Samsung started rolling out One UI 9 to the Samsung Galaxy S24 series in October, and it brought a lot of features from the Galaxy S26.
The S24 got Call Brief, custom Now Brief cards, My FanCam, and a few others. However, it’s missing several good features, and there’s no clear explanation why.
The S24 can already use some of these tools in different ways, so hardware doesn’t seem to be the problem.
I did some digging and found all the One UI 9 features the Galaxy S26 (and S25) got, but the S24 didn’t. Here’s what’s missing, and why it shouldn’t be.
Notification highlights
The S24 Ultra summarizes everything except notifications
Notification highlights is a new Galaxy AI feature.
It uses artificial intelligence to summarize your notifications and push the most important ones to the top. This isn’t limited to the notification shade, because it also works in Now Brief. With the pile of notifications I get daily, this would’ve been a game-changer.
Leaving it off the S24 is hard to justify. The phone already summarizes entire web pages in Browsing assist, long notes in Note assist, and recordings in Voice Recorder. Condensing and rearranging notifications is a smaller job than any of those.
If you have an S25 or S26, you should enable this feature. It’s in Settings > Galaxy AI > Notification highlights.
USB webcam mode
Your phone’s camera beats your laptop’s
The Galaxy S26 and Samsung’s newest foldables can work as a webcam. When you plug the phone into a computer with a USB cable, you get a new Webcam option in the USB menu.
It’s a great feature to have since your grainy laptop camera will never be as good as your phone’s.
Unfortunately, Samsung left it out of the S24 Ultra. And it’s odd, considering the Google Pixel 6a, a budget phone with weaker cameras, has had it since 2023.
Horizontal Lock
You only get the older Super Steady mode
Samsung’s Camera app has had Super Steady mode for years. It smooths out bumps and shakes when recording videos, and it works quite well.
With One UI 9 on the S26, Samsung introduced an extra option: Horizontal Lock. Instead of just keeping your videos steady, it uses your phone’s gyroscope and accelerometer to keep the horizon level up to 360 degrees.
So your video stays upright even if you twist the phone sideways or turn it upside down. It’s like a software gimbal.
The S25 series got it with One UI 9, but the S24 didn’t. On my S24 Ultra, tapping Super Steady only gives me the standard stabilization.
24MP photos in the Camera app
The S24 Ultra can shoot them, but in a different app
Samsung has also kept 24MP photos off the S24 Ultra.
You can already take 12MP, 50MP, and 200MP shots, but 24MP resolution lies in a sweet spot: much more detail than 12MP with way smaller file sizes than 50MP or 200MP.
You’d think that the S24 Ultra, for some unusual reason, is incapable of taking direct 24MP shots. Wrong!
The 24MP option is in the Expert RAW app on the same phone. So it’s not a hardware limitation. Samsung just didn’t add the option to the main camera app.
You get fewer options for serious video
In Pro video mode, the S26 has 25, 48, 50, and 100 fps options.
The S24 Ultra’s Pro video mode, by contrast, doesn’t offer any of them. But it has the standard 24, 30, 60, and 120 fps. It’s clearly not a hardware limitation, as the S24 Ultra records 4K at 120 fps.
This is not a huge miss. Those options only matter if you shoot videos for TV or audiences in parts of the world where those rates are standard.
Dual recording vertical layout
You only get the old mode
Samsung’s dual recording mode films with two of your cameras at the same time.
It usually defaults to the front and rear ultrawide cameras. But you can choose any combination of front, ultrawide, wide, and telephoto lenses, with one of them taking the whole screen and the other appearing as a small floating rectangle.
With One UI 9 on the S26, Samsung added a vertical layout that gives each camera half the screen. This can be useful for vertical videos like Shorts and Reels.
The S24 Ultra still has the original version but not the new one. The phone can shoot dual videos, so it’s a simple software change, not a hardware issue.
We’ve seen this before
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a manufacturer keep certain software features off older devices, even though they can run them.
Google did it with the Pixel 10 when the Pixel 11 launched. It kept Magic Capture, Camera Looks, and Instant Night Sight exclusive to the new phones.
The only reason that stands out to me is exclusivity. Both the S24 and S26 can power through anything you throw at them. And many would argue that the S24 is the truer embodiment of the Ultra title.
So the best and easiest way to keep the newer devices ahead is to restrict certain features.
If you’re still on the S24 Ultra, don’t expect these features anytime soon. One UI 9.5 might double down on the whole exclusivity thing.
