Samsung has taken the unusual step of declaring that a major software update is on its way to Galaxy S24 phones to address a few issues that many users have complained about.
In a new blog post, Samsung states that “based on your feedback,” the Galaxy S24 will receive “enhanced options and experiences across the device display and camera.”
That appears to be a generous way of stating that Samsung has (possibly) resolved the much-criticized vivid display issue, which caused the screen to appear more washed out than prior Galaxy phones.
The remedy is a new ‘vividness’ option in the display’s ‘advanced settings’, which allows you to select a more colorful look than the “natural” one that Samsung incorrectly assumed you’d prefer. You’ll still be able to select between ‘vivid’ and ‘natural’ display settings, but this new slider will provide additional fine-tuning controls.
Along with the screen patch, Samsung claims to have improved “the camera experience,” including improvements to the device’s zoom functionalities, Portrait Mode, Nightography, rear camera video shooting capabilities, and more.
Samsung did not give any other details on what these enhancements do, but hopefully they will resolve some of the other issues that some Galaxy S24 owners have reported. These include an image shift issue that appeared to alter the camera’s field of view while moving from 1x to 5x zoom on the Galaxy S24 Ultra.
According to Samsung, these updates will “begin rolling out in February,” so expect them to arrive within the next 10 days.
Is there an end to the S24 issues?
Unfortunately, recent complaints concerning the Galaxy S24’s display have not stopped with the previously noted vividness issue; last week, multiple Reddit users reported unusual grain on their S24 displays when viewing dark and gray colors.
Meanwhile, several owners have reported seeing “frankly unacceptable” horizontal bars when viewing the screens with the brightness set to low. We don’t know yet whether Samsung’s software update will help cure one or both of these reported issues, but we’ll find out shortly because the distribution is imminent.
The grainy screen issue appears to be hardware-related, since several afflicted customers have reported receiving a free replacement from Samsung. However, given that Samsung has made an unusual public disclosure about this next software update, we expect it to include as many bug fixes as possible in addition to the new capabilities.
We haven’t encountered any of the concerns mentioned above while testing the Samsung Galaxy S24, Galaxy S24 Plus, or Galaxy S24 Ultra, thus we can confidently recommend the phones. If you favor punchy smartphone displays, you’ll now have that option with the S24 series thanks to this upgrade.
