KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 18): Samsung officially announced its new Galaxy S24 series of smartphones on Thursday, highlighting a key vision in enhancing the foundations of using a smartphone: communication, content creation, and even gaming, with the help of its new first party artificial intelligence (AI) tools and hardware.

“Galaxy AI is built on our innovation heritage and deep understanding of how people use their phones,” said TM Roh, president and head of mobile eXperience business at Samsung Electronics.

Galaxy AI is Samsung’s new AI tools suite that at its core powers Samsung’s larger goal of starting what it calls the next decade of mobile innovation.

On the communication side of using a smartphone, the original purpose of phones at large, the Galaxy AI brings in tools to bridge potential communication barriers like language.

Live Translate is a tool that allows real-time two-way voice and text translation of phone calls native to the phone itself, while its Interpreter tool instantly translates live conversations while also transcribing the conversations so both parties can read what is being said.

Another tool is Chat Assist, which acts to help suggest conversational tones based on the purpose of the text, be it conversational, work-related, or even for a social media caption. AI built into the Samsung Keyboard can also translate messages in real time in 13 languages.

The AI tools also help in the other foundation of smartphone usage today: content creation. Be it note taking, photography or even video making.

Note Assist is one such tool that features AI-generated summaries, template creation to streamline note taking with pre-made formats, cover creation and even speech-to-text transcribing recordings.

One of the key new features Samsung debuted is its gesture-driven Circle to Search function with Google. A feature to simplify and innovate what a user looks for.

By long pressing the home button, users can circle, highlight, scribble on, or tap anything on Galaxy S24’s screen to see helpful, high-quality search results. This functions with virtually everything on the screen, from application icons, to app pages, even what is on camera.

The biggest push for creative innovation in the new S24 phones comes from its cameras.

The Galaxy S24 series of phones features a photo-dedicated suite of AI-powered tools called ProVisual Engine designed to enhance every step of the creative process in photography, from setting up a shot all the way to sharing it on social media.

The Galaxy S24 Ultra puts itself ahead with its new Quad Tele System, which features a new five times optical zoom lens that works with the 50MP sensor to enable optical-quality performance at zoom levels from two to 10 times magnification.

AI tools also help in showing clear results at 100 times zoom with enhanced digital zoom, which uses AI to enhance and clean up images.

For post photo editing, Galaxy AI features its own tools for simple edits like erase, re-compose, and remaster. Allowing for elements in photos like a stray item or passer-by ruining an otherwise perfect shot to be removed with generative AI technology, moving elements in the photo around, or even sharpening the quality, respectively.

To accommodate all these heavy AI tools, Samsung revealed that every Galaxy S24 Ultra is equipped with the Snapdragon® 8 Gen 3 Mobile Platform for Galaxy, optimised for Galaxy phones, the new chipset promises Neural Processing Unit improvement for more efficient AI processing.

The Snapdragon chipset also boosts gaming, high definition video recording and editing, and other power-intensive demands. To further enhance gaming, the Ultra also boasts a 1.9 times larger vapour chamber to improve surface temperature while sustaining performance to optimise the experience with popular mobile games like Fortnite.

For all models, not just the Ultra, Samsung also mentioned 1-120 Hz adaptive refresh rates to improve performance efficiency.

For the display, the Galaxy S24 Ultra features the Corning® Gorilla® Armor for optically enhanced visuals and high durability against damage caused by everyday scratches, while reducing reflections from lighting by 75%.

Celebrating the official reveal of the Galaxy AI, Samsung has started pre-orders for the S24 series starting Jan 18 until Feb 6, 2024. Pricing the S24 and S24+ at RM4,099 onwards, and the Galaxy S24 Ultra from RM6,299.

Samsung also announced that Malaysian customers who pre-order will be given a reward of RM500 e-voucher as well as a double storage upgrade for the phones worth RM500. As part of this promotion, Malaysian customers will also receive RM800 off a purchase-with-purchase on selected Galaxy Tab, Watch and Buds series products.

Customers wishing to trade-in their devices may also receive up to RM650 rebate.