Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus review: Middle child syndrome

Samsung’s Galaxy S Plus range has always by its nature fallen between the two stools of the entry-level model’s dinky appeal and the Ultra line’s everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach. The Galaxy S24 Plus shows signs that this middle child is tentatively stepping out on its own.

Yes, the headline news here is once again Samsung’s impressive suite of AI tools, and yes, the Galaxy S24 Plus is still essentially a supersized Galaxy S24. But a couple of key upgrades – particularly to the display – suggest that there might be more to it this year.

Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus review: What you need to know

The Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus offers exactly the same sharpened-up design as the Galaxy S24, but spread over a much larger canvas.

This time around, the Plus model’s 6.7in 120Hz AMOLED display isn’t merely bigger than the non-Plus-sized model. At 3,120 x 1,440 (QHD+) resolution it’s also a fair bit sharper.

Elsewhere you get the same custom Exynos 2400 chip as the Galaxy S24. The memory allotments are quite a bit higher, however, with 12GB of RAM (rather than 8GB) and either 256GB or 512GB of internal storage.

You also get a larger 4,900mAh battery, with 45W wired charging support. The 50MP main, 12MP ultrawide and 10MP 3x zoom camera system, however, is identical to that of its smaller brother.

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Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus review: Price and competition

Just like the Galaxy S24, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus has actually gotten a little cheaper. Prices start from £999 for the 256GB model, which is £50 less than last year’s starting price. You can upgrade to 512GB of internal storage for £1,099 – which, again, is cheaper than last year.

Of course, we criticised the Galaxy S23 Plus for being £100 more expensive than the Galaxy S22 Plus, so Samsung hasn’t quite pulled its pricing back to its previous levels and so it still feels ever so slightly expensive.

At around this £1,000 price point, and with this kind of full-sized flagship spec, the Galaxy S24 Plus has some serious competition. Both the Pixel 8 Pro and the OnePlus 12 cost £999, while the iPhone 15 Plus starts from £899.

Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus review: Design and key features

This year’s Galaxy S24 models have gotten a whole lot boxier and more angular. In the Galaxy S24 Plus, as with the regular S24, that means the removal of any form of curve from the side frame.

The result is a Galaxy S24 Plus that looks and feels an awful lot like an iPhone. It’s ironic, of course, that Apple has started to add curves to its smartphones with the iPhone 15 family. Either way, the Galaxy S24 Plus design is pleasant if derivative. Even the distinguishing feature-free camera module is way blander than it used to be.

From the front of the phone, the display bezels are relatively slim and quite uniform, though the aluminium frame stands some way out from the body of the phone. It offers a nice framing effect, though it’s a little less subtle than recent iPhone models.

As you’d expect, the Galaxy S24 Plus is a lot bigger than the regular S24, but Samsung has done well to make a larger phone that remains usable day to day. With a 7.7mm thick body and a weight that falls just the right side of 200g (196g to be precise), the S24 Plus is relatively easy to live with despite a considerable footprint.

It’s reasonably rugged, too, with Gorilla Glass Victus 2 to the front and back and an Armor Aluminium 2 frame. The Galaxy S24 Plus is IP68 rated, so it’s sufficiently water- and dust-resistant as well.

My model comes in the Cobalt Violet colour, which is one of four base colours alongside Amber Yellow, Onyx Black and Marble Grey. You can also pick up three Samsung-exclusive  colours in Sapphire Blue, Jade Green and Sandstone Orange.

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Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus review: Display

The reason you’re likely looking to buy a Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus rather than a Galaxy S24 is for the Plus model’s larger Super AMOLED display. This is a bigger differentiating factor than ever.

Not only does that Galaxy S24 Plus screen tower over its 6.2in little brother with an even larger size of 6.7in (up from 6.6in on the S23 Plus), but it also finally squeezes in an appropriate number of pixels. Previous Plus models had FHD+ displays, much like the non-Plus models, which translated to less sharp resolution.

Here in the Galaxy S24 Plus you get a full QHD+ or 1,440 x 3120 resolution, much like the Galaxy S24 Ultra. You’ll need to activate this in the Settings menu, which I of course did immediately, but once active the Galaxy S24 Plus finally feels like it can compete with peers such as the Pixel 8 Pro and the OnePlus 12.

It’s an LTPO panel that can scale between 1 and 120Hz, making it more efficient than ever. That’s a good thing, too, given a boosted peak brightness of 2,600cd/m2 in HDR situations. With auto brightness off, I recorded a maximum luminance of 718cd/m2, which is rather good.

Colour accuracy is more than respectable and not excessively punchy once you switch to the Natural screen mode. I recorded an sRGB gamut coverage of 99% and an average Delta E of 1.65. All of these figures are very similar to the Galaxy S24, unsurprisingly.

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Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus review: Performance and battery life

Unfortunately, Samsung has taken a bit of a backwards step with its approach to processors in the Galaxy S24 line. While last year it adopted Qualcomm solutions across the board, this year, the global model of the Galaxy S24 Plus – like the Galaxy S24 – runs on the company’s custom Exynos 2400 chip.

All the usual benchmark tests point to a broadly flagship experience, but it’s simply not as fast a component as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 that powers the US models. Given the inclusion of that QHD+ display, it offers the slowest GPU performance in the range, barely nudging above the Galaxy S23 Plus in our usual tests.

