Take a look at the battery recharging speed of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, and find out how its two refresh rate options affect battery life!
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Refresh Rate Affects Battery Life!
The new Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra offers two refresh rate options (Settings > Display > Motion smoothness) for its display:
- Adaptive : Get smoother animation and scrolling by automatically adjusting your screen refresh rate up to 120 Hz
- Standard : Get longer battery life by automatically adjusting your screen refresh rate up to 60 Hz
By default, the Galaxy S24 Ultra uses the Adaptive mode for smoother graphics, but you can choose to switch to the Standard mode for a longer battery life.
While the display may be capable of going as low as 1 Hz, it never went that low. When I tested the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s display in multiple apps, this was what both refresh rate options did:
- Adaptive : The display dynamically switches between 24 Hz, and 120 Hz (occasionally 60 Hz, and 80 Hz).
- Standard : The display dynamically switches between 24 Hz, and 60 Hz
In the next section, we will look at how the two refresh rate options affect the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s battery life.
Read more : Samsung Galaxy S24 Series : All Colour Options Compared!
Read more : Samsung Galaxy S24 Models + Specifications Compared!
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Battery Life Comparison!
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra comes with a large 5,000 mAh battery, which has held steady for the last few generations – S23 Ultra, S22 Ultra and S21 Ultra.
To test its battery life, we turned off Automatic Brightness, to fix the brightness level and make sure the screen brightness does not change as the ambient brightness changes.
We also set its display brightness to 50%, which is slightly higher than the average indoor brightness level of 40% during the day.
We then ran the PCMark Work 3.0 battery life test until its battery capacity dropped to 20% several times, and this was the best result we obtained with the Standard and Adaptive refresh rates :
Look at that! The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra lasted almost 14 hours with the Adaptive refresh mode enabled, and lasted almost 16.5 hours with the Standard refresh mode!
This is a 6-7% improvement in battery life over last year’s Galaxy S23 Ultra – approximately an extra hour of battery life, at the same battery capacity. Very nice!
Now, let’s compare its battery life at 60 Hz and 120 Hz, against the Z Flip5, the S23 Ultra, and the S22 Ultra smartphones.
Standard Refresh Rate (60 Hz)
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra naturally has the best battery life with the refresh rate set to 60 Hz (Standard) – lasting just under 16.5 hours.
Even though it runs on powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is more power-efficient than Samsung’s older flagship devices like the Z Flip5, the S23 Ultra, and the S22 Ultra.
| Work 3.0 | S24 Ultra | S23 Ultra | S22 Ultra |
Z Flip 5 |
| Battery Capacity | 5,000 mAh | 5,000 mAh | 5,000 mAh | 3,700 mAh |
| Battery Life | 16 hrs 25 mins | 15 hrs 18 mins | 14 hrs 15 mins | 11 hrs 4 mins |
| Utilisation per min. |
4.06 mAh | 4.36 mAh | 4.68 mAh | 4.46 mAh |
Adaptive Refresh Rate (120 Hz)
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra’s Adaptive refresh rate is so efficient, it lasts almost 14 hours. Even so, the higher refresh rate uses a significant amount of power.
Even with the same battery capacity and similar Adaptive Mode enabled, the Galaxy S24 Ultra uses 6% less power than the Galaxy S23 Ultra, and 23% less power than the Galaxy S22 Ultra.
| Work 3.0 | S24 Ultra | S23 Ultra | S22 Ultra | Z Flip 5 |
| Battery Capacity | 5,000 mAh | 5,000 mAh | 5,000 mAh | 3,700 mAh |
| Battery Life | 13 hrs 49 mins | 13 hrs 0 mins |
10 hrs 38 mins |
9 hrs 9 mins |
| Utilisation per min. |
4.83 mAh | 5.13 mAh | 6.27 mAh | 5.39 mAh |
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Battery Recharging Speed!
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra supports up to 45 watts of wired fast charging, but unfortunately, does not come with the charger in-the-box.
So we tested it using the standard 15 watt and 25 watt Samsung fast chargers that shipped with their previous smartphones, which is what we believe most users will end up doing.
| Charging Speed | S22 Ultra | S24 Ultra | S23 Ultra | S24 Ultra | Z Flip 5 | Z Flip 5 |
| Battery Capacity | 5,000 mAh | 5,000 mAh | 5,000 mAh | 5,000 mAh | 3,700 mAh | 3,700 mAh |
| Charger Output | 15 watts | 25 watts | 15 watts | 15 watts | 25 watts | 15 watts |
| Charging Time | 64.5 min | 68 min | 88.8 min | 106.5 min | 105 min | 129.5 min |
| Charging Speed (per minute) |
62.0 mAh | 58.8 mAh | 45.0 mAh | 37.6 mAh | 28.2 mAh | 22.9 mAh |
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra charges really fast with a 15 watt charger, and even faster with a 25 watt charger. It basically needs just over 1.75 hours to fully recharge with a 15 watt charger, and just over one hour with a 25 watt charger.
This gives us a battery life to recharging time ratio of about 7.8:1 (15 watt), or 12.2:1 (25 watt), which is good. You basically get about an hour’s worth of battery life for every 8 minutes you recharge at 15 watts, or 5 minutes at 25 watts.
If you prefer to get faster charging, you should purchase the optional 25 watt USB-C super fast charger. It will cut your charging time by a considerable 38.5 minutes for a full recharge:
- Buy in US : Charger only | Charger + cable
- Buy in UK : Charger + cable | Charger + cable
- Buy in SG : Charger only | Charger only | Charger only
- Buy in MY : Charger only | Charger only | Charger only
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra : Price + Colour Options
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is available in four main colours:
- Titanium Black
- Titanium Gray
- Titanium Violet, and
- Titanium Yellow
Here are the official launch prices for the three available storage capacities:
- 256 GB : US$1,299.99 | £1,249 | A$2,199 | S$1,928 | RM6,299
- 512 GB : US$1,419.99 | £1,349 | A$2,399 | S$2,128 | RM6,799
- 1 TB : US$1,659 | £1,549 | A$2,799 | S$2,428 | RM7,799
Recommended : Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Unboxing : What’s Inside?
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Recommended Reading
- Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra (SD8 Gen 3) Performance Review!
- Samsung Galaxy S24 Series : All Colour Options Compared!
- Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra : All 4 Colours Compared!
- Samsung Galaxy S24 Series : Price + Colour Options!
- Samsung Galaxy S24 Models + Specifications Compared!
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