So both of the S24U orders came yesterday (Saturday). I guess the local UPS center had a relatively light schedule. I noticed certain variances in the past, when I used to compare my phone to ones from my coworkers and friends, particularly in regards to camera image quality.
Both displays were uniform, no color grading was present, and the white balance was ever so slightly off, but no big deal since you can't notice it if you're not comparing it with another unit. Radio performance and CPU benchmarks were roughly the same.
The cameras were somewhat disappointing though. The first unit produced noticeably sharper images coming from the wider 3 lenses, but the second unit cranked out clearly superior 5x lens images. It turns out the 5x lens on the first unit has a defective lens stabilizer; you can clearly tell the preview screen on the first unit getting all jittery, whereas the screen on the second unit clearly shows the stabilizer damping my movements like it should. I suspect the clearer images coming out of the 3 wider lenses on the first phone is due to shoddy lens quality on the second unit. Even my old S22U produced noticeably clearer images from its 3 wider lenses than the second copy.
I realize there are manufacturing tolerances and these aren't Canon "L" lenses using the highest quality glass and coatings, but the images coming out of the second copy were clearly muddy compared to the ones from the first unit, even noticeably inferior to my S22U images. Since the reviews I've seen so far indicate that the S24U images are equal to or superior to previous phones, I'm planning on returning these.
Both displays were uniform, no color grading was present, and the white balance was ever so slightly off, but no big deal since you can't notice it if you're not comparing it with another unit. Radio performance and CPU benchmarks were roughly the same.
The cameras were somewhat disappointing though. The first unit produced noticeably sharper images coming from the wider 3 lenses, but the second unit cranked out clearly superior 5x lens images. It turns out the 5x lens on the first unit has a defective lens stabilizer; you can clearly tell the preview screen on the first unit getting all jittery, whereas the screen on the second unit clearly shows the stabilizer damping my movements like it should. I suspect the clearer images coming out of the 3 wider lenses on the first phone is due to shoddy lens quality on the second unit. Even my old S22U produced noticeably clearer images from its 3 wider lenses than the second copy.
I realize there are manufacturing tolerances and these aren't Canon "L" lenses using the highest quality glass and coatings, but the images coming out of the second copy were clearly muddy compared to the ones from the first unit, even noticeably inferior to my S22U images. Since the reviews I've seen so far indicate that the S24U images are equal to or superior to previous phones, I'm planning on returning these.