Considering the £200 premium, I would have liked to have seen the Galaxy S24 Plus follow the S24 Ultra’s lead and go with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip across the board.

While Samsung’s approach rather damages the Galaxy S24 Plus’ competitiveness with some of its rivals (Pixel 8 Pro excluded), the practical truth is that it performs smoothly in general usage. As with the Galaxy S24, I had no issues with it running the most demanding games on high settings, and I didn’t notice any hesitation when unlocking or jumping straight into the Camera app.

However, the Galaxy S24 Plus suffers even worse than the Galaxy S24 when it comes to sustained gaming performance. Using the 3D Mark Solar Bay Stress Test, which runs 20-minute-long graphically intense tests mimicking a high-end gaming session, the Galaxy S24 Plus scored a pretty terrible 52.5% (10% worse than the S24), indicating that the phone is throttling back massively under load.

I would have hoped that the extra surface area for the Galaxy S24 Plus’s cooling provision might have helped here, but it seems the Exynos 2400 is struggling to run that extra-sharp QHD+ display efficiently. No wonder Samsung defaults to FHD+.

It might not be much cop for prolonged gaming sessions, but the Galaxy S24 runs reasonably efficiently when the load is lighter. While a 4,900mAh battery is relatively small for a bigger phone, it’s larger than the 4,700mAh Galaxy S23 Plus cell before it.

Despite the inclusion of that bigger, brighter, sharper display, the Galaxy S24 Plus lasted 28hrs 13mins in our looping battery test. That’s about 1hr 40mins longer than the Galaxy S23 Plus and almost nine hours longer than the Pixel 8 Pro, though also an hour and a half shorter than the OnePlus 12 and around six hours shorter than the Galaxy S24 Ultra. In general use, I was able to go a full day with around five hours of screen-on time, and still had around 45% left.

As before, Samsung has supported up to 45W wired charging here. Using a 65W Samsung laptop charger (there’s no brick in the box) I measured a zero to 100% charge time of around 1hr 12mins, which is very similar to the Galaxy S24. It’s not especially speedy, especially compared to the OnePlus 12.

Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus review: Cameras

Like the Galaxy S24, Samsung hasn’t upgraded the cameras of the Galaxy S24 Plus at all, at least in hardware terms. That’s a little tougher to swallow here in a phone that starts from £1,000, especially when you consider the quality of the competition.

That’s not to say that the Galaxy S24 Plus takes poor shots by any means. The 50MP (f/1.8) main sensor captures crisp, vibrant shots with strong contrast, and the days of Samsung punching up the colours to a luridly ludicrous degree are long past. Night shots, meanwhile, are bright and clear, if not at the same level as the Pixel 8 family.

That 12MP (f/2.2) 120-degree ultrawide unit still takes solid landscape shots, too. It might not pack the same detail as the main sensor, but it broadly matches the tone. As too does the 10MP (f/2.4) 3x telephoto, which captures impressively sharp close-ups, and can even turn out respectable-looking 10x hybrid zoom shots.

However, the latter’s provision here isn’t as noteworthy as in the smaller and cheaper Galaxy S24. Indeed, we actively expect a solid telephoto camera for our £1,000, and the Pixel 8 Pro even goes further with a 5x zoom.

Samsung’s 12MP selfie camera remains a strong component though, capturing sharp shots that lock onto the subject well and replicate natural skin tones. Portrait selfies do well to separate the subject from the background bokeh, too.

On the video front, you have the choice of 8K at 30fps or 4K at 60fps, with a default setting of 1080p/30fps and maxing out at 240fps for Slow Motion mode. The footage I captured was clean and steady regardless of the settings, with changes in lighting and zoom levels failing to throw it off.

Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus review: Software

Like the rest of the Galaxy S24 family, the Plus model runs on Android 14 with One UI 6.1. Samsung’s custom UI is a love-or-tolerate affair. It’s a little busy for my tastes, with too much bloatware and a set-up process that requires too much fiddling around if you’re fully committed to the Google ecosystem.

None of this is insurmountable, but I found the need to do things like manually switch to gesture-based controls and install Google Wallet a little grating. So too is Samsung’s app tray layout, which orders things in an atypical way.

Samsung phones are extremely popular, of course, so for many people this way of doing things will feel natural. It’s worth noting that there will be an adjustment period for anyone who is familiar with another brand’s phones, though.

The key software addition this year is undoubtedly Galaxy AI. Samsung’s artificial intelligence tools draw heavily from Google’s efforts, but some of them go above and beyond with their implementation.

They vary in usefulness, but the ability to remove background objects from your photos, instantly translate and transcribe calls and voice notes in real-time, and to have the Galaxy AI assistant summarise a lengthy note, is downright impressive.

As too is the ability to search using anything currently on screen with a press and hold of the gesture bar, followed by a tap or circle.

Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus review: Verdict

Samsung has created another strong full-sized flagship phone in the Galaxy S24 Plus, and has taken some steps forward with a more competitive display and an even larger battery. Its Galaxy AI features range from cool gimmicks to outright useful tools as well.

However, the lack of progress on the camera front and the shortcomings of the Exynos 2400 chip are harder to justify here on the Galaxy S24 Plus, with its £200 premium over the Galaxy S24. Expectations are simply higher at this end of the market, and you have to feel that Samsung needs to work even harder to differentiate its middle model in future – or else drop the price a little.