The Galaxy S24 Has Problems
What's going on with the S24?
The Galaxy S24 lineup received a lot of praise following its initial launch, but the honeymoon period appears to be at an end. It seems the S24 phones have a series of issues that users continue to highlight, despite not popping up in most reviews. If your Galaxy has problems with its cameras, displays, or connecting to Android Auto, you're not alone.
The S24's display can be disappointing
Galaxy phones are usually known for their high quality, vivid displays. It's part of what fans like about using these devices. However, with the S24, some users have noticed their displays aren't up to the usual Samsung standards. For more context, check out this Reddit post, which describes how the S24 changes the way the display looks in different situations. When scrolling through an app, things look great, but when returning to the home screen or pulling down the notification shader, everything gets washed out and dull.
Other comments echoed similar issues with their S24 displays, including some with screenshots showing off the problem. You can see here the difference between one user's Galaxy S21 and their S24, both running YouTube. In the photos, the S21 looks as you'd expect, with dark blacks and vivid colors; by comparison, the S24's blacks look gray, and the colors are more dull overall. One comment put it well, saying the S24 looks like an LCD, rather than the OLED Galaxy phones have been famous for for years.
According to a screenshot from one internet commenter, Samsung is aware of the issue and is working on a fix. However, Samsung Spain later said the display's washed-out appearance is intentional. To me, it seems like Samsung support doesn't know what's going on either, and we'll have to see whether there's actually a fix in the works to make Vivid mode more consistent. Until then, you could try switching your display to Natural mode, but that would just make the entire experience dull.
Switching between cameras on the S24 isn't smooth
The issues with the S24 aren't isolated to the display. On some Galaxy S24 devices, zooming between the 1x zoom lens and the 5x zoom lens is noticeably choppy. It's supposed to be a seamless transition, so that you don't even notice the phone switching between lenses, but on affected devices, the focus change is blatant.
You can see that clearly from this post on X: The user zooms in on a box of desserts, but once they hit 5x, the focus shifts abruptly. It's not the worst thing in the world, but it's not supposed to happen. As it turns out, it's a hardware defect that affects the first S24 devices Samsung produced. Subsequent S24s don't have this flaw, and can switch between lenses without trouble. To add to the problems, portrait shots as well as 5x and 10x photos may have a grainy appearance.
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The S24 is having trouble with some cars' Android Auto interfaces
In addition to the aforementioned issues, the S24 seems to struggle with Android Auto interfaces. According to a UK support page, the Galaxy S24 is having trouble connecting to Android Auto in certain Volkswagen, Skoda, and SEAT cars. Samsung says this is likely an issue on the car side of things, not with the S24 itself, but the company does walk users through troubleshooting steps to getting things working. These steps are pretty basic, including trying a new USB cable, updating the S24, updating Android Auto, or looking through Android Auto settings for anything that might interfere with the connection.
Luckily, this one sounds like something car manufacturers can fix with a software patch. If your car is affected, keep an eye out for incoming updates. As for the other problems, I'll be keeping an eye on whether Samsung comes out with anything more definitive.