Samsung Galaxy S24 256GB Prices On Telstra Plans

Less than twelve months after ChatGPT took over the conversation, Samsung is looking to redefine the term smartphone.  

At least, that’s the story if you buy into the hype. This isn’t to say that the rise of large language models and generative AI-powered features like those seen in the latest Pixel phones aren’t significant but more than it isn’t as recent a phenomenon as you might think.  

The quest to make the software in a smartphone something that people care just as much about as the hardware is far from a new one, especially when it comes to Samsung. The appeal of such a paradigm shift is obvious. Designing and deploying a new software feature isn’t exactly cheap, but it’s a lot cheaper (and less risky) than messing with the physical production of handsets like the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus.  

Samsung’s latest set of premium smartphones is a perfect example of what this new phase of smartphones could look like. The Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus are even lighter on changes and bigger on iteration than usual. Rather than try to fix what isn’t broken or close the gap between the standard models and their Ultra-grade sibling, Samsung has stuck to what works. 

Teaching an old phone a few new tricks isn’t likely to please everyone, but it makes for a refreshing change of pace.

• Galaxy S24 plans
• Galaxy S24 Plus plans

Lessons learned

Let’s get the obvious out of the way. If you want an S-Pen stylus, a Snapdragon processor or a camera system with more than 3x telephoto zoom, then you’ll probably want to pick up the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra over either of the standard models.  

The macho moniker attached to Samsung’s most expensive new smartphone is there for a reason. If that's not you though, the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus are an Android-based option well worth considering. The pair tick all the usual boxes but offer little in the way of differentiation from last year’s Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 Plus.  

That said, there are a few devils in the details worth keeping in mind if you’re looking to split hairs between the two. Naturally, the 6.7-inch screen on the Galaxy S24 Plus is larger than the 6.2-inch one found on the Galaxy S24. Less obvious is the fact that the display on the former rocks a more glamorous Quad HD+ resolution.  

In action, the screen on the more pocket-friendly device is no sloucher though. These days, the bar for displays on premium Samsung smartphones is such that it’s hard to imagine having anything but a great time gazing at either for even a short time.  

Size differences aside, there are other key similarities and differences worth teasing out there. The Galaxy S24 has 8GB of RAM and a 40,00mAh battery with 25W fast charging. The Galaxy S24 Plus has 12GB of RAM and a 4,900mAh battery with 45W fast-charing. Beyond that, both devices run on an Exynos 2400 processor and come with all the usual premium perks, from wireless charging to the in-display fingerprint sensor and IP68 water resistance.  

If all that sounds a little familiar, that’s because there just isn’t a whole lot separating this year’s Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus from last year’s Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 Plus when it comes to design, look, feel and specs. For those a few generations behind the curve, that’s not necessarily going to be a dealbreaker. If you upgraded recently, there’s not a whole lot here worth shelling out for.  

Not unless you count Galaxy AI.

Stealing from the best

The glitzy Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus might look like iPhones, but this year’s pairing of premium Samsung smartphones has a lot in common with last year’s Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro. 

Google’s latest pair of premium phones are engineered to be a vehicle for a bounty of nifty generative AI-powered features and the same could be said for the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus. Few of these Galaxy AI features are outright unprecedented but even those that could be described as similar to what Google’s Pixel line offers quickly feel like a more intuitive and better integrated one. 

Samsung has done an impressive job of weaving these AI tools throughout the UX of its One UI Android skin in a way that actively reduces the friction that comes with opting to use them. This seamless is occasionally concerning, but mostly it’s for the better. A few of these functions, such as the ability to rephrase and rework messages based on your desired tone, are even built into the Samsung keyboard and never more than a single tap away.  

Unfortunately, Samsung’s success here is rarely matched in consistency by the features themselves and it’s not clear how much better that situation will become over time. The hallucinated information that the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus are liable to spout has more to do with how large language models writ large work than any specific issues with one.  

Regardless of whether you’re asking ChatGPT a question or asking Samsung’s Galaxy AI to summarise a given piece of information, you’re not getting a real answer based on reasoning or rationale. You’re just getting a system’s best guess at what a good answer looks like. 

For that reason, some of the applications of this tech seen here are less fruitful than others. For the most part, real-time language translation (available via both voice calls and a dedicated interpreter mode) and transcription work well enough. Right now, Samsung’s lexicon is limited to 13 different languages. You will need a WiFi or cellular connection for real-time translation, though the interpreter mode works without one. That might sound like a small detail, but it’s also a big part of the story that Samsung is trying to tell when it comes to differentiating its spin on generative AI from its competition. 

