Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra has been launched as the brand’s most powerful smartphone offering yet. It costs $100 more in the US than its predecessor, the Galaxy S23 Ultra, and Rs 5,000 more here in India for the base model. Here, we are to tell you what has changed in the Galaxy S24 Ultra over the Galaxy S23 Ultra and whether the price increase is justified or not.
Titanium Build
The Galaxy S24 Ultra sports a Titanium build compared to the company’s Armour Aluminium it employed in the Galaxy S23 Ultra. The switch from Aluminium to Titanium is one of the major factors for price increase as Titanium costs more in manufacturing, and adding to the equation is painting, which is also a difficult process. In other words, the price hike for the Galaxy S24 Ultra brings you a stronger yet lighter frame than the Galaxy S23 Ultra. There are other design changes as well, such as a flat display instead of a slightly curved one on the Galaxy S24 Ultra, a flat back panel, and a slightly slimmer profile.
Upgraded Internals & Better protection for display
Samsung has upgraded the smartphone’s internals, making it more powerful in every possible way. The inclusion of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which costs more to acquire than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, a new 50MP telephoto lens, a brighter display, and a 1.9x larger vapour cooling system add up to the price increase.
In addition, the front of the device is now covered with Gorilla Glass Armour compared to Victus 2 on the S23 Ultra. Compared to a typical glass surface, Corning Gorilla Armor reduces reflection by up to 75%, which enhances display readability and minimizes screen reflections in almost any environment.
It also enhances the durability of the screen in case of drops. In Corning lab tests, the brand says that Gorilla Armour demonstrated superior durability when compared against competitive aluminosilicate cover glasses.
Corning created a new lab test — the “Scratch Bot” — to measure its exceptional scratch resistance to replicate micro scratches caused by day-to-day wear. Gorilla Armour showed no visible scratches on this rigorous test and demonstrated over four times more scratch resistance than competitive aluminosilicate cover glasses. Enhancing the protective glass for improved device Screen protection naturally leads to an increase in cost.
Read More: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra vs Galaxy S24+: Which One Should You Go For?
Software Improvements
The Galaxy S24 series runs on One UI 6.1 based on Android 14 and has been loaded with a bunch of under-the-hood improvements. The major addition is Galaxy AI, which includes both on-device and cloud-based artificial intelligence features. For the latter, Samsung has partnered with Google to use its Gemini AI model.
Furthermore, this leads to increased server costs that can handle all the AI requests, and as a result, the price hike is eventually passed onto the customer. Moreover, Samsung is bringing all these features to some of its older flagship models, which means that more people will use the cloud-based AI features.
Samsung also has plans to support the Galaxy S24 series models for up to 7 years, meaning it will receive major Android OS updates till Android 21. This would also result in an increase in the manpower required to optimise each update for the older models while new models continue to launch each year. Again, hiring additional staff at Samsung would entail increased expenditures, further resulting into a rise in price.
Verdict
Overall, we feel that the Galaxy S24 Ultra does have a decent set of improvements over the Galaxy S23 Ultra, which is why Samsung has increased the price of the model. Multiple other factors could be at play that resulted in the move, such as the cost of development, increase in raw materials and so on. Whatever the case may be, what we are seeing now justifies the Rs 5,000 (or $100) price hike from Galaxy S23 Ultra to Galaxy S24 Ultra.
