The best Galaxy S24 Ultra plans available in Australia

It comes around earlier every year, but Samsung has already gone and announced the new Galaxy S24 series already. Once again, the litter consists of three siblings, the milquetoast Galaxy S24, the tall and simple Galaxy S24 Plus and the big and strong Galaxy S24 Ultra. 

And that last one is what we're here to discuss; Samsung's pride and joy in 2024 comes with a sturdy new Titanium frame, a big Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 brain and all the baked in AI improvements the company is promising this year. Let's take a little looksy shall we?

The Galaxy S23 Ultra started at $1,949 last year, but Samsung's top-tier phone has finally cracked 2G this year, with the S24 Ultra starting at $2,199 for the 256GB model. It's par for the course at the moment. The iPhone 15 family went up by $50-$100 last year, so it was inevitable Samsung would follow suit. 

Still, an extra $250 at the bottom end isn't easy to stomach. The same is true for the 512GB and 1TB models unless you score a pre-order discount, in which case it actually works out cheaper. You can find a few of those below.  

In past years, Samsung's S-Pen-packing Galaxy Ultra model has been the more popular choice in Australia by far. Having officially replaced the Note series, the top-tier Ultra model offers a similar phablet experience with the included stylus that Samsung die-hards keep coming back for. This year, there are some decent pre-order deals on the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. Here's a round-up of the best pricing and deals on the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra in Australia.

Similar to the Galaxy S24 and the S24 Plus, the S24 Ultra is yet another iterative update in most ways. Most of the changes are software related, and more specifically related to Galaxy AI—  got to keep that AI buzz rolling!

The Galaxy S24 Ultra does have extra tricks up its sleeve, however. Let's take a look at the biggest upgrades. 

Just like the iPhone 15 Pro before it, the Galaxy S24 Ultra has recieved a Titanium upgrade. What that should mean is a build that's both lighter and more durable but we'll wait to get our hands on the device before backing those claims up. What we can say is that Samsung's take on Titanium is pretty easy on the eyes. It comes in four fancy colours and an additional three shades that are exclusive to the Samsung store.

In addition to the Titanium frame, Samsung has secured the business side of the S24 Ultra with the all-new Gorilla Glass Armour, a new step forward in Corning's never-ending quest to protect your screen from scuffs and scratches. 

Now, every one of these releases claims to be scratch-resistant but time has told a different story. But Corning is serious this time, and apparently employed a "Scratch Bot" to slowly scuff the front glass over a prolonged period of time. Corning said despite the robot's best efforts, there were no visible scratches at the end of the test. 

Circle-to-search: This neat little search feature isn't exclusive to Samsung Galaxy but it's made a lot smoother thanks to the S24 Ultra's S-pen. Right now, the typical mobile search experience goes like this: You read or see something you want to know more about so you open a new tab or switch apps completely just to look that thing up. Circle-to-search is a gesture-based command that lets you "circle" anything on your current screen and run a Google search without ever leaving the app or tab.

It has potential but it also lives and dies on its accuracy. The moment you find yourself resulting to typing out a search prompt, the feature is moot. We'll reserve our judgement on Samsung's implementation until we get to test the devices ourselves.

Samsung is so confident its Galaxy AI system is going to be a game-changer, it's almost all it wants to talk about when it comes to the Galaxy S24 family. 

This "comprehensive mobile AI experience," that Samsung is spruiking is off to a good start. Galaxy AI doesn't feel like a gimmick or a once-off. The way Samsung has integrated across the entire Galaxy experience makes one thing clear: Galaxy AI is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. In our hands-on feature, we came away duly impressed by what will be included at launch, but of course there is always room for improvement. Here's just a few of the fun things Galaxy AI can do: 

• Live translate: Real-time voice and text translations of phone calls in the Galaxy phone app.
• Interpreter: No internet? No problem. Samsung claims that Interpreter can translate real-world conversations in real time for both the speaker and the listener and vice-versa. 
• Chat Assist: Spruce up your lazy SMS with a more natural, conversational feel- whatever a natural conversational feel is to a robot.
• Transcribe Assist: AI-supported Speech-to-text technology that can sum up and transcribe conversations. It can even decode and seperate multiple voices in a single feed. 

In terms of actual hardware, the Galaxy S24 Ultra camera doesn't differ much from the S23 Ultra. Both have a very similar quad-lens array; the same absurd 200MP main shooter, 12MP ultrawide and 10MP telephoto lens. The fourth periscope lens (exclusive to Ultra) isn't functionally much different but it has been upped from 10MP to 50MP. 

It's the same story here, however. While the hardware itself might not have changed drastically, Samsung is really hoping you'll love its new AI-powered photo features, and a few that are dedicated S24 Ultra updates.

• Nightography: It's the new Night Mode but more AI-ish. The Galaxy S24 Ultra's larger pixel size and wider OIS angles lend themselves to higher quality low light photos and Nightography help you zoom in darker scenarios without butchering the details. 
• ProVisual Engine: The range of AI features that enhance every step of the photographic process, from framing things just right to posting the results on the web for your fellow humans to scan... see, I mean. For your fellow humans to see. 
• Galaxy AI editing: A little bit of everything; removing shadows, fixing composistion and editing out reflections. All the things you humans don't really want to deal with any more can be handled and helped by the Galaxy S24's Edit Suggestions. And if you're a bit of a control freak, you can always take advantage of the Generative Edit feature, which fields creative suggestions from your genius human brain. 

Not a whole lot to say here this year. Australia is getting the Gen 3 Snapdragon 8 chipset this year in the S24 Ultra line (S24 and S24 Plus still get the Exynos 2400.) But besides supporting the AI features of the Galaxy S24 Ultra, there's simply not too much to write home about. 

The biggest difference between last year's Exynos and Snapdragon split came down to slightly better battery with the latter, which hopefully bodes well for the S24 Ultra, which is already packing a mammoth  5,000mAh battery in its rear. 

One of the more exciting developments of the S24 family this year, according to us, is the sheer range of colours available. The Galaxy S24 Ultra's standard Titanium shades (Violet, Gray, Black and Yellow) seem so bold next to the iPhone 15 range.

That goes double for the Titanium Orange, which is exclusive to the Samsung Store. The other exclusives are nice to have, but a bit of a bore in comparison.