Is a flagship smartphone worthwhile?

[Scary_Turtle]

Are you sure you got a real S24? Cause screen being grainy and pictures being up-scaled with AI sounds like either you got a dud or a phoney. There was an update that caused an issue with vivid and natural not switching correctly, but that would've just caused washed out colours not grainy.
Did you buy it from Takealot?

It's a genuine got it on release date with mtn contract, was a special with a Samsung tablet.

 

[Lupus]

It's a genuine got it on release date with mtn contract, was a special with a Samsung tablet.

Sounds like a dud :-(

 

[Lupus]

Yip, screen is the main reason why I got my S24

Yup the screen is pretty good on the S24, my wife now has the ultra and it's amazing makes the S23 ultra look old .
Camera was decent, not spectacular but decent, the ultras definitely have better cameras.

 

[TheMightyQuin]

These Chinese phones are really underrated.

Not really...well, not at all tbf.

These phones are among the highest rated in the world right now. Xiaomi, OPPO, Pocco, Redmi etc all get amazing reviews.

These are the people that build Apple and Samsung anyway.

I love Samsung and have had my Samsung Note 10+ for 6 years now, but did not want to buy another phone with a 5000MaH battery, when I can get a phone with a 7200MaH battery.

I travel a LOT and am tired of dragging powerbanks everywhere.

 

[Scary_Turtle]

Yup the screen is pretty good on the S24, my wife now has the ultra and it's amazing makes the S23 ultra look old .
Camera was decent, not spectacular but decent, the ultras definitely have better cameras.

Camera is terrible you have some features at 12mp but if you turn it up to 50mp you have no features like a 5x zoom and the pictures are muck.

My wife had iPhone 14 normal and it takes far superior pictures considering the 50mp on the s24 is useless. She now has the iPhone 17 pro and that camera is amazing you get a almost perfect picture with the phone zoomed in. I pushed her to get it so we have a decent camera on us at all times.

I am not pushing iphone I am pretty stuck on andriod but I think you are comparing a s24 to a s24 and both dont do pictures well.

 

[Lupus]

Camera is terrible you have some features at 12mp but if you turn it up to 50mp you have no features like a 5x zoom and the pictures are muck.

My wife had iPhone 14 normal and it takes far superior pictures considering the 50mp on the s24 is useless. She now has the iPhone 17 pro and that camera is amazing you get a almost perfect picture with the phone zoomed in. I pushed her to get it so we have a decent camera on us at all times.

I am not pushing iphone I am pretty stuck on andriod but I think you are comparing a s24 to a s24 and both dont do pictures well.

The iPhone Pro is getting closer to ultra and max quality photos though so it's not really a comparison. Also it literally sounds like you got a dud, why didn't you take it in? Grainy screen and bad photos?

I mean from this, the iphone 14 and S24 are similar, it really sounds like something went wrong on your phone.

 

[Brawler]

Remember the S24 generation had a very poor exynos soc and it does affect the camera processing.
Literally every review said go S24 Ultra for the Snapdragon and I am really glad I did as it is a powerhouse with non of the issues mentioned.

 

[satanboy]

Is a flagship smartphone worthwhile?​

Depends

I replaced my Galaxy Note with a cheap Samsung (<R3,000). Works fine, but can be slow and annoying. I'd prefer a better camera (function). The 50 megapixel camera isn't better than the Note 8's camera. Weird.

 

[Lupus]

Remember the S24 generation had a very poor snapdragon soc and it does affect the camera processing.
Literally every review said go S24 Ultra for the Snapdragon and I am really glad I did as it is a powerhouse with non of the issues mentioned.

S24 didn't have snapdragon it had the exynos, but even then if you look at comparisons it's not as described.

 

[Smiggles]

Camera is terrible you have some features at 12mp but if you turn it up to 50mp you have no features like a 5x zoom and the pictures are muck.

My wife had iPhone 14 normal and it takes far superior pictures considering the 50mp on the s24 is useless. She now has the iPhone 17 pro and that camera is amazing you get a almost perfect picture with the phone zoomed in. I pushed her to get it so we have a decent camera on us at all times.

I am not pushing iphone I am pretty stuck on andriod but I think you are comparing a s24 to a s24 and both dont do pictures well.

Also even more impressive is that the iPhone is 2 generations older as well lol.

 

[Jean Claude Vaaldamme]

If one cannot see the big difference in quality between that much older iPhone against the Samsung on the video, then you don't know much about photography.

 

[SauRoNZA]

The iPhone Pro is getting closer to ultra and max quality photos though so it's not really a comparison. Also it literally sounds like you got a dud, why didn't you take it in? Grainy screen and bad photos?

