The recently launchedSamsung Galaxy S24 Ultracomes bundled with a plethora of new features,with Galaxy AIbeing one of the most talked-about attributes. While we’ve also learned a fair bit about the flagship’ssupreme scratch resistance, it turns out the screen could have other issues, such as colors appearing washed out, particularly in comparison to older models like theGalaxy S23 Ultra.
A thread on theSamsung Community page(viaSamMobile) shows a growing chorus of Galaxy S24 Ultra owners reporting washed-out colors on their devices. The original poster reportedly got in touch with Samsung UK’s customer support, who then carried out a device check using theSmart Tutorremote diagnostics tool, but without much success.
The user, as well as several others in the comments, posit that this could be related to the new Gorilla Armor screen. On top of being Corning’s “toughest Gorilla Glass yet,” Gorilla Armor also reduces the reflections on the Galaxy S24 Ultra quite significantly. Since this is a new addition to the Galaxy S24 Ultra that didn’t exist on the Galaxy S23 Ultra or the models before that, it’s not unreasonable to speculate that this may be the culprit.
However, aReddit threadputs forward a different (and more plausible) theory about the washed-out colors on the Galaxy S24 Ultra, saying it is due to the non-functionalVividtoggle within Display settings. For reference, Samsung’s phones come with aScreen modeoption withinSettings>Displaythat lets users switch betweenNaturalandVividtones.
Toggling from Natural to Vivid shows a marked difference in color saturation on an older phone like the Galaxy S21 Ultra, as the screenshot above shows. However, on the Galaxy S24 Ultra, switching to Vivid doesn’t have this effect. Alarmingly, this issue with the Vivid toggle seemingly impacts even the mid-tier Galaxy S24+, so it doesn’t appear to be limited to just one model in the series.
There’s good news
As per aGalaxy S24+ userfacing the same issue, Samsung Support has confirmed this bug and said it will be fixed in a future software release. It’s unclear when the fix will arrive, but a supposed Samsung USA employee on aseparate threadbelieves it could be part of the company’s February update. With this in mind, the fix may not be far away for the Galaxy S24 trio.
In the meantime, we’re still learning about all the new features that Samsung has bundled with its new flagship. For example, the Galaxy S24 Ultra and theGalaxy Z Fold 5could finally bringcar crash detection with a future update. But since the required sensor is only available on these two phones, this functionality may skip last year’s Galaxy S23 Ultra.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
Despite the few launch-day issues, such as the one we detailed above, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is one of the best flagships you can buy today. It comes with a top-tier camera, coupled with exceptional performance, courtesy of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC.
