this is much better than this. Okay, so I've spent about 2 weeks with the S24 Ultra, and I had hands-on time with it just before the release. I've had loads of time, basically, to get to know this phone, but this isn't going to be a really in-depth review because there's about 11 million of them out there already. I've done my own, so my first impressions on this phone is out there. You can go and watch it now if you want to. This video is just going to be an overview of what I love and what I don't love about the S24 Ultra. And yes, I'll let you know whether or not I'm going to switch from the iPhone 15 Pro Max to this, although you can probably guess the answer to that. Big spoiler: this is going to take some beating in 2024. Just a very quick word from today's sponsor, which is Banks. As usual with a very expensive smartphone, I slap one of these straight onto the display. This is the Glass Warrior screen protector.

features extreme scratch and shatter resistance. It leaves no fingerprints. It has seamless coverage, and it feels super smooth to the touch. It also doesn't dull the colors and is super easy to apply. If I can do it, you can definitely do it. It is an utter no-brainer. Next up, we have the Mlap Armor Air case, which is built with Dupont Kevlar fiber. This means that while it's still thin and lightweight, it is super strong. It's really hard to convey how light this case is, but trust me, it is barely there. It also has a smooth, confidence-inspiring RP and protection for those all-important lenses. I'm a big fan of the minimalist styling as well, which complements the S24 Ultra perfectly. Oh, and did I mention that it's compatible with MagSafe accessories? Yes, you heard that right. For those who like a slightly thicker, all-encompassing case, there's the MagClap Armor Pro. This is also built from 600D Dupont Kevlar fiber. It has the exact same lovely minimalist design.

feels fantastic once again. And yes, it's MagSafe compatible. Better still, I've worked with banks to get you a 20% discount site-wide. Just click that link below and use the code MarkPick. Let's start with the stuff that I love about the S24 Ultra. And well, there's only one place to start with this, which is the display. It is, as was the case with the predecessor, utterly wonderful. In fact, it is still the best smartphone display on the market. If you disagree with that, fight me in the comments. And what's really interesting is that the fact it is completely flat now. So, there's no curved edge on the display itself. That does make a big difference. And it's still one of the most expansive smartphone displays on the market on the S24 Ultra. That's for three reasons. The first one is the pinhole camera at the top, which reveals that you do not need a Monkey Island on your phone. The second reason is because of the bezels, which are, well, they're barely there. And the

third reason is because it's squared off. This is a squared off display. And if you compare it against the iPhone, which is this kind of rounded thing, I'm afraid this is looking more and more archaic by the day. I can feel the comments arriving. They're down there, aren't they? I don't want to look. I know the iPhone Fanboys, and I am one of them, are coming at me with pitchforks. I completely forgot to mention the anti-glare coating on the display of the S24 Ultra, which incidentally I'm shooting this on, holding the display of this phone up against the S23 Ultra and the iPhone 15 Pro Max reveals just how good this anti-reflective thing is. Again, it just goes towards making this the best display on the market. Much has been said about the switch to Titanium on the S24 Ultra. One of the most interesting is it interests. It's not interesting. One of the funniest things that I keep reading and hearing is the fact that apparently Samsung has copied Apple. I genuinely

don't care who got there first. It was the right decision on both company's parts to go with that material. However, for some reason, the switch to Titanium on the S24 Ultra just feels a bit more substantial. And what I mean by that is that it feels like more of a reduction in weight over the S23 Ultra than this did over the iPhone 14 Pro Max. And I do love this orange version. This is the online exclusive. Yes, I bought this myself. And it could be more orangery. Orange. Orangey. Orang. It could be more orange. I do want to mention the battery performance because just like seemingly every Android smartphone these days, it is absolutely epic, particularly when it comes to standby. This is so much better when you leave it to its own devices than this. It still has battery issues. I'm sorry, but iPhones, I think, have got worse. A great example of this is that I took both of these to Germany over the weekend. And when you travel, that completely hammers the battery life. And that's because these phones are

constantly darting between cellular signals, and turning Wi-Fi on and off. GPS is being used. It's a real battery test this beat this hands down, right? It's time to talk about AI. When it comes to AI on the S24 Ultra, one of two things is going to happen to you. One, you'll find something that is absolutely incredibly useful every single day, or two, you'll just forget about it. However, one thing that every single S24 Ultra owner will do is try every single Galaxy AI feature straight out of the box. I did that in my first impressions video, which I'll link to above, but trust me, most of it you won't use. Does that make it a failure? No, not at all. Samsung has to do this to differentiate its phone, to make the S24 Ultra and the S24 and the S24 Plus relevant and forward-thinking, and hopefully steal a march on Apple. But in day-to-day use, AI, it's either useful or it isn't. My use case is quite a good example of this, so there's just a few AI

things in this which I think are useful for me. One of them was interpreter, and it wasn't actually me using this. This was my good friend Ben from lover of tech. I'll put a link to his Channel Down Below. We were in Germany together over the weekend, which sounds weird, but we were there for work. We wanted to get into this karaoke bar. I know this is sounding strange, but we wanted to get into this bar and sing, obviously, and the bouncer wouldn't let us in because he was saying words we didn't understand. So Ben got his s24 Ultra out of his pocket and turned on interpreter. Interpreter uses AI to translate your words into another language and vice versa. This worked. We found out that this karaoke bar was fully booked, which we wouldn't have known if we hadn't used that feature. The other AI feature that I'm really impressed with is circle to search, which you can get on the pixel now. So for instance, if I want to know what this camera is in front of me even

though I do know I can take a photo of it like this, and there's my camera. And then if I don't know what that camera is, but I want to know what that camera is, I can just hold down there, circle it, and that didn't sort of okay, it has worked, it's picked out the fx3 there. It wasn't the first result, that is the first time this has let me down. Generally speaking, if you take a photo of something or you spot something on Instagram and you want to know what it is, circle to search is incredibly fast and very accurate, but that test kind of proves that it's still early days. The other thing that I really love and does seem to work every single time is reflection and shadow removal on photos. So, I don't know about you, but I take a lot of photos through Windows, whether it be at airports or hotels and that kind of stuff. Nine times out of 10, you get this lovely photo completely ruined by your own face or the reflection of someone else.

