Samsung’s brand new Galaxy S24 Ultra release came saddled with lofty expectations around delivering significant camera, performance, and AI leaps forwards. After intense evaluation including real-world testing, we walked away thoroughly impressed but still questioning its value proposition.
Refined Design Carries Familiarity
Unboxing the Galaxy S24 Ultra, we first noticed the sleek titanium alloy chassis bringing added durability over the S23’s glass enclosure without forsaking premium touch and looks. The shape and dimensions hew very closely to its predecessor though.
This includes almost identical display specs like 6.8-inch curved Dynamic AMOLED quad HD+ panel with 1-120hz adaptive refresh rate. The consistency plays it safe for sure if less exciting upon first inspection.
New Meets Old
More encouragingly, Samsung tweaks small touches like reworked volume and power buttons plus a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip promising processing and 5G connectivity gains. But make no mistake, the S24 Ultra banks more on iterative refinements over reinvention in industrial design departures or dramatic performance leapfrogging.
200MP Camera Wows But Demands Mastery
We naturally jumped straight towards photographing everything in sight with the S24 Ultra’s totally revamped camera array upon setup. And its banner 200MP main wide sensor stole that show the instant we started pixel peeping.
When properly exposed, microscopic details emerged zooming into identical compositions shot on 12MP smartphones. The depths of textures and subtleties clearly outpaced previous equipment.
Mixed Results Out the Gates
However, truly harnessing all those megapixels proved less instantly intuitive than anticipated. Default processing muted colors while shadow details suffered crushing blacks or noise until tweaking parameters.
This means casual users will likely lean on Auto mode getting acceptable if less exemplary shots. But photographic veterans willing putting in calibration time will unlock next-level excellence as the hardware potency cannot question.
AI Photo & Video: Magic or Gimmick?
Beyond pixel potential, Samsung talks up the S24 Ultra’s AI photographic enhancements for automating editing tricks like selective color isolation and automatically generating share-worthy highlights reels from memory bursting photo galleries.
These mostly worked as advertised, even impressively. But occasionally the algorithms whiffed too like amping video frame rates into social media-ready slow motion where output felt visually distorted.
The Promise & Peril of Automated Creativity
We walked away feeling Samsung only scratches the surface of AI-assisted imaging possibilities while still responsibly avoiding overpromising. Features like instantly previewing and propagating edited copies catering multipleaspect ratios for social publishing carry legitimate creative workflow upside.
However, machine learning chokepoints around accurately interpreting image semantics and contexts still require human supervision to entirely stick the landing.
Is Being Better Enough?
Stepping back from the S24 Ultra’s individual strengths, we struggled rationalizing its value proposition appeal to masses despite appreciating the product craftsmanship.
It exceeds now standard capabilities like baseline 5G connectivity, vibrant OLED visibility, smooth scrolling and streaming, solid battery life, etc. But are camera nuances and incomplete AI automation markedly moving life quality needles for most?
Maybe Not Yet for Most
Samsung certainly pushes boundaries expanding the very notion of smartphone photography through previously unimaginable resolution and computational aids.
Unfortunately, the S24 Ultra costs accordingly premium at $1,300. And we suspect its full experiential dividends stay largely unmatched to needs beyond creative pros, industrial power users and device privilege flaunters.
Feeling existential smartphone feature fatigue? This phone counterpunches marvelously. Otherwise, we recommended more cautiously holding onto your cash awaiting true 10X innovations in Samsung’s future pipeline.
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