Samsung Galaxy S24 and S24 Plus Review: Good, Not Great

Samsung unveils three new flagship models in its Galaxy S-series range every year. The standard S-series flagship is typically chosen for its smaller size, while the Ultra model is preferred for its overall might. The Plus model, however, is often overlooked and doesn’t receive as much attention as its siblings. Well, that changes with the Galaxy S24 Plus, which gets some much-needed refinements that don’t just set it apart from the Galaxy S24 but also help bridge the gap to the Galaxy S24 Ultra. 

Although there’s still room for improvement, the Galaxy S24 and the Galaxy S24 Plus are highly capable smartphones that get most things right. I spent some time with the flagships, and here’s everything I liked and disliked about Samsung’s latest.

Note: Our review units are powered by the Exynos 2400 SoC.

Design

For the most part, Samsung has adopted the ‘if it ain’t broke’ philosophy when designing the Galaxy S24 and the Galaxy S24 Plus. To that end, the smartphones look remarkably similar to their predecessors, and from the vertically stacked camera array to the rounded-off edges, you can tell that the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. 

That said, both devices are slightly taller, which can be attributed to the use of bigger screens. Additionally, both smartphones trade their predecessors’ curvy frame in lieu of a flat, iPhone-esque shell, which looks fantastic, to say the least. You may not share my opinion, as everyone’s preference for phone design varies. But I find it easier to hold phones with a flat frame. 

So much so that I could comfortably use the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus without a protective case. However, I didn’t feel remotely as confident when using the OnePlus 12. Speaking of which, the Galaxy S24 is quite a ways smaller than the S24 Plus and is easier to use and operate with just one hand. That said, the smartphone’s size may not be everyone’s cup of tea, so I recommend visiting a Galaxy store to gauge the differences firsthand.

Then, there are the colors that help the smartphones stand out that much more. For instance, my Galaxy S24 Plus’ Cobalt Violet colorway simply pops, making me appreciate the handset’s design that much more.

Furthermore, as is customary with Samsung flagships, the Galaxy S24 and the Galaxy S24 Plus are pretty sturdy. Per the brand, the smartphones employ space-grade aluminum, lending them their lightweight albeit robust construction. 

That’s not all, as the phones come layered with Corning’s Gorilla Glass Victus on the back and the front. This means you don’t have to worry about your phone’s display getting scratched or scuffed if you carry it in your pocket with your car keys.

More notably, both devices have an IP68 rating, making them impervious to dust and submersion in freshwater for up to 30 minutes. All things considered, outdoorsy peeps will find the Galaxy S24’s build quality up to snuff.

Display and Audio

Samsung has always reserved QHD displays for its top-of-the-line flagship in the past. However, this year, the company’s Plus variant also gets the same treatment and features a pixel-dense QHD AMOLED screen. The screen measures 6.7 inches and has a tiny punch-hole notch towards the center. Additionally, the S24 Plus’ screen can get quite bright at 2,600 nits, much like the S24 Ultra’s display. 

It goes without saying then that you won’t face any problems while using the S24 or the S24 Plus outdoors. The screens remain legible even under the sun, and the panels exhibit inky blacks and vivid colors, further enhancing a user’s movie-watching experience.

Since we’re on the subject, you will be pleased to know that both phones can relay HDR content from streaming services like Netflix, too.

Do keep in mind that the Galaxy S24 still ships with an FHD+ AMOLED display. Thankfully, the smartphone’s screen can get just as bright, and since the pixels are crammed close together, the S24’s display appears quite sharp regardless. 

Moving on, the displays on the Galaxy S24 and the Galaxy S24 Plus leverage LTPO tech and refresh at 120Hz. In other words, the screens can smartly adapt to displayed content. For instance, the panel will automatically scale the refresh rate up to 120Hz when playing games like CoD Mobile, and it’ll bring it down to 24Hz / 48Hz when you’re watching a movie on, say, Netflix. 

