Samsung Reveals Its New S24 Series Phones and Their AI Chops

Speaker 1: Samsung just announced the Galaxy S 24 series and we had the chance to check it out. Speaker 1: The big thing that's new with the S 24 series is all the AI features that are inside all three of these phones. So once again, that's the big new thing. But these AI features, which Samsung is calling Galaxy AI, will also be coming to the S 23 series at [00:00:30] a later date. So these features kind of span across everything from language translation to photo editing to note taking and things like that. But I'm going to highlight some of my favorites that I've come across based on the limited amount of time I've had with the S 24 series so far. So one of the most interesting new features can actually translate a phone call in real time. So at Samsung's event, I actually had the chance to try this out in a demo that involved me making a phone call to [00:01:00] a restaurant where the person who works there only speaks Korean. It was really smooth and seamless and easy to use. Speaker 2: Hello? Speaker 1: Hi. I would like to reserve a table for tomorrow night. Speaker 3: Yes. Okay. What time and how many people are Speaker 1: Visiting? I thought it worked really well, [00:01:30] but again, this is kind of a controlled demo, so we'll know more about how well it really works in real scenarios once we've had a chance to test these phones. The other feature that I really liked is called Circle to Search, and this is one of the features that Samsung is partnering with Google on. So maybe I'll say, that looks good. I want to go to this place for brunch, whatever it is, I press and hold on the home button and then circle these waffles right here. Speaker 1: [00:02:00] So it's bringing up related searches, restaurants near us that have waffles, videos, relevant news stories and things like that. The idea itself isn't entirely new. It kind of reminds me a little bit of Google lens, but I think it's still really interesting and I think it's something that is a bit more intuitive than taking a picture of something and then typing in Google search to try to find it on your own. There's also another translation feature that I thought was really interesting. It's called Interpreter, and [00:02:30] it's kind of like Google's interpreter mode on the pixel fold. Speaker 2: Hello, how are you? Speaker 1: I'm good, how are you? Oh, and then I have to press it Speaker 4: To camera. Speaker 1: What Speaker 2: Model is your camera? Speaker 1: I think it's a Nikon, but I'm not quite sure. Speaker 1: [00:03:00] And again, this isn't an entirely new idea. We've seen Google do things like this before with its own interpreter mode, but it's still really interesting to see this kind of feature come to more phones. There are also some interesting note taking features powered by AI in the Galaxy S 24 series. One of them lets you take any document in the Notes app and convert it into bullet points with the press of a button. So I'm opening a note right now, and if I once again tap that button with the stars, [00:03:30] I can choose from these options. So I'm going to choose auto format, and let's say I want this formatted in bullet points because it's easier to read. I can just tap that Speaker 1: And it organized the document into bullet points, but also you can swipe through different templates and different versions as well. You can also summarize a document very easily and also translate it into a different language. So [00:04:00] again, these features don't necessarily feel groundbreaking. They don't feel entirely new. We've seen tools like this at Google io. Google showed a bunch of new features that can organize documents for you, but again, this is something, the fact that Samsung is putting it in its flagship smartphone series really shows that they're trying to make the technology more mainstream and they're trying to make it something that people use in their everyday lives versus just using it once in a while. So I do think it's very interesting. All three phones run on Qualcomm's [00:04:30] new Snapdragon eight gen three processor. That's the newest processor that the company recently announced and surprise, it was designed to facilitate AI tasks. Speaker 1: So the Galaxy S 24 is one of the first phones that will be running on this new chip. And as you can see, Samsung is certainly putting some of that AI processing power to work with the S 24 series. But beyond that, there aren't that many new hardware changes aside from the screen size on the base and the middle [00:05:00] model. So the regular S 24 now has a 6.2 inch screen, which is slightly bigger than the 6.1 inch screen on the Galaxy S 23. And then the middle model, the S 24 plus now has a slightly larger 6.7 inch screen, which makes it a little bit bigger than the 6.6 inch screen on the Galaxy S 23 plus. And of course, the ultra model still has the same 6.8 inch screen. And the S 24 Ultra also has a titanium build this time around. And if that sounds familiar, it's [00:05:30] because that's the same material. Speaker 1: Apple also used for the iPhone 15 Pro series. The cameras are very similar on the S 24 lineup compared to last year, but the Ultra model has a new 50 megapixel telephoto lens that can zoom optically at five x. That's a new option compared to last year where it really just jumped from three x to 10 x. And the goal here is to really kind of make those shots where three isn't quite enough, but you don't need 10 to make those middle ground shots a bit sharper and clearer and easier to take. But again, [00:06:00] we can't really test that fully here because we'd love to be able to compare it to last year's device. So in our full review, we'll definitely have more details on that. What's interesting about the Galaxy S 24 series is that it really feels like there's a bigger focus on software here compared to hardware. Usually some of the biggest changes we see year over year in Samsung's flagship phones comes down to things like the camera, the screen, the design. Of course, all of those areas have been updated a bit in the S 24 series, but it really feels like [00:06:30] the software is the star of the show here. Thanks to Galaxy ai, we look forward to testing all of this more in our full review. So don't forget to stay tuned and check that out. And don't forget to follow CNET for more coverage.