Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Review: Why Buy Anything Else?

maybe because I don't need a new phone and don't see the need to upgrade every single damn year?

What did you get last year?
- Not the user you responded to but in my case nothing. My Xperia 10 III is still working well after three years so there no reason to buy a new one.
  
  Okay, I might be out of the OS support window so I might want to do see how AOSP does on my phone. But hardware-wise there's really no reason to upgrade (and much less to a comically expensive device like in the video).
- "don't need to upgrade my phone every year".
  
  And neither do I. Currently running a (horror!) 2018 flagship on DivestOS. It's faster than anyone's phone that I know. Everyone is surprised at how fast my phone is.
  
  Paid $80 for it 3 years ago.
- onePlus Nord N200
- Nothing. My current average phone life-time is 7 years, and the majority were second-hand already.
  
  I've spent under $400 a year on all my tech combined, including phones, tablets, desktops, laptops, accessories, toys, and anything else with a battery.
  
  If you get good tools, you don't need to replace them.
Then don't? I don't understand your point here.
- He's answering the question that's been posed. Reading isn't your strong suit...

Well, that extra $1000 added to the price would be a reason... 😄

There are so many reasons, but the main one is that they keep pushing their shitty Exynos cpus in Europe! My next phone is certainly not a Samsung just for this reason.

shitty Exynos cpus

Funny how Exynos is shitty but when it's rebranded as Google Tensor, it's the strong heart of the best Android phones.
- To be fair, I've only ever seen negative opinions about the Tensor chips and the majority of it stems from it being an Exynos derivative.
- Afaik tensor isn't the main cpu in pixels
I mean, we are yet to see the performance of the latest generation

That's $1000 more than I'm willing to pay on a smartphone.

What phone are you currently using? Do you find there's anything you can't do at such a price point?
- I have a Pixel 6a, and no.

Why Buy Anything Else?

It seems to be the size of an air craft carrier.

So, also usable as a weapon if required. Another feature.

Cuz you can get a Pixel 7a for $350-400. Which is arguably a better phone. But inarguably a better value.

Just out of curiosity, if you could recommend a phone to a relative. Let's say young enough to be on all the socials, but old enough to not need the newest flagship, what would you recommend? I'm guessing the 7 or 7a?
- I'd recommend the 8 or 7a to anyone and everyone.

$1300

TEN TIMES the most I've ever paid for a phone.

Just got a Pixel 8 (256 GB) for $510 a few weeks ago. I'm good with that, thanks.

Holy shit how'd you get it so cheap? Is it carrier locked or refurbished?
- Unlocked, brand new direct from the Google Store. They emailed me a coupon code for being on the Google Assistant mailing list that gave me an extra $150 off, and it stacked with a $100 discount they were already running (so $250 off total). I'm a self-admitted headphone jack enthusiast, but the price was just too good to pass up.

Becuase a mid-range phone is good enough for most people

I hammer on a phone. Run an FTP server at home to copy files sometimes, have multiple sync tools running, always manually copying files to/from network devices, run RDP/SSH sessions often. The screen is rarely off.

I do fine with phones that cost $100 used. 2 year old flagships are a great value. If they work for me, the average user would have no trouble with one.

Switch to Graphene/Lineage/Divest, and people think it's a new flagship.
- For sure on switching to a custom OS like you said. It makes them run so much smoother and faster than stock at least on Graphene for sure

I got a pixel 7 pro for €700, happy with that given the current nutty prices of phones

Other than the battery life, the Pixels are great long term phone investments.

once i got my a54 i honestly don't know why i ever went with the s series

Is it that good?
- for me it's basically as decent as my old s series but half the price; the camera is slightly worse but for what i use it for it's not bad.

I’m still on my iPhone 7 and still haven’t found a good enough reason to upgrade. All my productivity work is done on my PC since I work from home. And I have a camera for photos. I’d rather use that money to buy Apple shares.

I mean that's great but there have been an enormous number of advancements in the last 8 years or whatever.
- Cool.

in answer to your question Marcus, because I paid attention in economics class and understand the concept of opportunity cost.

To paint the full picture, it's $2,399 to pre order it in the country I live in (Australia).

The average wage in australia is 90k pretax, approx 70k post tax

2399 is mortgage payments, food or transportation.

Stateside here, and I agree that price is insane. Also, I like to root my phones , and Samsung makes that hard. that said, I am writing this on my tab s8 with a stylus. people forget that Saving for real needs takes priority! retirement is not free, after all.

What the fuck is he smoking??

I enjoy reading about the S24 Ultra for showing what could be possible in a smartphone. Buying one for personal use is another matter entirely.

Found the phone interesting, but my S22 is working just too perfectly the last 2 years to buy a new one now. Maybe I'll get the S26, if it's time to change

Samsung have for the large part, done really well with their phones in recent years. I'm glad people are getting more and more usage out of them.
I generally change every 4 years anyway. It's around the time battery performance starts to become noticeable I find.

I suppose if there was nothing worth upgrading to I'd just change the battery. But after 4 years there usually is.

Maybe if I can remove Samsung's software.