This, in turn, helps extend the smartphone’s battery life and offers a stutter-free browsing experience. The screens on both phones are fairly responsive, too, so you will not run into any instances of the display not registering your input when you’re in a game. Having said that, if like me, you also have pudgy fingers, you may find the vanilla S24 uncomfortable for long gaming sessions. 

As for audio, the smartphones get a downward-firing speaker that works in tandem with the earpiece speaker. Both phones can output loud audio that should suffice for watching movies, YouTube videos, or podcasts on the go. 

Performance

The Samsung Galaxy S24 series is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC in the US. However, the company’s S24 and S24 Plus smartphones utilize the Exynos 2400 SoC elsewhere.

Note that the brand’s in-house SoC also powers our review units. While initially skeptical about the chipset’s performance chops, I noticed no significant differences when using the S24 Plus and an 8 Gen 3-powered smartphone (the OnePlus 12, in my case) side by side. 

To that end, the Exynos 2400 SoC can hold its own, putting forth comparable scores in apps like GeekBench and Antutu Benchmark. Additionally, while both the S24 and the S24 Plus felt warmer to the touch when taxed with a demanding workload than the OnePlus 12, the devices throttled much less. The same is substantiated in 3DMark’s Extreme Stress test, which tasks a phone with rendering 20 graphically demanding loops. 

Here, the OnePlus 12 offered a 58.9 percent system stability instead of the S24 Plus’ 62.9 percent tally. Turn the page over to gaming, and you’ll notice that the Exynos 2400 SoC can comfortably keep up with its Snapdragon counterpart. I extensively played CoD Mobile, NFS: No Limits, Clash Royale, and Genshin Impact on the S24 Plus. 

Off the lot, I noticed frame drops only in – you guessed it – Genshin Impact, and that’s with most of the settings like crowd density and textures set to High. However, most other games, like CoD Mobile, could maximize the smartphone’s 120Hz display to the fullest. To that end, I could run the game at 120FPS at the Medium graphics preset, like the OnePlus 12. 

If anything, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3-powered OnePlus 12 performed slightly better when running Genshin Impact. To wit, the smartphone delivers consistent 60FPS for longer, and it doesn’t heat up as much. Again, the difference wasn’t night and day, so avid gamers will find plenty to like about the Galaxy S24 Plus, too.

Battery Life and Software

To recap, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus sports a sharper, brighter display than its predecessor. It also comes with a more powerful SoC to boot. Thankfully, the improvements don’t come at a cost, as it also gets a capacious 4,900mAh battery pack.

During my time with the phone, I routinely averaged 5.5 hours of screen on time with the display set to the QHD+ resolution. As such, you can squeeze more out of the phone by dropping the resolution or the refresh rate.

If anything, I would like to see Samsung incorporate faster wired and wireless charging tech with its Galaxy S range. The S24, in particular, is limited to just 25W when plugged into an adapter, which is quite slow by today’s standards. 

Moving on, the Galaxy Duo also benefits from a host of exciting software features. To that end, both phones run OneUI v6.1 out of the box. The interface is among my favorite Android skins as it looks pleasing and doesn’t bog down my usage by pushing unnecessary ads or notifications. 

The apps that do misbehave can simply be disabled or put to deep sleep by going into the smartphone’s battery settings. This ensures the apps don’t ‘wake up’ by themselves and only when invoked by the user.

You’ll also find oodles of customization options with the devices, so you can swap out the wallpaper, change the home screen grid size, switch to navigational gestures, populate the Edge panel with your most-used apps, and even use third-party icon packs from the Play Store via Good Lock.

My colleague – who likes customizing his phone just as much as I do – will be sharing some tips to stylize a Galaxy S24 smartphone to the fullest, so I’ll make sure to update this review with the relevant links soon.

Moving on, at the time of its launch, the Galaxy S24 series made waves thanks to the AI features onboard the three flagships. To that end, each Galaxy S24 smartphone gets a slew of AI-powered utilities that hope to make your life easier. We have already outlined each feature’s specifics, so do read the article.