You need look no further than Circle to Search for an example of why this might be important. This feature is essentially built into Android, but the Galaxy S24, Galaxy S24, and Galaxy S24 Ultra are the first handsets to offer it fresh out of the box. A long press on the navigation key now prompts you to circle whatever on your screen has caught your interest. Then, Google will automatically pull up search results for whatever that is. It’s a lot of fun. However, Google has already gone and ported the feature over to last year’s Pixel phones in the time between Samsung’s latest devices being announced and launched.  

That kind of ubiquity across the Android ecosystem is great to see but it does undercut the argument for buying the Galaxy S24 or Galaxy S24 Plus based on its new AI features.  

Of course, for these features to be a selling point at all they do have to work.

The ghost in the machine

It’s early days, but the line between party trick and productivity hack feels fairly thin when it comes to the things that the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus can do with generative AI.  

Being able to easily record and transcribe conversations with some degree of accuracy is a pretty useful time-saver, especially if you work in media. The ability to summarise large blocks of text into a few lines doesn’t quite hold up in the same way. The insights it offers rarely go beyond the big picture, are limited to around 1,600 words in the Samsung Notes app and are often outright wrong.  

These issues and caveats are such that you probably shouldn't trust any summaries that the Galaxy S24 produces and the information it can ingest is limited such that you aren’t saving that much time. I can’t help but wish Samsung was a little more ambitious, original or thoughtful about how it deployed generative AI here.  

There’s also something distinctly disquiet about the small print, which asserts that many of these features will only be provided for free until the end of 2025. The idea that your phone could lose functionality over time undercuts some of the sales pitch here, particularly in light of how much Samsung is leaning upon the idea of on-device processing as a point of difference. In fairness to Samsung though, I wouldn't be that shocked if I logged on to discover Google had discontinued some of the Pixel's AI-powered apps given its track record. 

All this isn’t to say that a more unshackled version of the generative AI apps here would necessarily be an improvement. The world is already rife with misinformation and while the enhancements that the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24’s Photo Assist AI feature offers are well-implemented on a user experience level, their implications can often be a little troubling in the context of that reality. Regardless of whether you opt for the standard-sized Galaxy S24 or its sibling, you’ll get the same 50MP wide-angle lens, a 12MP telephoto lens and a 12MP ultrawide seen on last year’s Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S24 Plus.  

The Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus cost a pretty penny and the results the camera hardware on each delivers mostly live up to the expectations that come with that premium price. The triple-lens setup here is plenty capable in daylight situations and the 3x telephoto zoom lets you play around with composition in a way that older and cheaper Galaxy might not.  

That said, if you’re looking for a difference between this and other camera-centric devices playing in the premium end of the smartphone scene then you need to look no further than the night mode. The Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus take reasonably nice nocturnal snaps, but the results often lack the clarity and consistency of alternatives like the Pixel 8 Pro. Google's flagship is more expensive, but if you care about camera quality then the case for that premium is pretty easy to make.

Outside of that though, the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus are kitted out with pretty good hardware that produces the kind of results you'd expect.  

In the situations where it falls short though, Samsung’s new Photo Assist feature promises to let you quickly and easily tweak things to your liking. There's always been a blurry line between enhancing a photo and changing it but the Photo Assist makes it almost alarmingly friction-free to alter the story that a picture can tell. You can just as easily move, resize and remove individual objects within a scene.  

When it comes to things like travel pictures that you post on your private social media, there’s a lot of valuable utility that comes with being able to tweak images in this way. However, as a journalist, it’s hard not to think about the massive amount of misinformation that this tool could enable. Images editing using Photo Assist do garner a watermark that allows them to be easily identified but it doesn’t seem like it would be that difficult to remove it if you know what you’re doing.

Galaxy S24 camera samples

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Check out these camera samples taken on the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus Click or tap on any photo to see a larger version. 

Samsung Galaxy S24 & Galaxy S24 Plus - Final Thoughts

The idea of a smartphone that gets smarter and better over time is something that Samsung has been talking about for years, but the suite of generative AI features found in the new Galaxy S24, Galaxy S24 Plus, and Galaxy S24 Ultra gives that ideal tangibility that’s been sorely lacking in previous incarnations. 

Samsung’s first AI phone is neither perfect nor the first of its kind, but it does feel like a harbinger for what’s ahead and a breath of fresh air compared to the spec bumps of years past.  The new Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus are a little bigger than year’s models and boast slightly faster processors, but the idea that you might be able to use them in new ways is really the only thing worth talking about.  

Good or bad, the fact this is the only thing to say kinda says it all.