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Another year, another new flagship launch: just yesterday, Samsung held their biannual Galaxy Unpacked event in San Jose, California, announcing the birth of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Series to the world. Among others, the Galaxy S24 series is packed with plenty of AI capabilities that can help users in almost every aspect of their lives, from communication to research.
As with every new launch, the biggest question remains: is it worth upgrading to the new smartphone?
To help you make your decision, here are the three main differences between the Samsung Galaxy S24 Series and last year’s Samsung Galaxy S23 Series!
Galaxy AI
The main focus of this year’s Galaxy Unpacked was undoubtedly Galaxy AI—in fact, it was all over the teasers and trailers for the event, announcing “Galaxy AI is Here”, and so it is indeed.
On the Galaxy S24 series, Galaxy AI is mostly employed for communication: Live Translate, Interpreter, Chat Assisst, Notes Asisst—all these help translate and interpret different languages in real-time, even if the other party isn’t using a Galaxy phone.
And the kicker? You don’t even need to have an Internet connection to use the translation features!
In fact, Note Assist does a lot more than just translating. You can also streamline your note organization with Galaxy AI, as it can help you format, summarize, and even generate text in different tones and languages for easier content creation!
Apart from communication assistance, the Galaxy S24 series also introduces the innovative Circle to Search, a gesture-driven feature with Google, allowing users to search by circling, highlighting, or tapping on the screen after long pressing the home button. There’s no need to screenshot or leave the app to look things up, including reverse image search!
Incredible Camera Performance
Galaxy AI doesn’t just stop there. The Galaxy S24 also offers innovative AI editing tools for photos, allowing users to easily erase, re-compose, and remaster shots—and more!
Edit Suggestion suggests optimal tweaks to photographs after you’ve snapped them, so even amateur photographers can ensure that the final product is stunning.
Generative Edit fills in image backgrounds and adjusts subject positions seamlessly. A watermark will be added to images enhanced by generative AI.
Super HDR provides lifelike previews before capturing, even third-party social apps. In Gallery and Instagram, photos and videos are displayed in Super HDR for a more vibrant and detailed viewing experience.
Security and OS Updates
Another thing I like to consider when getting a new phone is future-proofing—buying an older smartphone model, while more affordable, may mean that it becomes obsolete quicker and stop getting important updates, especially when it comes to security.
Last year, the Galaxy S23 series was shipped with Android 13 and guaranteed four years of software updates and five years of security updates, which means it’ll get updates until 2027 or Android 17, and receive security updates until 2028.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 series goes several steps further: Samsung is offering a whopping 7 generations of OS updates and 7 years of security updates on the whole Galaxy S24 series. That means you can get reliably updated until Android 21, if Android is still following the same naming conventions, or until 2031.
I’d say that’s a fair while, considering most smartphones have an average lifespan of five years or less, given the rapidly evolving nature of technology. You might not hold on to the Galaxy S24 series for as long as 7 years, but it certainly will!
So… Should I Buy The Galaxy S23 or Galaxy S24?
To tell the truth, apart from the Galaxy AI features, the Galaxy S23 series and the Galaxy S24 series, especially for the base and Plus models, are very similar. Even in the Ultra, there are only incremental upgrades in hardware, mostly in the screen (brighter at 2,600 nits), camera (5x optical zoom), and an upgraded processor, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.
So, if you already have the Galaxy S23 Ultra, I’d suggest holding on to it for another year or two. If you’re using the Galaxy S23 or the Galaxy S23 Plus, you’d do better upgrading to the Galaxy S24 Ultra instead of the S24 or S24+; even so, you could probably also hold on to those for a little longer.
Of course, if you want to go all in with Samsung in terms of AI, then absolutely get the Samsung Galaxy S24 series!
For Galaxy S22 series users or below, though, I’d highly recommend upgrading to the Galaxy S24 series. Even though it’s technically true that the Galaxy S24 look like the Galaxy S23 which look like the Galaxy S22, that’s just only in looks—compared to the Galaxy S22, the Galaxy S24 is a veritable upgrade, especially when it comes to software.
So, if you’re ready for the AI revolution, go forth and pre-order the Samsung Galaxy S24 series today!