Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra review: bright screen, anti-glare, Circle to Search, great camera, and seven years of updates, but pricey, heavy, and AI is a mixed bag
The Galaxy S24 Ultra is packed with top-tier hardware, but its highly touted AI features are hit-or-miss — and the price is higher than ever.
Context & Ripple Effects
Samsung’s Ultra line had already established a premium formula around display, camera and performance, as reflected in the S23 Ultra’s camera, display and battery strengths. The S24 Ultra extends that formula with a much longer update commitment while asking buyers to absorb a higher price and substantial device weight.
AI is the meaningful new layer, but the evidence is uneven: an earlier hands-on found Circle to Search convenient while other AI tools lagged or gave unreliable results. That makes feature usefulness, rather than AI branding alone, central to the product’s value proposition.
First-order effects
- Samsung can position the S24 Ultra around hardware quality and seven years of updates, but its higher price and weight narrow the audience most likely to accept that trade-off.
- Buyers get Circle to Search and other AI tools immediately, yet inconsistent results mean those features are not a dependable standalone reason to pay for the device.
Second-order effects
- Rival premium-phone makers face added pressure to pair flagship hardware with longer software-support windows, not merely annual camera and processor upgrades.
- Samsung’s AI messaging will be judged against task-level reliability: useful search interactions can strengthen differentiation, while weaker tools may make premium pricing harder to defend.
Third-order effects
- If long update commitments become standard in premium phones, upgrade decisions may shift further toward durable hardware improvements and demonstrably useful software rather than yearly spec refreshes.
- On-device AI is likely to become a distribution battle across installed smartphones, but sustained advantage will depend on whether features consistently solve common tasks.
The trend: Premium smartphones are evolving from annual hardware showcases into long-lived software platforms where AI must prove everyday utility.