Samsung Galaxy S24 heralds dawning of AI smartphone era

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Samsung Electronics Co. on Wednesday unveiled its latest flagship smartphone Galaxy S24 series, which it calls an “AI phone,” meaning the smartphone is packed with a variety of artificial intelligence features.

At its Galaxy Unpacked 2024 event, the South Korean tech giant said it aims to shake up the global mobile ecosystem, currently dominated by Apple Inc.’s iOS and Google LLC’s Android, saying that AI, not operating systems, will be the “game-changer” in the smartphone sphere.

“With our Galaxy S24, we are ushering in a new era of AI phones,” said TM Roh, president and head of Samsung’s Mobile eXperience (MX) division, at the annual event.

Samsung launched three types of its latest flagship model – the Galaxy S24, Galaxy S24 Plus and Galaxy S24 Ultra.

The highest model, the S24 Ultra, comes with a titanium frame – Samsung’s first – to rival Apple’s iPhone 15 series.

Samsung, a leading smartphone maker and the world’s largest maker of memory chips and TVs, said the Galaxy S24 series is “the world’s first AI phone.”

CIRCLE TO SEARCH

The most notable feature of the S24 series is the Circle to Search function, which it jointly developed with Google.

The function enables users to find real-time information about a product or a person appearing on the Galaxy S24 screen by drawing a circle around the image.

This means there is no need to type in a long question or do a web search to get the information users need – a function that is expected to significantly save time on internet searches and make them more convenient.

For example, if a user comes across a beautiful building while browsing Instagram on a Galaxy S24 and wants to know its location, he can long-press the home button, draw a circle around the building with his finger, and quickly get search results, Samsung said.

ON-DEVICE AI

Samsung said several new features, including real-time translation, a personal assistant service and document summaries, are possible with the Galaxy S24 thanks to on-device AI technology.

The Galaxy S24 is fitted with the Chat Assist and Note Assist functions that summarize a long document and translate foreign text into more than 13 different languages. The embedded Live Translate app enables real-time translation during phone calls without a third-party app.

All these features are powered by on-device AI, which also enables an enhanced 100x zoom function in Samsung’s new flagship smartphone’s camera.

SNAPDRAGON 8 GEN 3

The Galaxy S24’s strong AI features are powered by Qualcomm’s ultra-intelligent Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor chipset.

The Galaxy S24’s non-Ultra models will be fitted with Samsung’s Exynos 2400 application processor.

With the Galaxy S24 series, Samsung hopes to take on Apple, which last year became the world’s top smartphone maker, pushing Samsung behind it.

According to market researcher IDC, Apple sold 234.6 million smartphones in 2023, accounting for 20.1% of the global market. Samsung sold 226.6 million smartphones for a 19.4% market share.

Samsung raised the price of the S24 Ultra models by 100,000-150,000 won ($74-$111) depending on the storage capacity while prices of the S24 and S24 Plus models remain the same as their previous models.

Samsung will receive pre-orders for the latest smartphones from Jan. 19 in Korea and launch in some select markets, including Korea, on Jan. 31.

Write to Eui-Myung Park and Jin-Suk Choi at uimyung@hankyung.com

In-Soo Nam edited this article.