Galaxy S24 Vs. S24 Plus: The 5 Biggest Differences You'll Want To Know About
Samsung's latest flagship trifecta will be hitting the shelves in a week from now, and once again, there are three sizes to choose from. The Galaxy S24 Ultra offers Samsung's best in terms of innovation, the Galaxy S24+ strikes a balance between size and price, while the entry-point Galaxy S24 offers a taste of Android flagships in a smaller package. But this time around, the Ultra is priced $300 north of the Plus model, which in turn offers more meaningful differences over its vanilla sibling that starts at $800 in the U.S.
For shoppers torn between the Galaxy S24 and its Plus version, the key consideration here is size, both the screen as well as the battery powering it. The Galaxy S24+ serves a larger 6.7-inch AMOLED display with a higher QHD+ (3120 x 1440 pixels) resolution, while the Galaxy S24 goes with a 6.2-inch OLED panel with a full-HD+ (2340 x 1080 pixels) resolution. Both the panels offer a peak refresh rate of 120Hz but drop down dynamically to 1Hz to offer the best balance between visual fluidity and energy efficiency.
It goes without saying that a bigger screen is better suited for content consumption, be it watching videos or playing games with a ton of on-screen buttons. But the size of the chassis here also dictates how hot your phone runs depending on the space available inside and the size of the cooling apparatus inside. Obviously, the Galaxy S24+ would fare much better at heat dissipation.
Bigger batteries, quicker charging pace
The next major difference that could shift buying decisions is the battery size. The Galaxy S24+ comes equipped with a bigger 4,900 mAh battery that is said to last up to 31 hours and 92 hours of video and audio playback sessions, respectively. The standard Galaxy S24 is armed with a 4,000mAh battery that delivers an expected lower 29 hours of video playback time and 78 hours of audio playback. It's also worth noting here that the battery drain on Galaxy S24 will also be quicker at demanding tasks such as gaming or recording high-resolution videos.
But it's not just the battery size that should factor in your buying decision. The Samsung Galaxy S24+ supports 45W wired charging, meaning an empty tank can reach 65% in just 30 minutes. On the Galaxy S24, wired charging output peaks at 25W, which can only fill the smaller battery up to the halfway mark in half an hour. Wireless charging, as well as reverse power share, are available on both phones, but once again, the power drain on the Galaxy S24+ will be less taxing due to the larger battery while juicing up another device.
Memory options are more crucial than ever
The Galaxy S24 lineup is a camera-centric product line married to high-performance silicon. So, it's only natural that one would capture a lot of photos and videos to get the most out of those cameras. But this time around, Samsung's flagships also carry the burden of on-device generative AI tricks such as real-time in-call translation and AI-assisted photo editing, which will be resource-intensive and require more memory.
If the two aforementioned scenarios align with your purchase considerations, the Galaxy S24+ should be your pick. That's because the Plus model offers up to 512GB of storage, while the smaller Galaxy S24 peaks at 256GB. Storage capacity is an important criterion here unless you're okay with paying a subscription fee for extra cloud storage as long as the device is in your hands.
Additionally, to get the best out of Samsung's heavily skinned One UI 6 experience and the onboard AI chops, the Galaxy S24+ is a safer investment courtesy of its 12GB of RAM. The Galaxy S24, on the other hand, limits you to just 8GB of RAM. The latter is not bad, but definitely not the best for its asking price in the Android segment. Moreover, given Samsung's tarnished record with aggressive background activity management, getting the variant with more RAM is safer if the budget allows it.