- Samsung Galaxy S24
- Samsung Galaxy S24+
Briefly
The Galaxy S24+ is a sleek, smaller-than-average smartphone. Compared to its predecessor, it is also a little cheaper. The screen is super bright and has excellent color adjustment. The software has a series of AI functions as a nice addition, but in our opinion that’s not the reason to choose the S24; It may be a very long update promise of seven years. The device has the same camera hardware as previous generations. For a small device, the camera setup is fairly extensive, although there is no macro function. The images are a little sharper than the S23 series. We also appreciated the above-average front camera and comprehensive camera app. The S24 has a Samsung Exynos 2400 SoC, which performs well, but it’s no better than the competition. The modem also doesn’t seem very economical, as we measured much less browsing time on the 5G network than on WiFi. In this scenario, the S24 has a shorter battery life than its predecessor, although its working time on WiFi is very good.
Briefly
The Galaxy S24+ is a stylish smartphone with excellent features across the board. Compared to its predecessor, it is also a little cheaper. The screen is super bright, has excellent color adjustment and high resolution. The software has a series of AI functions as a nice addition, but in our opinion that’s not the reason to choose the S24+; It may be a very long update promise of seven years. The device has the same camera hardware as previous generations. In this price segment there are devices with greater zoom and macro function. Meanwhile, the images are not bad, and are a little sharper than the S23 series. We also appreciated the above-average front camera and comprehensive camera app. The S24+ has a Samsung Exynos 2400 SoC, which performs well, but isn’t better than the competition. The modem also doesn’t seem very economical, as we measured much less browsing time on the 5G network than on WiFi. The S24+ still has good to excellent battery life.
Samsung traditionally opens the new year of smartphones by announcing its top new Galaxy S models. Hardware seems to change less and less year after year. At least with the Galaxy S24 Ultra, Samsung can still showcase the new titanium casing; On the other hand, the top “junior” models Galaxy S24 and S24+, which are the subject of this review, look almost the same as the S23 and S23+ from last year.
The Korean smartphone maker also seems to realize that the devices don’t have enough new to attract attention. So the presentation of new smartphones was mainly about new software, especially coastal intelligence. You can use it to make phone calls in another language, improve your chat message writing and adjust your photos. Samsung has combined all these new AI features, and some existing ones, under the “Galaxy AI” brand name, which should serve as the main argument to lure owners of older devices into stores.
Back to Exynos
The fact that the appearance of the Galaxy S24 and S24+ has not changed much does not mean, of course, that nothing has been updated on the inside. For example, the devices have better displays with higher brightness, as well as a larger battery. The S24+ has more RAM than its predecessor. It’s also nice that the prices, which rose sharply for the S23 series, have dropped slightly for the S24 devices. At launch, the S24 will cost at least €899 and the S24+ from €1,149, both €50 less than their predecessors at the same time last year.
The change that causes the most sensation is the new SoC that forms the heart of the device. Last year, Samsung switched with great fanfare from the Exynos SoC to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 that is also used in several other smartphones with the S23 series, but the European versions of the Galaxy S24 and S24+ once again have a proprietary processor: the Exynos 2400. Remarkably, Consider that the Galaxy S24 Ultra has the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.
The fact that Samsung reserves its own SoC for its “junior” top models does not bode well for performance compared to its Snapdragon counterpart. Trust in Exynos has already dropped to zero, if we can believe the average comments section on Tweakers or elsewhere. There have been Snapdragon and Exynos variants in Samsung’s top models for more than a decade, and devices with their own chips have often performed worse than the Snapdragon model in recent years: lower test scores and lower efficiency, which translates into more heat production and shorter turnaround time. . Battery life. What doesn’t help in this context are experiments with Google Pixel phones, which in recent years have been equipped with Google’s Tensor SoCs, which is actually a modified design from Samsung with additional AI features. Many of the above complaints also occur with these devices.
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