It’s been over a year now since the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra came out and used particularly as my daily driver around that same period. At the time it had a price tag of $1300 and that is without any trade-ins. Is it a great phone to have now in 2025, especially with its successor the Galaxy S25 Ultra available?
Style
To be real this is the first “S” model I have used since the Galaxy S10+ back in 2019. Interestingly that was the last series before they added the “Ultra” model and jumped from S10 to S20 in terms of model numbers.
The Galaxy S24 Ultra featured a 6.8” Dynamic AMOLED 2x Display with 120Hz refresh rate, 505ppi, and can reach 2600+ nits of peak brightness. This display utilizes Corning Gorilla Armor and dubs as an anti-scratch resistant material and has anti-glare coating. Because of this anti-glare coating I never put on a screen protector which I always do. After using this phone for close to a year with many drops with it, there are no scratches to be shown on the display. I found this to be one of the most impressive things on this phone or frankly I have ever used.
Hardware
It packs serious power with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor and Adreno 750 GPU. As for storage, this model has 256GB and 12GB RAM but there is also 512GB and 1TB storage capacities as well. This was all accompanied by a 5,000mAh battery capable of 45W wired charging and 15W wireless. I found using this daily for a variety of tasks and including gaming on it, the battery held up nicely. I don’t recall the phone ever overheating or slowing down or time either even up to today as I write this. Sound quality on the speakers was stellar with them being in stereo and tuned by AKG.
OneUI
Currently the Galaxy S24 Ultra is available with OneUI 6. It features Galaxy AI giving you the ability to do things like Circle to Search, translate phone calls, take better notes, generate wallpapers, and edit photos better than ever. You can for instance go to a photo and have the ability to erase shadows or reflections as shown or even enhance photos with Before and After slider.
Navigating the S24 Ultra has been pleasant and the interface should be easy for anything to adapt to. It does great multitasking if you need to have two windows up at once. You can have them at top and bottom or overlap multiple windows. It can get messy, but it’s still cool even making one translucent.
Samsung does plan on releasing OneUI 7 to this device and others in the future.
Cameras
This phone is equipped with enough cameras to get any scenario in the best way possible. It’s loaded with four lenses ranging from 200MP (wide), 50MP (periscope telephoto), 12MP(Ultrawide), and 10MP(Telephoto). On the front the selfie camera was 12MP. Both sides can shoot 4K with the back also capable of 8K video recording if needed. Zoom is king with this camera. It has an optical zoom of 3x and 5x allowing you to get closer to your subject w/o losing much detail. You can also achieve this going 10x thanks to its Adaptive Pixel Sensor. Also, digital zoom goes up to 100x. I would have so much fun zooming in on helicopters, buildings, etc.
This camera held up nicely capturing photos under low light settings. It even recorded videos at some of the loudest of concerts, focusing on its target clearly while still providing optimal sound. I will say I didn’t take too many selfies with it.
Also I have a comparsion of the Samsung Galaxy S24 vs OnePlus 12 HERE talking about the camera and more photos
Everyday Usage
I found myself enjoying the S24 Ultra more than I expected. I have used Galaxy phones over the years like the Z models such the Folds and occasional Flip, but I was drawn to the S24 Ultra being my day to day. It did a respectable job managing battery life with apps and rarely did I have one crash being quite sufficient. With its large display I could enjoy hours of consuming content on it whether it was on a long cross-country flight or on my daily train commutes. Even with it being a tall phone I have found it not wide like foldables I used and it’s easy to slide into my pockets.
Verdict
Even with this phone now discontinued and has a successor with it being the Galaxy S25 Ultra, it’s still a great device even after a year of daily use. It’s a great day to day and if you find the Galaxy S25 Ultra to be expensive you can find some nice deals on this phone if you don’t need the newest or new. Samsung states it would offer years of updates which is great.
You can check out my unboxing of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra on TikTok / Instagram
Also I have a comparsion of the Samsung Galaxy S24 vs OnePlus 12 HERE