That said, two AI features stood out to me, including the option to ‘circle to search,’ which makes finding things that interest you easier on the web. You can long-press the home button to invoke the feature and then circle a product to get more insights on it and where you can buy it. For instance, you could circle the jacket worn by a celebrity or maybe a new-age handheld you spotted online. The feature works quite well, making browsing the web more intuitive.

I also quite like the Generative AI edit feature on the smartphone, which allows me to remove any unwanted passersby from my photos. You can also use it to enhance your stills by swiping up on them in the gallery app and toggling the ‘Remaster’ option.

For the most part, this feature spruces up the colors in the frame and brings out more details from the shadows. In other words, you can have a social-media-ready image with the press of a button. 

Cameras

Samsung’s Galaxy S series has been the standard-bearer for mobile photography for many years. That said, while still good, this year’s lineup left me wanting more. You see, the Galaxy S24 and the Galaxy S24 Plus use the same camera stack that was introduced with the Galaxy S22 Plus. 

Although I have no major qualms with the primary camera’s performance, the auxiliary shooters have started to show their age, especially in lowlight scenarios. To give you a better picture, here’s a snapshot from the Galaxy S24 Plus and the OnePlus 12, which, by the way, can be snagged for much less in the global and US markets. 

The photos attached above have been snapped at 3x zoom, as both devices offer a dedicated 3x telephoto/periscope sensor. Here, you can clearly see that the S24 Plus’s image has more noise and grain, especially at a 100 percent crop. Further, the OnePlus 12 has resolved the light emanating from the hanging fixtures slightly better, too. 

The scenery remains unchanged in the sample shots attached above, too. Here, there’s perceptible noise in the S24 Plus’ snap even without zooming in. Further, there’s lesser lens flaring in the OnePlus 12’s shot, too.

Don’t get me wrong, the S24 Plus is still a capable camera phone. In fact, under ideal lighting, it’s hard to tell the photos from the S24 Plus and a competing flagship. The details in the 3x snap of the cat, for instance, are neck and neck between the two phones. 

Similarly, the S24 Plus’ primary camera can snap riveting images chockablock with information and vivid colors, too. The 50MP sensor does a great job of bringing out the details from the shadows without overexposing the highlights, and it offers a snappy shutter speed, so you can get a good photo of moving objects as well. 

The S24 Plus is capable of taking sharp images even after sunset. In particular, the low-light scenes that I captured with the phone looked great. The phone enhances the shadows instead of suppressing them, creating a more realistic scene.

Note that you will spot some noise in the composition at a closer crop. But, that’s to be expected when you’re shooting in a dimly lit environment. 

All said and done, the Galaxy S24 and the Galaxy S24 Plus are capable camera phones that will overturn a good-looking image nine times out of ten. That said, it’s high time Samsung updates its flagships with the best-in-class sensors so they can hold their own against devices like the OnePlus 12 and the Google Pixel 8 Pro.

Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy S24 and S24 Plus start at $799 and $999, respectively. For the price, the smartphones get a lot right. Samsung’s software, for instance, offers superb customizability and is laden with AI smarts.

Furthermore, the company has guaranteed a longevous software update roadmap, too. Both phones perform splendidly, and the S24 Plus, in particular, sports a sharp and rapid AMOLED display.

I’d also like to point out that, unlike some competing devices, the S24 series is IP68-rated, so you don’t have to think twice before whipping your phone out near a body of water. All these factors add up to what I feel is a thoughtfully curated package, and most folks opting for the S24 or the S24 Plus will not be disappointed with the devices.

If anything, the S24 series could do with some camera upgrades. As prefaced earlier, the S24 and the S24 Plus can’t hold a candle to devices like the Pixel 8 Pro and the OnePlus 12, at least in the camera department.

So, if you prioritize clicking photos over everything else, I’d recommend you opt for the OnePlus 12 instead, as it will also offer comparable performance to boot. Which smartphone would you choose? Do let me know in the comments below, and as always, stay glued to our website for more reviews and tutorials!