completely unusable. And thanks to AI in this phone, you can remove those reflections. The same thing goes with shadows, and it works brilliantly. And yes, I know this has generative stuff in it as well, so you can move things around in the frame, and you know, center the horizon and fill in the gaps for me. Those AI features are a bit kind of not, they're not gimmicky, they feel like more of a toy. I've also discovered the generative AI wallpapers, of which this is an example. This is a completely AI-generated wallpaper, which is done in the operating system itself. Samsung has been quite conservative with the options you get with this, but you at least get a nice-looking image, and well, it's unique. Let's talk about the camera. A very quick reminder of the focal length that we get. So we get a 1, a 3, and a 5x optical, and the 10x that was optical on the S23 Ultra is now digital, although it does use this new adaptive pixel sensor.

some AI trickery. And don't worry, the 100x moon Zoom is still there and still largely unusable. But as for the rest of the camera system, as always, I'll let you be the judge of these photos in the comments. But I'm a big, big fan. I really think this is going to take some beating in 2024. And the availability of that 5x optical zoom, which yes, we first saw on the iPhone 15 Pro Max, which I guess means Samsung copied Apple with that as well, boring. But the availability of that 5x is just utterly inspired, and it's the way forward, guys. I challenge you to get one of these phones and not use it all the time. And that 5x focal length works brilliantly for video as well. It provides lovely compression, and it adds this cinematic feel to anything you shoot. In fact, the video performance of the S24 Ultra, dare I say it, is on a par with the iPhone. That is the first time I've ever said that, but I was massively

impressed when I was shooting with this thing in Germany, but back to the photos, and it really feels like Samsung has refined the camera system on the S24 Ultra. Gone are the days of oversaturated images, and in their place, we get images that clearly Samsung, but which are far more pleasing to the eye, at least in my eyes. Yes, there's still a lot of sharpening going on, which you can see in these test images. This is a completely personal preference, but for me, it does give the S24 Ultra a kind of pixel-like feel, which is becoming commonplace in Android land, and I'm absolutely here for that. I think it also handles selfies very well, even in challenging lighting conditions, and the N-to-Go (I can't even say it without laughing) the Nidography mode continues used to produce stunning results. Although during my testing, the 5x at night isn't quite as impressive as it is on the iPhone 15 Pro Max, that aside, the night shots on the S24 Ultra are just they're stunning. One of the

biggest complaints I had about the S23 Ultra was the slow shutter speed, where you could barely take a decent photo of your kid or your pets. This does seem to be improved on the S24 Ultra. I had a few issues still where I couldn't quite get a sharp image of, let's say, my dog or my kid, but generally speaking, speaking, it was a bit more reliable than the S23 Ultra. Overall, I think the camera system in the S24 Ultra is an absolute beast, and the fact that these photos have so much character does, for me, put them one step ahead of the iPhone 15 Pro Max. Those pitchforks are coming out again, aren't they? Okay, with that in mind, let's talk about stuff that I don't like about this phone. Okay, so I've made a list about things that I don't like about the S24 Ultra, and it's not very long. And equally, I think these complaints, they're a bit picky. The first thing is that the S Pen isn't orange, so I bought the

titanium orange s24 Ultra, and the S Pen is gray. I'd like it to be Orange, please. Ooh, while we're talking about the S Pen, it's still a troubling accessory. I still think it's a bit of a gimmick that should even out the comments down below, but basically, apart from taking a photo with this, you can use the button on here to release the shutter on the camera if your phone's over there somewhere, and handwritten notes. Not that's it, everything else, including Circle to search, you can do with your finger, which means this spends most of its time in there. The next thing, what else did I not like about this? Oh, the orange, the titanium orange could be a bit more oranger, oranger, it could be more orange. I think I mentioned that earlier, though, so let's forget that one. Uh, what else did I say, that's it, and that begs the question, will I switch from this to this? No, and I know this is really, really annoying, you're probably sitting there at the minute typing out a comment.

saying that I'm an idiot, and it's for the most stupid of reasons, and it's that Apple EOS system. It's the fact that I can copy and paste stuff from this to my Mac. It's the fact that I like the Apple watch Ultra, and this needs this. I don't know whose fault it is. I guess it's mine, really. I just cannot stop using the iPhone because I've been sucked into that ecos system, and I just can't get out of it. And this is so frustrating in my job because I get to use lots of different Android phones, and quite often I want to carry on using them. The S24 Ultra is a perfect example of this. I want to use this all the time. I don't know. There's something about it where if these two devices are placed on the table, I go for this first. For me, this is already the smartphone of the Year, and that means all eyes are now on Apple and Google. But I want to hear from you now. Have you got an S24 Ultra, and what do

you think about it. Is it the best smartphone you've ever used? And are you thinking about switching from Apple to Samsung? What ever your situation, get involved down below. And if you still got some time and you want to check out my full overview of this phone, including all of the AI features, keep watching for a link to that video.

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra - 2 weeks later - the TRUTH!

Relatable tech reviews and advice for normal people.

I have zero interest in deep spec dives or long-winded comparisons. I review laptops, smartphones, tablets, headphones and the latest tech based on real experience. I'll tell you how it'll make you feel, whether or not it's worth your time (and money) and help you find the tech you need to get stuff done.

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