The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra’s HDR playback has kinda ruined movies for me

The Samsung Galaxy S24 series packs arguably the best hardware specifications in the business, from a speedy processor to robust build quality. The sumptuous AMOLED display, in particular, is a long-running series highlight, but having spent a few hours watching HDR movies on my new Galaxy S24 Ultra, I’m left a bit disappointed.

At first, I thought it had something to do with my movie file, so I went onto YouTube and found some HDR videos to test those too. While watching SDR content, everything looked as I would expect. However, with HDR, the picture appears dim and the highlights aren’t even that bright, despite Samsung’s claims of 2,600 nits of peak brightness. Overall, the presentation looked muted and dull.