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?! š
Samsung has been totally silent on the screen grain issues. Talking to support has left me with 2 s24u with visible grain. If you have screen grain expect very little support. If you are still in the return window and value crisp high quality displays, I would consider a return.
Edit: samsung support has just told me that they plan to update it and that it is now not a software issue? So no help there.
Edit: I ended up returning the phone after getting no answer besides "we will send this to our team" maybe I'll check out the s23 ultra or Motorola thinkphone
From what I've read(and it could be wrong), it's by design, they wanted the display to look more "natural" as opposed to super vibrant, exaggerated/saturated colors. I guess their idea of natural is washed out colors and lack of detail. My s21u produced better images. Their speaker on the s24 sucks, too
I am talking about the textured sandy grain on my screen. The colors on the other hand seem to be the result of the "natural" colors samsung is trying to do but also the banding issues people have had with the display as well like on mine.
