Samsung Galaxy S24 specs, info and release date: everything we know
What to expect from the next-gen Galaxy - release date confirmed!
Samsung has long cemented its place at the top tier of the Android phone world. The Galaxy S23 Ultra in particular is our pick for one of the best smartphones on sale right now, and its two smaller siblings are also rather tasty. But when it comes to tech, newer is always more exciting. So, it’s time to turn our attention towards the Galaxy S24 series.
The next generation of Galaxy phones are now mere days away, and the rumour mill has stepped into overdrive. We’ve got more than a few sneak peeks at what to expect when they arrive below, and an official launch date for your diary. Here’s everything expected from the Galaxy S24, plus a wish list of features we’d love to see make the cut.
Samsung Galaxy S24 release date
Let’s face it, Samsung would’ve been mad not to launch a Galaxy S24 series. The S23 trio were some of 2023’s best-selling phones worldwide that didn’t have an Apple logo on them, and a successor series will surely do similar business. Samsung only changed its naming conventions in 2020 after a decade of phones using single digits; each model now reflects the year it went on sale, so a 2024 release for the Galaxy S24 was almost guaranteed.
As for when, exactly? That’ll be the 17th of January, at an Unpacked event in San Jose – the heart of Silicon Valley. Apparently the venue choice is a sign of Samsung and Google working closer than ever (both Google and Apple consider that part of California home turf).
Samsung officially announced the date on its newsroom, promising “an all-new mobile experience powered by AI”. The event is set to kick off at 10am PST/6PM GMT, and will be live streamed on Samsung’s YouTube channel.
Early rumours had already pointed to a January reveal, with Korean site ET News reporting Samsung had asked suppliers to start mass production in November, a month earlier than when Galaxy S23 production started. The Elec, another Korean news outlet, then said a Samsung official let the official 17th Jan reveal date slip.
Unpacked will take place the week after CES, one of the tech world’s biggest trade shows. Samsung has preferred to go it alone when launching new phones for a few years now – partly so it doesn’t have to share the news cycle with other manufacturers. You’ve got to go as far back as 2017 for the last time Samsung picked a different month, when the Galaxy S8 arrived in March off the back of the Mobile World Congress trade show.
A look at previous Galaxy phone launches shows early January is slight break from the norm for Samsung:
- Galaxy S23: launched 1st February 2023
- Galaxy S22: launched 25th February 2022
- Galaxy S21: launched 29th January 2021
Expect pre-orders to open directly after the event and run through to the 25th of January. In Korea, a pre-sale window between the 26th and 30th of Jan will see pre-order customers get their hands on devices, while general availability will reportedly be from the 30th of January.
There’s currently no rumours of pricing, and given the recent global cost of living increases, it could be months before we hear anything concrete. As a reminder, the Galaxy S23 arrived at £849/$800, the S23+ at £1049/$1000, and the S23 Ultra at £1249/$1199.
Samsung Galaxy S24 hardware & design rumours
With less than a month until the Galaxy S24 series will be revealed, high-profile leaker Evan Blass shared what he claims is the official spec sheet for all three models. Posting to X (formerly Twitter), @evleaks also showed a countdown clock indicating the 18th of January would be the day for our diaries – although both posts have been removed due to a copyright claim by Samsung.
The largest leak to date seemingly spilled the beans on the S24, S24+ and S24 Ultra. The entry-level model doesn’t sound like a dramatic upgrade over the outgoing Galaxy S23, with a largely unchanged screen, storage, memory and camera hardware. Battery capacity has grown slightly, the display is brighter than before, and it’ll be powered by a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 CPU, but that’s about it on the hardware front.
The Galaxy S24+ will reportedly see more upgrades, with a higher resolution display, more memory and a bigger battery that charges faster over USB-C. Titanium has apparently made the cut for the Galaxy S24 Ultra, along with faster charging and a brighter display. It stands to reason Samsung will use its reveal event to focus on software, most likely the AI features made possible by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor – otherwise this doesn’t look like a particularly significant year for the range.
Initially the big question around the S24 series was how many models Samsung would launch. An S24 Ultra flagship was guaranteed, as was a standard S24. Early rumours shared by Korean outlet The Elec suggested an S24+ wouldn’t make the grade. Seemingly this was because the Plus model has been the weakest seller of each generation, and price rises made the Galaxy S23+ less appealing than previous years. That was swiftly shot down by SamMobile, who revealed the internal codename being used for the S24 Ultra: “Muse3”. That strongly implied Muse1 is the S24, and Muse2 is the S24+.
The S23 and S23+ saw a design shift that brought them more in line with the S23 Ultra, ditching the rear camera bump in favour of bare lenses and offering a similar selection of colours. Samsung seems to be following Apple’s lead in keeping its hardware styling consistent across multiple generations, so there won’t be a big design shift this year.
WindowsReport claims to have uncovered official press images of all three phones, which show flat glass is coming to the S24 Ultra as well as the two regular S24 handsets. The S24 and S24 Plus should get Onyx Black, Marble Grey, Cobalt Violet and Amber Yellow options, while the S24 Ultra will get Titanium Black, Titanium Gray, Titanium Violet and Titanium Yellow colours.
