All the highlights from Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2024
It’s the one we’ve all been waiting for: the Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2024 event, with the Korean tech giant finally revealing the Samsung Galaxy S24, S24+, and S24 Ultra. This new series of flagship phones represents the latest smartphone technology available, with Samsung turning to AI innovation in its continued effort to combat Apple’s iPhone and other Android brands like Xiaomi and OnePlus.
Taking place live in San Jose, California, this year’s Galaxy Unpacked event emphasized AI from the outset. The first big Galaxy AI reveal was one we’d heard about in advance, live voice translation for both calls and text via Chat Assist, with the S24 acting as a digital interpreter for a massive amount of different languages. Those tuning in got to watch an example of the seamless Chat Assist feature in action, with Samsung keen to show off just how easy it is to use while messaging.
It’s not just communication that Samsung is looking to simplify with Galaxy AI and the S24 series, but productivity, too, thanks to the introduction of Transcript Assist. As you can probably guess by the name of this feature, Transcript Assist can transcribe information before breaking down the key information into bullet points. That’s a feature I could have done with before the Unpacked presentation began.
The next innovation on display during the Galaxy Unpacked event saw representatives from Google step onto the stage to detail a new way to search on Android: Circle to Search. As the name implies, this new feature allows you to search simply by circling anything on the screen, whether it be text or part of an image. It works in messages, social media, YouTube, and beyond. The Circle to Search function is available on all three of the new S24 models, though there’s no word yet as to whether it’ll come to Google’s own Pixel smartphones.
After detailing Circle to Search, Samsung detailed the AI-powered camera capabilities of the new S24 Ultra, including the ProVisual engine that combines with a 50 MP camera with 5x optical zoom to offer higher quality images than on any other Samsung phone. Galaxy AI isn’t just for taking pictures, though, but editing them too, with the S24 series suggesting edits while scrolling through images in your gallery. Before moving on from the camera, in a truly perplexing turn of events, Samsung introduced a short clip from Mr. Beast – yes, that one – offering a quick demonstration of the S24’s zoom quality and Picture Assist features.
Following Mr. Beast’s perplexing cameo, we got another from Pokimane, who discussed the new ray-tracing hardware in the S24 Series and how it looks to improve realism in gaming. Combine this with a peak brightness of 2,600 nits across all three devices, and this fresh series of flagships is ready to compete with the iPhone 15 Pro Max’s AAA capability.
Finally, after all the hardware and software reveals, we got to the pricing and release date details. The big news is that pre-orders are open from today with a release date of January 31. In terms of pricing, the S24 starts at $799, the S24+ hits the market at $999, and the premier S24 Ultra is $1,299. That makes the Ultra $100 more expensive than last year’s version on release, but whether it’s worth it or not is up to you, especially with the news that Galaxy AI is rolling out to select devices in the next few months.
There you have it, the highlights from the Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2024 presentation. If you’re wondering what the next generation of Samsung phones are competing with in the Android arena, check out our guides to the best Google Pixel phones, the best Xiaomi phones, and the best OnePlus phones. Or, if you’re more of an Apple fan, see our guide to everything we know so far about the iPhone 16.
