I’ve been infatuated with handheld game consoles since the 1990s and my first Game Boy, and while I adore my Nintendo Switch, it’s really underpowered. Meanwhile, the more powerful Steam Deck is too large and short-lived to be portable, demonstrating that modern mobile gaming is a difficult balance to strike.
However, redemption may have arrived in the form of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.
Watching the recent Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event, I was struck by its impressive specifications and began to consider whether my next gaming portable should also be my next mobile phone.
I use my mobile devices to play Android games such as Call of Duty: Mobile, Minecraft, and Genshin Impact. And I recently purchased a Retroid pocket 3+ to play both Android and emulated games; however, while this device runs Android, its CPU power is severely limited.
Even the greatest gaming phones I’ve previously used seemed clunky and constrained, unable to function as both a phone and a gaming device. In contrast, all previous Samsung phones I’ve used offered a simplified smartphone experience and decent gaming.
Heavy-duty hardware
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra appears to outperform nearly all of my handhelds and phones, thanks to the Samsung-specific overclocked 3.39GHz Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, which should give it an advantage over other Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 phones.
Samsung claims that the onboard graphics chip, the Adreno 750 GPU, is 25% more powerful and efficient than its predecessor. It also has 12GB RAM, which is slightly below the Steam Deck’s 16GB LPDDR5 and far more than the Nintendo Switch’s 4GB DDR4.
Storage on the Galaxy S24 Ultra may be a difficulty, since it only has fixed internal storage in 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB configurations. However, the Nintendo Switch, Retroid Pocket, and Steam Deck all have internal storage that can be extended with microSD cards.
Smartphone displays are far more advanced than even the greatest handhelds, such as the Steam Deck OLED, which boasts a 7.4-inch screen with a resolution of 1200×800 and a refresh rate of 90Hz. The Nintendo Switch’s 7-inch OLED display only offers a maximum resolution of 720p and a maximum refresh rate of 60Hz, but it has the apparent advantage of being easily connected to a TV.
Despite its slightly smaller 6.8-inch display, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra outperforms the competition with its better QHD+ resolution and a panel that appears fluid and smooth thanks to its 120Hz refresh rate.
Outdoor gaming should be no problem because the Galaxy S24 Ultra has one of the brightest screens on the market (2,600 nits), and its adaptive display technology detects and reacts to the lighting in your environment.
Real ray tracing in smartphones
The Samsung S24 Ultra’s graphical capabilities appear to be more akin to a powerful gaming portable than a smartphone, thanks to its outstanding hardware and the addition of hardware-accelerated ray tracing that works with the Unreal 5 engine.
For those unfamiliar, ray tracing is a graphically complex process that simulates how light interacts with things by tracking the course of individual rays of light in real time to create realistic lighting, reflections, and shadows, resulting in more realistic and immersive games.
Mobile ray tracing may be less complicated or powerful than ray tracing implemented on high-end graphics cards and gaming consoles because it only has a fraction of the power to draw from, compared to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 that draws 320W and the Xbox Series X that draws roughly 200W. However, it is fascinating how technology has been downsized and integrated into phones.
At the time, there is a limited variety of mobile games that exploit this functionality. However, if more developers adopt this technology, we should expect to see more realistic and engaging games on mobile platforms than ever before. This technology is now used in titles like as PUBG Mobile, Rainbow Six Mobile, and War Thunder Edge, Bright Memory Mobile, CarX Street, and Arena Breakouts.
In comparison, the Nintendo Switch lacks ray tracing capabilities, while the Steam Deck’s ray tracing is relatively limited.
Keeping cool and compact
All much power is useless if the device cannot use it for an extended period of time, and Samsung claims that the Galaxy S24 Ultra can maintain this high performance thanks to new cooling systems and a larger vapor chamber.
If the Galaxy S24 Ultra can stay cool during extended gaming sessions, Samsung may have solved a long-standing problem of heat and performance throttling, which tiny gaming devices such as the Switch and, in particular, the Steam Deck have been known to suffer from. However, we’ll have to see how this plays out in a thorough review and our own testing.
An abundance of games
Cutting-edge hardware isn’t the only aspect to consider when shopping for a new gaming device; the selection of games can be even more significant. The Nintendo Switch wins on this measure, with over 10,000 games, however the Steam Deck supports over 8,000 Steam Deck-verified and playable titles, leaving me spoilt for choice.
The Google Play store includes several possibilities for the Galaxy S24 Ultra, and vintage titles can be played using emulators.
However, the quickest and legally safest alternative would be to employ game streaming options like Nvidia GeForce Now, Xbox Cloud Gaming, PS Remote Play, and Luna. These game streaming services offer a huge range of games as long as you have adequate connection speeds (which should be covered by 5G, LET, and Wi-Fi 6E connections) and live in an area with adequate reception.
So, with that in mind, and the plethora of Android games available, the Galaxy S24 Ultra will have plenty to keep you entertained.
Chilling cost
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra’s main downside is its exorbitant price, which starts at $1,299 / £1,249 / AU$2,199, making it more expensive than two Steam Deck OLEDs or four Nintendo Switch OLEDs, as well as twice the price of a PlayStation 5. The only handheld that comes close to this pricing point is the Ayaneo Kun, which is more akin to a handheld PC such as the Steam Deck.
Of course, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is capable of much more than simply gaming, with excellent cameras and a slew of AI features (see our Samsung Galaxy S24 AI FAQ) to justify its high price, especially for a flagship phone
So, in short, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra may just be the best non-gaming, gaming smartphone that could My next handheld ‘console’ of choice. And if it delivers on ray tracing and console-quality gaming, it might serve as a catalyst for gaming portable manufacturers to step up their game.
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