Newsletter
Samsung just unveiled the Galaxy S24 series and you may have noticed that the Ultra model costs more than its predecessor. It starts at $1,299.99, $100 more than what the Gaalxy S23 Ultra’s base variant cost at launch. The company says it had to increase the price this year because of hardware upgrades. This has nothing to do with the new AI features.
Hardware upgrades resulted in the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s price increase
As expected, Samsung launched three flagship Android smartphones today. We got the Galaxy S24, Galaxy S24+, and Galaxy S24 Ultra. While the former two don’t see many notable hardware upgrades, there are a few new things to talk about the Ultra’s hardware this year. Firstly, it has a flat display instead of a curved one, allowing for a more efficient use of the S Pen.
Samsung has also replaced the aging 10MP 10x optical zoom camera with a 50MP 5x lens. With this change, the Galaxy S24 Ultra can record 8K videos at 5x magnification using the new zoom camera. Last year’s model can record 8K videos only with its primary camera. Higher resolution and improved processing means you get optical quality at 10x zoom too, so you aren’t losing anything.
Last but not least, the Galaxy S24 Ultra gets a Titanium frame. It’s another major upgrade from an Armor Aluminum frame found on the 2023 Ultra. Since Titanium is more expensive than Aluminum, this added to the total BOM (bill of materials) cost of the phone. Coupled with increased costs of other components, the new Ultra ended up costing $100 more.
The other two Galaxy S24 models don’t see any price change, and that isn’t surprising. They get no notable design change (already had a flat display), no camera hardware upgrade, and still feature an Armor Aluminum frame. The vanilla model costs $799.99 and above, while the Plus starts at $999.99. You can pre-order the new flagships from Samsung’s official website and other retail channels.
All three models boast the same set of AI features
Samsung’s new AI features are available on all three Galaxy S24 models. The Ultra has a more powerful camera setup and gets some extra AI-powered camera features, which aren’t compatible with other models due to hardware constraints. Apart from that, Galaxy AI offers the same experience across the lineup. There is no difference between the AI features offered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and Exynos 2400 versions of the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+.