Samsung’s new flagships talk AI language, take challenge to Apple, Google

At the launch event, TM Roh, President & Head of Mobile Business, Samsung Electronics, said the company was focusing on “human centric experiences that make everyday life easier and empower people to unlock their potential”. He added: “We start a chain reaction that lights up new opportunities to bring your potential and inspire societies… your imagination becomes real.”

Interestingly, Samsung is banking heavily on the recently released Gemini Nano LLM model for its on-device AI features.
Yes, the cutting-edge features like live audio translation on the native calls and live text-to-text translation, both in 13 languages including Hindi, work on device without any need to be connected to the web. There is also Circle to Search which Samsung has co-developed with Google and uses the functionality of Google Lens to search anything that is highlighted on screen or seen by the camera.

As expected the camera app will benefit immensely from AI and now comes with immediate editing suggestions to erase unwanted elements in photos like shadows and reflections. While the Pixel first offered an AI-led magic eraser a couple of years back, Samsung’s iteration is more evolved and cleans up even elements that are not isolated. While these features are offered on device, it also brings in a Generative AI feature that uses the web and lets users alter a photo significantly by moving around a selected subject and even extending the frame while correcting the angles.

Later, Wonjun Choi, Executive Vice President at Mobile eXperience Business in Samsung Electronics, head of Flagship Product R&D Team and the head of Technology Strategy Team, told IndianExpress.com that Samsung has a hybrid approach towards AI today, both cloud AI and on-device. “We also believe on-device AI is going to grow in importance. In such a case, higher performance AI features would have to be accommodated and that means the functionality or the performance of the device itself would also have to keep improving.”

The Samsung Galaxy S24, S24+ and S24 Ultra will all come with the same AI-led features with mostly the size and the camera differentiating the devices along with their pricing. It is not surprising that the phones look very similar to last year’s version and have also started resembling iPhones with their new titanium bodies. The S24 Ultra now has a rich finish that makes it stand out from the regular models. It also ushers in a change in the camera with a new 5X optical zoom lens paired with a 50MP sensor replacing the 10X optical zoom of last year which has a 10MP lens. Samsung will be using AI to stabilise shots across the zoom range, going all the way up to 100X digital zoom.

The 6.8-inch S24 Ultra is powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and will be available in a best configuration of 12GB+1TB. It is not clear which processor will power the 6.2-inch S24 and 6.7-inch S24+. The former will have the best configuration of 8GB-512GB, while the S24+ will have 12GB+512GB.

The author is in California on the invite of Samsung.