the Motorola Edge Plus (2023) and Samsung absolutely can to. The question is, do they care enough to add an accessibility option in for affected users?
