They have been advertising this AI feature on this phone heavily. 

My last two phones have been Samsung and I'm now loyal to the brand.

My current phone is more than old enough to consider replacement but I don't need to yet.

Yes there is always google translate but it doesn't help with live phone calls and apparently S24 Ultra also has a conversation translator that looks superior to Google translate.

But S24 Ultra is a flagship model and very expensive. 
I have gone for mid level phones before.

So my question is this, won't this translation feature be available in lower end Samsung phones before too long? Surely other companies will compete with similar. How can they keep it only on the flagship?

 

 

Note there are also S24 and S24 models for less. I haven't even checked yet whether they have the same translation feature. I'm guessing they do but not sure yet. 

OK. I looked further into this and determined that the call translation AI feature is also available on the two lesser S24 models. Still expensive but much less than the the Ultra.

There are other good reasons to buy the Ultra -- such as an incredible anti reflective screen and as usual camera improvements. But still hard to justify it.

As far as the call translation AI feature it is from Google so it will be on Pixel phones and likely other brands as well.

But as I said I'm loyal to Samsung now, and it's not clear to me if Samsung will include that anytime soon on lesser level models than the S24s.

Probably if I needed a new phone NOW I would go for the base S24 but I don't need one now, so I guess it's a wait and see.

I checked the local prices on S24 and S24 plus and wow they were much higher than they would be in the U.S. 

Don't know if that is temporary because of supply and demand though.

But basicaly too much money.

I can afford a very expensive phone especially considering they are promising updates for seven years but I just feel uncomfortable worrying about loss and theft.

Also realistically for how I actually use my phone, the S24 Ultra particularly is an absurd level of overkill.

But good news, I have just heard that the AI features (translation is what I really want) will eventually be available on the S23 models. Maybe even fairly soon.

 

There was an article today (https://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-galaxy-ai-features-older-phones-3411524/) that says the live translate feature will be coming to older Samsung phones.  I suspect, however, that these will only be relatively recent models.  I believe the feature needs a pretty fast processor to handle the workload and older phones are not up to the task. 

I have the S24 Ultra and have tried the translation on phone calls and it's absolutely terrible. Not even close to what was being said just random words. No doubt it will get better but it's not usable at the moment. Screenshots attached