When it rains, it pours. The old saying often applies to the season of the year that's just officially begun a few days ago, as well as a number of mobile products that are traditionally released in the winter and thoroughly leaked in the summer or fall preceding their formal announcements.
We're talking about Samsung's most advanced (mainstream) smartphone family, which has been in the news a lot over the past couple of months. But very few previous headlines have been as worthy of your attention as the one from earlier today and... the one at the top of this very article.
Hot on the heels of the "vanilla" Galaxy S24, the state-of-the-art S24 Ultra is ready to show its face (and back, and sides, and all its angles) in a few high-resolution and high-confidence computer-generated renders undoubtedly based on Samsung's actual and current design plans from the inside.
This looks awfully familiar, doesn't it?
There's really no way to sugarcoat it and no point in trying to hide or alter the obvious and ugly truth. The Galaxy S24 Ultra is almost identical to the S23 Ultra at first glance, which is likely to rub a number of hardcore Samsung fans the wrong way, as well as draw quite a bit of criticism or outright mockery from the competition.
Of course, we're not saying the actual next-gen Android super-flagship is ugly or unattractive. In fact, it might objectively be one of the most visually appealing (extra-large) handsets out there, which is why we can totally understand Samsung's hesitation to "innovate" and thus mess with (near) perfection.
The rear-facing cameras are not too invasive or on the nose, the back cover on the whole is clean and elegant, the screen bezels about as thin as they could possibly be, and the frame... even sharper and flatter than on the S23 Ultra. That's probably the biggest and most obvious cosmetic change (and it's really not that big and obvious), but as far as we can tell, the S24 Ultra does still maintain a teeny-tiny bit of curvature to help with maneuverability.
What we can't possibly tell from these types of images is what material the frame is actually made from, but Smartprix joins the chorus of industry insiders and trustworthy publications expecting premium titanium to replace the S23 Ultra's already fairly robust aluminum construction.
The S24 Ultra will be different in a number of important ways
Just because an unannounced phone looks virtually identical to its predecessor on the surface, that doesn't mean the situation will stay the same once you dig into its specs, features, and capabilities. The Galaxy S24 Ultra, for instance, is expected to be ever so slightly lighter, shorter, wider, and thinner than the S23 Ultra while retaining the same old 6.8-inch screen size and 5,000mAh battery capacity.
A far more exciting change should see the 1750 nits peak brightness of one of the best phones in the world right now upgraded to an absolutely mind-blowing 2500 nits. What's even more impressive is that the same number will purportedly apply to the Galaxy S24 and S24 Plus as well.
Circling back to the S24 Ultra, the next-gen S Pen-wielding beast is likely to upgrade the 200MP primary rear-facing camera to an all-new sensor while making a highly controversial change to the S23 Ultra's secondary periscope telephoto shooter. Although that camera's megapixel count is expected to go up from 10 to 50, the optical zoom functionality could go down from 10x to 5x, which is unlikely to sit well with the most demanding shutterbugs out there.
Hopefully, that at least means the S24 Ultra will be a little more affordable than its forerunner, although the titanium body, Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, and the rumored storage variants going all the way up to an insane 2TB make any price decrease feel highly improbable.
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Adrian, a mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, has been a dynamic presence in the tech journalism field, contributing to Android Authority, Digital Trends, and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His expertise spans across various platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenthood with his work, Adrian's passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him energized. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has led to an eclectic collection of devices, saved from personal bankruptcy by his preference for 'adequate' over 'overpriced'.
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