Samsung finally unveiled its next generation of flagship Android phones, the Galaxy S24 series, during the January Unpacked event in San Jose, California. The new Galaxy S24 lineup includes the base model S24, S24 Plus, and the top-of-the-line Galaxy S24 Ultra.
There’s a lot to love about these new phones. They’re powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip that’s blazing fast and a top performer, especially when combined with at least 8GB or 12GB RAM. The S24 Ultra goes a step further with a new 50MP telephoto camera for 5x optical zoom. And all of the S24 series comes packed with brand new Galaxy AI features — including Live Translate, Chat Assist, Transcript Assist, and more.
But there is one thing that bothers me about the Galaxy S24, specifically the base model S24 and S24 Plus: they’re bigger than their predecessors.
The Galaxy S23 was the perfect size
I reviewed the Samsung Galaxy S23 last year, and though I’m not a fan of Samsung’s tendency to produce overly vibrant photos, I enjoyed the phone overall. It was fast, the battery life was great, and the photos were good if you didn’t mind the eye-popping colors the camera produces most of the time.
But one of my favorite features of the S23 was the size. It was perfectly small, compact, and portable. It was incredibly lightweight, too, thanks to the aluminum frame. When you put everything together, that meant a phone that was very comfortable to hold and use. And despite using an iPhone 14 Pro at the time, which is also 6.1 inches like the Galaxy S23, the S23 just had a better in-hand feel.
As someone with smaller hands, I prefer more compact phones, and the S23 fit that bill nicely. It was manageable with one hand, easily fit into my bags or pockets (women’s clothing tends to lack big pockets, unfortunately), and never felt too heavy.
While you could get a flip phone like the Motorola Razr Plus or even the Samsung Z Flip 5 for the ultimate compact form factor, the problem with flip phones is that they usually lack great cameras. At least with the S23, you still have a 50MP camera in a small package.
Not everyone wants big phones
As I mentioned, the Galaxy S23 was 6.1 inches, and the S23 Plus was 6.6 inches. However, the newly announced Galaxy S24 has a 6.2-inch screen, and the S24 Plus is 6.7 inches. The S24 Ultra has stayed the same size at 6.8 inches as its predecessor.
If you look at the listed product dimensions, it also appears that the S24 is slightly taller and narrower (147 by 70.6 by 7.6 mm) than the S23 (146.3 by 70.9 by 7.6 mm), and the same applies to the S24/23 Plus as well.
I don’t yet have the Galaxy S24 in hand, so maybe the slight difference in size is negligible. But I’m also not a fan of the physical sizes of devices just creeping up each year, either. If phones continue to get slightly bigger each year, there will eventually be no small, compact phones.
Personally, I miss even smaller phones. Like the iPhone XS with its 5.8-inch size, it was one of my favorite things about the phone — I could easily use it one-handed without doing finger gymnastics trying to reach the upper corners to go back a screen. It was a great size for an iPhone, and I’m not a fan that Apple has stuck with the 6.1-inch standard, getting rid of the 5.4-inch iPhone mini size as well.
I’ll have to wait and see when I get my Galaxy S24 unit in hand to see how the changes in height and width affect me. Again, it may not be enough to make a difference, but it’s also a slippery slope — can we stop making every phone gigantic without compromising features?
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