Samsung has dropped even more hints that AI will be a big deal in the Samsung Galaxy S24 series, sharing a trio of teaser videos highlighting the AI-enhanced zoom capabilities of the new phones.
The three phones have yet to be officially announced, but we can now be pretty sure that they will be unveiled during the newly announced Galaxy Unpacked event on January 17. And by reasonably certain we mean absolutely, 100% certain.
While their specifications are yet to be confirmed, recent reports have suggested that the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra may have a reduced 5x zoom, compared to the Galaxy S23 Ultra's increased 10x zoom.
The new trailers on Samsung's website – with the tagline 'Zoom with Galaxy AI coming soon' – do nothing to dispel these rumors, but they do indicate how the S24 could compensate for this.
The teaser trailers
The first teaser shows a dark but colorful image of a hot air balloon in the sky, framed by what appears to be a circular camera lens.
The focus then shifts to another frame of the same image, but zoomed in further, with a tighter crop on the lower parts of the balloon more visible.
Finally, the third frame zooms in further to reveal the people in the basket, implying a tremendous level of zoom and detail. The video then expands to show the three frames together, which look like the back of a Samsung Galaxy Ultra camera module.
All this implies that the Galaxy S24 Ultra could use its 'Galaxy AI' to further improve its telephoto zoom capabilities, much like the Super Res Zoom feature in Google Pixel phones does.
The second video and the third video give us a bit more information while being more abstract. One shows a woman at a fair at night using a pinch gesture to enlarge a real teddy bear to gigantic proportions. This could mean that the Galaxy S24 will allow you to use AI technology to isolate and magnify specific subjects.
While not a game changer, this could be an example of Samsung's own AI suite of image editing tools, similar to the AI-guided Magic Eraser tool found on the most recent Google Pixel devices.
The third video repeats this magnification trick; this time, the pinch-to-enlarge motion is used to blow up an ice cream cone to enormous proportions, which, while funny, doesn't tell us anything about how it works, especially since there are no phones in the trailers.
AI for everyone?
It's currently unclear which models will benefit from this Galaxy AI technology, and whether it will appear on all Samsung Galaxy S24 models or will only be reserved for the premium S24 Ultra model.
If it is included in the entire Samsung Galaxy S24 series, it could be a serious competitor for Google's advanced and AI-enhanced editing tools.
In fact, if the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra has a more modest 5x zoom lens, the new Galaxy AI tools may have to do more of the heavy lifting on the software side.
This would be an interesting shift from the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra's optical zoom, and depending on how effective this AI technology is, the results could be surprising as there are some key differences between optical and digital zoom.
Either way, Samsung's embrace of AI technology could be an indicator of the next smartphone battleground in 2024 – that is, if it isn't already.
We'll know more at Samsung Unpacked in about a week, but if you're as intrigued as we are, you might want to take a look at our Samsung Galaxy S24 pre-order page where you can find out how to pre-order. a Samsung Galaxy S24 and receive $50 in Samsung credit.