I've just got my S24+ today to upgrade my trusty but ageing S10+ having not strayed from Samsung for almost 10 years. Naturally I was hoping it would be an upgrade in all departments but although on the whole it is, there's several annoying and unexpected downgrades that are making me seriously question whether it's actually worth spending quite a bit of money to change.
Firstly, the screen although pin sharp is really washed out. Even in vivid mode the colours are dull and the blacks are significantly more grey than the S10 screen, and even look washed out when put alongside my wife's budget spec A52! I've played around with brightness and colour tone etc but I can't dial it out, and my cousin who's got an S24 Ultra said exactly the same when comparing it against the S22 it's replacing.
Then there's some bizarre features missing from OneUI 6.1, the ones I've noticed so far are specifically in the Always On Display settings. I use AOD to display as a bedside clock, with my S10 and also in OneUI 6.0 / Android 14 on the A52 you can rotate the AOD to landscape orientation and control the brightness, you could even do the latter from the AOD lock screen by tapping twice on the clock to access the brightness slider. In OneUI 6.1 unless I'm missing something it seems all that functionality is missing, the brightness of the AOD is linked to the main screen brightness setting which is far too bright for overnight use, and you can't set it to landscape mode which I'd prefer when on it's horizontal night stand next to the bed. Why this functionality would be omitted I have no idea, but it's really annoying! Please someone enlighten me to some hidden menu somewhere that fixes all these issues?! 🙂
Samsung responded to me regarding the washed out color issue. They stated the ajustment to the Vivid option is an enhancement for viewing videos and images in the way there were intended. This isn't an enhancement to the typical Samsung quality we've always experienced. It's actually not taking pictures in their true colors. It removed details to a picture, not just color. Washing out facial color with various skintones and washing out true color in objects, nature, people etc... appears to look like a poor blurry filter. I compared my S22 and S24 side by side, and they are completely different. If you toggle from vivid to neutral in the S24, it doesn't change anything, but the S22 does and it's obvious. There are plenty of options to experience less glare, muted colors on previous versions, including the S24 to protect vision or decrease eye stress. You can go to Vision Enhancements to make viewing your screen/pics to your liking in both versions. However, the S24 has basically cheated the true color when taking a picture and viewing it based off of the actual color, not what a software company feels a person should see it as. I don't use filters, and the S24 looks like a poor filter has been applied over the pictures I take. It also changed the pictures I transferred from my S22 to the S24 to the same dull washed out color. It makes me feel like my eyes are weak and trying to pick up color which causes me to strain my eyes. As someone who accommodates individuals under the ADA, this was poorly thought out. Some need to see images brighter or in their true color, and that isn't an option now. It's a false advertisement to say this phone was an upgrade. It downgraded the actual real picture quality to view. It even blurs quality within the picture, so you can't see details. It's like looking through dirty or smudged glasses. I'm going to our carrier to have them move both of our S24's back to the S22's and retuning the S24's. We waited for these to come out, and it's the first disappointment we've experienced being Samsung customers. We travel and pictures are LIFE. I don't want to look at my pictures of a gorgeous sunset to see a bland sunset or dull Caribbean ocean. Poor choice in design, and I'm not paying for the new and improved version that appears to look like quality issues that iPhone had 10 years ago. Samsung has always been top-notch, and this is a major setback.
There's SuperHDR on the gallery app if u like them more vivid. I disabled them, though, because I don't know which ones the actual picture quality. Tbh I disliked the vivid mode on my s22U and never used it after the first try.
Thank you for the information and suggestion. It's defaulted to that, and if it's turned off, it doesn't make a difference. I didn't use vivid because of false color, I used it due to true color. I had a bright topaz colored coat I took a picture of. The S22 shows the true color, and the S24 makes the coat color light blue.
This is a major setback, IMO. Who wants to look at faded pictures as they create memories? Polaroids have better picture quality. I'm not a fan of the new phone, and we purchased 2 of them. I'm going back to my S22 until I find another option.
Really wish samsung could say something about this vivid slider that is supposedly coming out. Display doesn't look bad but definitely doesn't stand out. People that like this can leave it on by default if they want. But they need a fix for... Brightness hdr highlights, contrast, and vivid colors. Noticed that even the iphone 15 max has better contrast and pops on some content and photos. That has never been the case before. Definitely reminds me of standing in a bestbuy and looking at a oled TV next to a really good lcd side by side. Good, but not the same. Anyone would be mad if they bought a OLED tv, set it up at home, and the colors didn't pop and just looked average. Kinda the same feeling. Not bad, not great, Just average.
I don’t know why people don't realize this but there is a default setting in display settings called adaptive color tone. It works like true tone. Turn it off. Select vivid and move slider to cool or middle and you will have your super saturated vivid display with a flay screen and ar coating.
I did realize that, and it doesn't change anything. The color is still washed out, even moving it to the coolest setting. It removes crisp details in pictures as well. The picture looks filtered. It still has a haze overtone look over it, and having my S22 and S24 side by side, the quality of the picture is terrible. Samsung emailed me and stated the phone is working as intended. They weren't looking to have vibrant, actually vibrant. It's muted colors, not even the true color. My bright blue topaz coat shouldn't look powder blue in a picture, and my skin color shouldn't look like I put baby powder on it. It's washed out, and no setting option will change the poor quality. It's like having a 10 year old iPhone. A Polaroid picture has more color and detail.
Not what everyone is running into. Even with those settings, it still isn't what it used to be. I even enabled high contrast under developer settings. Everyone wants the vibrant colors and high contrast that samsung phones used to have. Yes it might not be accurate but the overall look is very impressive and almost pops out of the screen. With these deep blacks and the vibrant color from previous phones it would really look amazing.
Tried all 3 resolutions to make sure it's wasn't a resolution specific for fuzziness, it's the same. Long story short, I decided to keep mine. Not because of a possible update that may never happen or because I gave up. I've kept it because of the $500 of my device trade-in because I've had enough with the S20U camera and having to bring my S7/S8 to take photos on vacation...the S20U camera utter garbage. What I'm doing is selling my S24U 512GB and using the money from that to buy a used S23U. The S23U camera is more than fine for me (anything compared to the S20U would be an improvement) and the display would be a great improvement over the S24U. If I had a S23U, there would be no reason to keep a downgraded S24U.
