Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra vs S23 Ultra: The 3 BIGGEST Changes
If you have an Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, you may be wondering if you should upgrade and in my personal opinion, I believe you should keep a phone til it’s no longer receiving security updates. But there are a few nifty new specs of the S24 Ultra and if you have the opportunity to get an upgraded phone maybe through your carrier contract, then these are the features that you’ll see changed between the two.
I won’t be mentioning anything that hasn’t had a major change - so if you want to see a full review of the S24 Ultra with all the in depth analysis, make sure to subscribe.
First, these phones are almost twins in terms of design - they’re very close in size with the S24 Ultra being just slightly taller and the camera lenses on the rear have moved down slightly. My S23 Ultra case can fit on the new 24 but hits right against the bottom of the lowest lens.
Obviously the colorways have changed. I 100% prefer the lavender colorway of the 23 ultra, as you can see, I buy cases that are semi-transparent, so I like having a phone that compliments my colorful aesthetic. The matte finish of the new titanium frame definitely doesn’t pick up scratches as much as my older shiny aluminum frame did.
And while the phone is still Gorilla Glass Victus 2, the screen is Gorilla Armor on the new phone. This supposedly will keep it from getting as scratched up, and it also reduces glare and reflections but if you’re super used to the vivid, striking colors of the s23 line, you’ll notice the s24 ultra looks a little bit muted - just a tiny bit. It’s not as vibrant, even with the correct settings enabled or disabled for a vivid display. The new one is a lot easier to see in sunlight though, for sure, because of the lack of reflections and the higher nits brightness - we got snow, it’s really bright outside right now, so really obvious. And if you like having a flat display, you’d probably want to choose the new s24 Ultra over the s23 ultra, which had a curvature.
There are some upgrades to support - Samsung will now support the phone for 7 years of OS updates, same for security, compared to the 4 years of OS updates and 5 years of security updates on the S23 models. That was a biiiig deal to us security and privacy nerds. Will your phone last 7 years? Well, TBD.
We have a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in this S24 Ultra, 12 GB RAM no matter which storage size ya get. I’m getting some good gaming in with the new S24 Ultra, and so far I’m liking what I see but do need to test further. This slit thing in the bottom is one of the dual speakers. It does sound better than the previous model, but it’s a minor upgrade.
I have an affiliate link for Samsung phones down below, and the S23 Ultra is still a great phone to pick up and it’s on sale - so if you wanna grab one at a discount, click that link, which also helps the channel. And if ya ain’t buyin’ anything, you’re just here to hang out with me, thanks for being here, and you can ALSO help by subscribing! That’s it! Thanks for the support!
The software and AI will make your photos look a little different on the new model, but the hardware is mostly the same for the lenses except for the periscope lens which is now a 50MP f3.4 with 5x zoom. I noticed that even though the new phone has less optical zoom, the resolution is higher, so the photos from far away look sharper. So no, I don’t consider it a downgrade, I do think this camera does a better job. The aperture is wider too - that means it’s letting more light into the sensor - so it’ll look better in dark settings when you use the zoom.
4K 120p in pro or slo mode is new. That’s cool but WOO that’ll take up a ton of space.
The new AI editing tool is funny but I might find some useful ways to work with it. This isn’t available in the older model.
There are some other new AI features in the S24 Ultra that might come to the older model but it depends on if it requires the new Snapdragon chipset or not. I’ll go into more detail with these in my full review. This includes a live translate while in a call, browsing assist in the samsung browser can summarize or translate, Circle to Search is pretty dope and as a vintage toy collector, I’m gonna use this all the time to find old Sailor Moon toys.
If you do want to see a little tutorial on how all those AI settings work and some really important settings you’ll need to change if you’re concerned about privacy, then definitely subscribe because I’m writing videos about that too. Also this video isn’t sponsored, I purchased this S24 Ultra, though I do have a loaner from Samsung I’m using for my reviews, so if you want to support the channel you totally can and you get perks when you do so like early access to these videos and a special discord server. But of course, just liking, commenting, and subscribing is totally free and always appreciated.
The standard MSRP price of the new model did increase over the original cost of the S23 Ultra, so that is a con. Overall, there are some improvements, but minor, minor upgrades. So if you’re choosing between the two, the biggest features that would make me decide on an S24 Ultra are the longer support time, AI features, and the brighter, less reflective screen.
Affiliate links:
Galaxy S24 Ultra 512GB Titanium Gray - https://howl.me/clrskW2VrdF
Galaxy S23 Ultra, 512GB (Unlocked) - https://howl.me/clAMYGJHxxg
