In a partnership with Google’s generative AI unit and chip maker Snapdragon, Samsung has made artificial intelligence the centrepiece of its new Galaxy S24 smartphones.
A raft of “Galaxy AI” features include Circle to Search – which, after a long press on the home button, lets you use your finger (or an S-Pen, in the case of the S24 Ultra) to circle a word or image on a website, or in any app.
Related results from Google’s search engine then pop up – along with the option to refine your search through typing or voice commands.
Phone calls can be translated from Chinese, French, German, Hindi, Spanish and several other languages in real-time (or, at least, with only a modest lag), among other live translation and transcription smarts. Only Mandarin Chinese is supported at release, but Cantonese is on the way. There’s also text chat translation.
In a series of calls with a Hindi-speaking colleague, the AI translated my English to Hindi very accurately, but the translation of her Hindi to English was mixed. Some sentences had to be repeated several times to get a comprehensible answer.
Random notes you’ve taken on your phone can be summarised and otherwise whipped into shape by the AI. That’s already something offered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard et al, but it’s handy to do it without leaving your Galaxy’s Notes app.
A photo can be edited by the AI if, say, you need to remove reflections or shadows or erase an object or person from a pic, then use generative fill to replace them with the background.
With a couple of quick out-of-the-box snaps (one of a glass on a desk, above, the other of a colleague, below), the circle-and-erase tool worked okay but was not about to put Photoshop professionals out of a job.
The AI can be used to suggest text in any app, including options for more formal or more casual options. Again, that’s something ChatGPT or Bard can do, but it’s just faster and easier to do it directly from your phone’s virtual keyboard.
And in a convenient touch, regular video you’ve taken on your S24 can be converted to slow motion after the fact. It couldn’t be simpler. You just hold your finger on a video as it plays to trigger the slow-mo. AI is used to interpolate the missing frames for a 120 frames-per-second effect. If you like what you see, you can keep the effect or save a slo-mo copy. In my initial play, capturing a couple of hapless co-workers (below), it worked flawlessly. A clever and useful feature.
A number of these AI smarts are battle-hardened. Google’s generative AI technology has already been deployed in its own Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro smartphones (not available in New Zealand).
It’s also interesting to note that for the first time, all of the AI features are on-device rather than via the Cloud, offering privacy and performance advantages.
In preview sessions, US reviews gave the Galaxy’s AI features generally positive reviews.
An S24 Ultra landed at the Herald this morning. We’ll have a full review later, but straight out of the box, Circle to Search worked well. It’s simple and intuitive to circle something onscreen you want to know more about – and results are no better or worse than you’d get if you dragged and dropped an image into Google’s image search, or typed a search into its search bar.
I used it to find more on e-scooter accidents after circling text in the Herald’s story about Simon Bridges’ spill. That worked fine. Circling his face, however, yielded not news stories or profiles of the ex-National leader but ads for pyjamas, possibly because I’d also caught some of his hospital gown with my fat-fingered effort.
AI is the core focus of the S24 series which, at first glance, is similar to the S23.
But there are several changes.
The case gets an upgrade from aluminium to more durable titanium.
The S24 Ultra has the same 6.8-inch display as its predecessor but sports a flat screen as opposed to the S23′s curves at the edges – making swipes from the edge easier and making a better surface for the S-Pen. The bezel (the border around the display) is 42 per cent slimmer and the camera is 11 per cent slimmer.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra camera test
— Adrian Weckler (@adrianweckler) January 17, 2024
Seagull sitting about 0.5km away
1x to 100x zoom test pic.twitter.com/w9Xb0olVyL
The cameras are broadly the same hardware, which allows for five times digital zoom or up to 100 times digital zoom – which means you can focus in on an object about half a kilometre away, but by that point, the image gets pretty grainy and, more, jumps around quite aggressively. The 5x optical zoom is actually less than the S23 Ultra’s 10x optical zoom, but Samsung says a larger sensor allows for lossless 10x digital zoom pics.
And in a nice departure from tech’s high turnover culture, Samsung and Google have both pledged to support the S24 series with at least seven years of Android OS and security upgrades.
Just arrived at NZME Towers: Samsung's Galaxy S24 Ultra #s24ultra #unboxing pic.twitter.com/W36pomvq95
— Chris Keall (@ChrisKeall) January 17, 2024
The 6.2-inch display Galaxy S24 is priced from $1649.
The 6.7-inch S24 starts at $2049.
And the 6.8-inch S24 Ultra costs $2449.
See full tech specs here.
Spark, One NZ and 2degrees are offering various deals, including trade-ins, and no-interest instalments for those who sign up for plans.
Pre-orders are open now, with shipping from February 7.
Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.
The telco says the service will quickly expand over 2025.