The brand new Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra incorporates a flat display, making for a subtle change that is a nicer canvas for the S Pen stylus. — Bloomberg
With the world in the grips of generative artificial intelligence, it’s no surprise that the top Android smartphone maker has chosen to enhance its flagship devices with cutting-edge AI technology.
Dubbed Galaxy AI, it breathes new life into its smartphones, offering features you probably never thought possible at your fingertips.
To begin, let’s look at something as straightforward as generative wallpapers that let you create your own personalised backdrops.
For example, you could ask the AI to create a wallpaper featuring robots or hot air balloons in a jungle using the avant-garde style. While the options are limited – I’ve encountered no more than three – you get out-of-this-world images that you can call your own.
Taking it a step up, manipulating images becomes a breeze with AI, allowing you to effortlessly eliminate, move or resize objects by just pressing on them, which will make the AI outline the object.
With the S24 Ultra, you could ask the AI to create a wallpaper featuring robots or hot air balloons in a jungle using the avant-garde style. — Samsung
This tool is handy for those times when an unexpected photobomber spoils what would have been the perfect shot.
However, the results are not always picture perfect – if the AI lacks sufficient information to fill the void left by the removed person or object, it’s essentially an educated guess at best.
Moving on, if you have dreamt of directing like John Woo, try tapping and holding down any section of a video clip to create a slow-mo effect.
The AI achieves the effect through interpolation, inserting extra frames to decelerate the video.
It’s fun, it’s easy and it’s quick, but it can get glitchy, as not all segments may transition seamlessly, but, hey, it might work great for social media.
Circle to Search with Google lets you identify items, be they on a photo, video or basically anything on the screen. — Samsung
Then there is Circle to Search with Google, which lets you identify items, be they on a photo, video or basically anything on the screen.
All it takes is pressing down on the home button, which will appear as a line at the bottom if you are using swipe gestures for the navigation bar, and circling the object to initiate a Google image search on it.
The feature is intended for you to help discover more about what you are looking at. I have been experimenting with plant images, as I wish I had better knowledge of the local flora, and it seems to work quite well.
Transcribe and translate
Galaxy AI’s powers extend beyond photos and videos, amplifying any feature that involves text and voice as well.
The Voice Recorder app, for instance, is now able to transcribe audio clips while being able to recognise multiple different people.
Though it could successfully distinguish between the people in the recording, the translation wasn’t always accurate.
After umpteen years, Samsung has moved from a curved screen – something that it pioneered and popularised – back to a flat display for the S24 Ultra. — AFP
The feature works better when there is just one person talking very clearly to the microphone, making it better for taking personal notes.
Once transcribed, or with any text, the AI can not only summarise the note but also format it into headlines and bullets, and it performs this task amazingly well.
On top of that, the AI can translate any text (and voice), currently supporting 13 languages, including English, Mandarin, and Spanish. For some languages, it includes multiple locales – United States and the United Kingdom for English, for example. As of now, it doesn’t support Bahasa Malaysia.
And it gets even more advanced with the Live Translate feature that works in real-time for calls. This feature, available in the native Phone app, is claimed to be able to translate calls into any of the 13 languages, which sounds especially useful when overseas.
And it does this fairly fast and seamlessly – as you talk, it translates the other person’s voice and vice versa. It also displays the translated text and works with any phone, not just the S24 Ultra.
However, while it performed acceptably in certain parts of the conversation, it wasn’t consistent throughout when translating from Mandarin to English, making it a feature that holds the potential to be a game changer in the future.
The real-time text translation was seamless, enabling me to chat effortlessly with a person who messaged me in Chinese on WhatsApp. — Samsung
Conversely, the real-time text translation was seamless, enabling me to chat effortlessly with a person who messaged me in Chinese on WhatsApp.
You can also tailor the tone of your messages using Chat Assist, which provides choices like professional, casual, and even social media styles, complete with emojis and hashtags.
Beautiful, bold and bright
After umpteen years, Samsung has moved from a curved screen – something that it pioneered and popularised – back to a flat display for the S24 Ultra.
Some may not find it sexy, but the change is subtle and is a nicer canvas for the S Pen stylus.
The display is now exceptionally bright, boasting a peak brightness of 2,600 nits, a significant increase from its predecessor’s already bright 1,750 nits.
The bump in brightness makes it one of the most legible phones when outdoors, making competitors pale in comparison.
Galaxy AI breathes new life into Samsung's smartphones, offering features you probably never thought possible at your fingertips. — AP
Additionally, there has been a 75% reduction in glare, which is a very noticeable change that greatly improves the viewability of the display due to reduced reflections.
As with every new model, the screen has received another upgrade in toughness, this time from Gorilla Glass Victus 2 to Armor. Combined with the titanium frame – a first for the Galaxy range – it’s claimed to be Samsung’s most durable smartphone yet.
The cameras, which largely remain the same from the last version, also get a boost from AI.
Compared to the S23 Ultra, which was already excellent, the photos were more detailed in some areas.
Advancing generative AI
What better way to dive into the world of AI than with a smartphone, which you always have by your side?
Though the AI features require refining, they are only likely to improve through software updates, and I, for one, can’t wait to see what’s next.
It’s also commendable that Samsung has adopted a responsible approach, primarily in two ways.
Firstly, for AI functions executed on-device, nothing ever leaves your smartphone, ensuring that your data stays private.
Secondly, every image – even wallpapers – that is altered will bear a watermark, letting others know that they have been manipulated using AI.
The Sandstorm Orange is the author's favourite colour for the S24 Ultra. — Samsung
The S24 Ultra is available in seven colours, with three options exclusive to Samsung.com. My personal favourite is the Sandstorm Orange, which is also a timely choice as Pantone has declared Peachy Fuzz the colour of the year.
However, the smartphone doesn’t come cheap – it starts at RM6,299 for the 256GB model – but this is a device that could last years.
Samsung, for example, has promised seven generations of Android OS upgrades and seven years of security updates.
And it even comes with WiFi 7 at a time when there are hardly any consumer devices with this next-generation wireless tech. In fact, you’ll even find it hard (and expensive) to get your hands on a WiFi 7 router.
All in all, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is all about embracing a future with AI.
SAMSUNG GALAXY S24 ULTRA
PROCESSOR: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy
MEMORY: 12GB RAM
CAMERAS: Back – 200-megapixel wide camera, 12-megapixel ultra-wide camera, 50-megapixel telephoto camera with 5x optical zoom, 10-megapixel telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom; front – 12-megapixel camera
DISPLAY: 6.8in QHD+ (1,440 x 3,120 pixels) at up to 120Hz
DIMENSIONS: 162.3 x 79 x 8.6mm
WEIGHT: 232g
BATTERY: 5,000mAh
RATING: 4 out of 5 stars
PRICE: RM7,799 (1TB), RM6,799 (512GB) and RM6,299 (256GB)
PROS: Boasts an amazing array of AI features; bright display that looks great outdoors; excellent cameras for all occasions; powerful processor tweaked for the Galaxy device; feature-packed; extended software support.
CONS: Some AI features require refining; pricey.