I mean from this, the iphone 14 and S24 are similar, it really sounds like something went wrong on your phone.

The thing is when you do these comparisons the phone is mounted and rock solid in perfect conditions for photography.

Where the iPhone shines is when you do the "happy snapping" and the underlying hardware doesn't really come into play so much as the fact that 9/10 shots the baseline is rock solid.

I still find many higher tier Android photos to be horrendously unrealistic in colour tone...yes it looks very fancy as a photo but it's essentially "fake" and not a 1:1 with reality.

But I guess that's what the Instagram generation wants...things shouldn't be realistic just pretty.

 

[Lupus]

The thing is when you do these comparisons the phone is mounted and rock solid in perfect conditions for photography.

Where the iPhone shines is when you do the "happy snapping" and the underlying hardware doesn't really come into play so much as the fact that 9/10 shots the baseline is rock solid.

I still find many higher tier Android photos to be horrendously unrealistic in colour tone...yes it looks very fancy as a photo but it's essentially "fake" and not a 1:1 with reality.

But I guess that's what the Instagram generation wants...things shouldn't be realistic just pretty.

Android is the OS, so you'd need to point out the OEM of the device. Some do like to go for more flashy photos. The gist of the video is for Scary to realise his phone is broken, even in quick pics the phone shouldn't look too far off an iPhone. Cameras have come a long way in phones to the point it really doesn't matter for most photographs.
You want proper photography get a DSLR, which surprisingly have fewer MP but can still take far better pictures.

 

[Brawler]

S24 didn't have snapdragon it had the exynos, but even then if you look at comparisons it's not as described.

Sorry, first sentence should have said Exynos. Hence the mention of the Snapdragon in the S24u.

 

[Lupus]

Sorry, first sentence should have said Exynos. Hence the mention of the Snapdragon in the S24u.

Yeah the Exynos can be hit and miss. Pity we have to rely on SoCs to assist photos.

 

[Lupus]

Is a flagship smartphone worthwhile?​

Depends

I replaced my Galaxy Note with a cheap Samsung (<R3,000). Works fine, but can be slow and annoying. I'd prefer a better camera (function). The 50 megapixel camera isn't better than the Note 8's camera. Weird.

Megapixels don't matter.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Android is the OS, so you'd need to point out the OEM of the device. Some do like to go for more flashy photos. The gist of the video is for Scary to realise his phone is broken, even in quick pics the phone shouldn't look too far off an iPhone. Cameras have come a long way in phones to the point it really doesn't matter for most photographs.
You want proper photography get a DSLR, which surprisingly have fewer MP but can still take far better pictures.

It's almost always the ones of an asian persuasion that like to watermark photos with what device took the photo.

I would argue in the hands of every man the DSLR will have far worse results for requiring far more fiddling to get things really sorted well. Which is why I said iPhone wins on "happy snaps" for doing a lot of the leg work and getting results out of mediocre setups and the hardware not really mattering all that much to achieve it.

As with all things this is always going to be deeply subjective, some people have zero issues with overblown colours as long as it looks pretty.

 

[Lupus]

It's almost always the ones of an asian persuasion that like to watermark photos with what device took the photo.

I would argue in the hands of every man the DSLR will have far worse results for requiring far more fiddling to get things really sorted well. Which is why I said iPhone wins on "happy snaps" for doing a lot of the leg work and getting results out of mediocre setups and the hardware not really mattering all that much to achieve it.

As with all things this is always going to be deeply subjective, some people have zero issues with overblown colours as long as it looks pretty.

DSLR is a lot more work sure, but the pics it can produce are amazing. iPhone is also less fiddly vs other phone manufacturers, but that's the case in most with it, it's designed to be like that.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Yeah the Exynos can be hit and miss. Pity we have to rely on SoCs to assist photos.

I mean "rely" is a bit of a strong word.

We have the tech to do more with less, so why not use it? Back to what I was saying earlier in the hands of a photographer a DSLR will be pure magic but in the hands of every man the SoC doing the work will give the best results.

 

[SauRoNZA]

DSLR is a lot more work sure, but the pics it can produce are amazing. iPhone is also less fiddly vs other phone manufacturers, but that's the case in most with it, it's designed to be like that.

Exactly my point.

If you line up 10 random people and ask them to take 25 photos each with a DSLR, Flagship Android and iPhone I will put money on the fact that the iPhone will come out with the most decent photos overall and that the Flagship Android will win on a handful here and there.

The DSLR will likely be an abomination.

(My sister in law is a professional photographer, so I've quite literally seen exactly this happen)