As those names suggest, the S24 Ultra will apparently stand out with titanium construction. An early report from The Elec suggested Samsung’s top-tier model will follow the iPhone 15 Pro in using the higher-end material, although it may not deliver the sort of weigh reduction Apple managed. The S23 Ultra is made from aluminium, rather than stainless steel, which is already pretty light.
On the hardware front, it’s now clear that Samsung will stick with Snapdragon CPUs – but seemingly not for every model in the line-up. Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said on an earnings call that “we expect to have the majority share” of Galaxy S24 processors, and that “the product is getting better”. That indicates Samsung will be getting a bespoke version of the silicon again, with higher CPU and GPU clock speeds than the off-the-shelf version that will be going into rival handsets. Indeed, Geekbench scores showing an S24+ running a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 look particularly tantalising.
Qualcomm showed off the new silicon at October’s Snapdragon Summit, and it looks every bit the pocket powerhouse. Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is more powerful and more efficient than the current generation, plus it has some seriously clever AI optimisations that allow for on-device machine learning and image generation at speeds previously only possible on desktop-grade PCs. That should help them rival the best Apple smartphones for raw power.
A return to a split strategy, with certain territories getting Exynos-powered devices, comes as a surprise: Snapdragon-equipped phones have consistently been more powerful and had longer battery life than their Exynos equivalents. When the S23 series was revealed, the two firms said they had a “multi-year agreement” to use Snapdragon chips in Galaxy S flagship phones. But Korean outlet The Maeil reported that Exynos was back on the cards in “a limited capacity”. We’ll just have to wait to see how limited. SamMobile previously speculated that only the base-model would offer the Exynos chipset, but it looks like this will be offered across the range.
Leaker Tech_reve on X (formerly Twitter) recently revealed a retail store’s stock listings for the S24 lineup, seemingly confirming RAM and storage options for all three models. Expect the base Galaxy S24 to stick with 8GB of RAM and either 128 or 256GB of storage. The Galaxy S24+ will be more of a step up than previous years, with 12GB of RAM and either 256 or 512GB of storage. The Galaxhy S24 Ultra will also get 12GB of RAM across the board, with 256GB, 512GB and 1TB storage options.
At one point, we heard rumours that the S23 Ultra would drop down from four cameras to three, ditching its 3x optical lens for a periscope with 3-10x variable zoom. Whispers from leaker Ice Universe then claimed the S24 Ultra will ditch its 10MP telephoto sensor for a much more detailed 50MP unit. Those claims have since been backtracked. Yogesh Brar said the S24 Ulta’s cameras would pack a 200MP main snapper, 12MP ultrawide, 50MP telephoto, and 10MP periscope lens. The selfie snapper is reportedly a 12MP camera as well.
Samsung Galaxy S24 expected software
AI is the hot topic for many smartphone makers, and Samsung is no exception. The firm put out a statement confirming Galaxy AI would be coming in early 2024, promising a mix of on-device and cloud-based tools. The Galaxy S24 series will be first in line for them.
So far, Samsung has only detailed AI Live Translate Call, which will provide real-time text and audio translations of what the other person is saying during a phone call. It’ll be done entirely on-device, to avoid any privacy concerns. It is also working on a generative AI model called Samsung Gauss, which can generate text, images and code snippets. It’s understood there will be some sort of integration with the camera or image gallery app, though the specifics are still TBC.
Based on the expected early 2024 release date, we’re expecting the S24 series to arrive running Android 14, with OneUI 6 (or a version of it) sat on top.
One new S24 Ultra software addition will reportedly be “Zoom Anyplace”, which will let you zoom anywhere onscreen by up to 4x without having to reposition the camera, thanks to the high 200MP pixel count. A Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is required to handle the real-time image processing, apparently.
Samsung Galaxy S24 feature wish list
We’re huge fans of the Galaxy S23 Ultra, giving it five stars in our review. The S23 and S23+ also impressed, but we felt they hadn’t improved all that much from their predecessors – making it hard to justify the increased prices when there was no shortage of keenly-priced competition. Here’s what we think Samsung could do to change that for their successors:
New camera hardware
Samsung has some of the best image processing in the business, which helps the S23 and S23+ take fantastic photos – but the underlying hardware is beginning to look outdated compared to big-name rivals. We’d love to see the ultrawide and telephoto lenses catch up to the main sensor with higher pixel counts – and if the main snapper could get a physically larger sensor too, the S24 would definitely be on to a winner.
Faster charging
Samsung’s phones most often get compared to Apple and Google’s offerings, and in that respect they’re decently quick to top up – but the current crop of Chinese rivals have them all beat for charging speeds. It’s not even close, either: the S23 maxes out at 25W over USB-C and the S23+/S23 Ultra can manage 45W, but a Xiaomi 13 Pro manages a whopping 120W. We’d love to see the next-gen Galaxy pick up the pace.
One sweet spot S24
We love the Galaxy S23’s palm-friendly dimensions, which put it among some of the smallest Android flagships going, but the larger, pricer S23+ feels a little lost. It’s expensive, yet is bested for battery capacity by the cheaper Google Pixel 7 Pro – which also gives it a run for its money on the photography front. We’d like Samsung to focus on a single S24 model, with a slightly larger screen (6.3in would be just fine) that would make room for a larger battery, and keep the price competitive with rivals.
Tom Morgan-Freelander
Deputy Editor