What do Chris Hemsworth, Jennifer Lopez, Anne Hathaway, Bill Gates and Samsung Galaxy S24+ have in common? They are successful “middle children”. It may appear a bit of a stretch to compare a phone with the middle child but having tried out the phone that comes between Galaxy S24 Ultra and Galaxy S24, we found that the Galaxy S24+ is likely to be the best choice for anyone looking for a powerful Android flagship phone. This is a phone that prioritises battery life and AI features that work for most people.

One needs to understand why it makes sense to buy this device over the most impressive S24 Ultra, which comes with the S Pen. The point is most users don’t need a stylus, which is only for people who take down a lot of notes or have complicated design-focused tasks. Further, there is design aesthetics: The S24 Ultra has a boxy look because of the S Pen but the S24+ has curvy corners, ensuring the edges of the phone don’t dig into the palm.

True-to-life colours

The ‘plus’ models of the Galaxy S Series have typically been the same phones as the vanilla ones but bigger. It’s ideal if you have larger hands because you get a larger screen and battery too but this year’s S24+ also brings another advantage — the display has a QHD+ resolution. What does this mean? It’s the same QHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X display as on the Ultra, with a peak brightness of 2,600 nits but it’s much lighter — 232g versus 196g, making it easy to hold to your ears for a longer time.

There is an auto-night mode that doesn’t overexpose

As far as design goes, you get a flat display while the phone comes with IP68-rated ingress protection against dust and water. We are talking of 6.7-inch screen estate, complete with one to 120Hz adaptive refresh rate.

Whether it’s watching Super Mario Bros Movie and Oppenheimer or making edits to a photo, the screen on the S24+ makes everything look sharp with great colour accuracy. Be it the iPhone or the Galaxy S phones, the screen ensures colours appear true to life because that’s the only way can you colour-correct pictures to a T.

AI for all

Samsung has changed the smartphone game by going all in with its AI layer, which does things other Android phones don’t deliver and it’s worth paying for.

Photos look great with a good dynamic range (the difference between the brightest and darkest parts) and image quality

Out of every AI feature I tried, Circle To Search is the most compelling. It allows you to search for anything on the screen just by circling it with your finger. For example, I saw a photo of a colleague on Instagram wearing a colourful pair of shoes. I pressed the home button for a second, triggering a sparkling filter. I circled the boots and a bunch of search results showed up to inform me where I can buy the shoes from and the different prices. It’s a bit like Google Lens but way better.

The last couple of weeks, I have been recording all interviews on the Galaxy S24+ because it has AI-powered transcription (Voice Recorder app), which gets 80 per cent of the conversation right. It also means I don’t need to have a separate subscription to Otter.AI.

The other AI feature that is impressive is language translation, which isn’t new to phones. But the implementation here is compelling. You can get a phone call translated in real time between the user of the S24+ and the person on the other end. There is even translation baked into text messages.

Plus, there is generative AI at play in the photo department, allowing you to make some cool changes to photos you take or to those in the gallery. All these AI-powered tools are something users will get used to over time and won’t be able to work without. Further, these tools will improve over time and become more useful. It’s easy for Samsung to push out updates to any of the AI tools. The S24 series runs on Android 14, and the bonus feature on these phones is that Samsung promises seven years of major OS updates and software support, meaning you can hold on to the Galaxy S24+ until 2031.

Helping run the show is Exynos 2400 for Galaxy. The performance of this chipset is comparable to Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy, which powers the Ultra. In real-world usage, you won’t feel any difference and it has excellent ray tracing for games and improved AI processing. In terms of thermal management, the S24+ does a good job; there are no sudden dips or spikes.

Cameras: It’s about processing

There is a trio of wide, ultrawide and 3x telephoto lenses. The main camera has a 50MP sensor while the ultrawide and telephoto have a 12MP and 10MP sensor respectively.

Photos from the main camera are excellent with processing that’s much more laidback than last year. You still get colours that are vibrant yet not over the top and there is a wide dynamic range but the new model has toned down sharpening; the rendition appears more natural.

Circle to Search feature at play

The camera setup offers 3x zoom. And there is an auto night mode. The S24+ offers more restored highlights and light sources and the shadows get a visible boost, there’s less noise too.

The telephoto camera offers a good degree of detail and a gently tweaked output compared to the previous generation and there’s a bit more contrast on the S24+. However, the white balance is inconsistent at night. The ultra-wide camera has a very good dynamic range and colours match those of the other cameras.

Video goes up to 4K@60 fps with all four of its cameras and the main camera on the back can also do 8K@30fps. Video quality is excellent in good lighting: Colours are vibrant but realistic and nicely matched between the different camera exposures while dynamic range leaves no room for quibbles. Video stabilization is superb on the S24+ and shakes are nicely ironed out in low-light videos.

Should you buy it?

The 4,900mAh battery easily lasts a day. After a couple of weeks of testing the S24+ what I found is that Samsung has made the smartphone more meaningful, thanks to the AI features, which can change one’s workflow. The Galaxy S24+ shows maturity in every department — design to software to camera. This is the most stable and no-nonsense flagship Android phone you can buy.