Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra still suffers from shutter-lag bug, but there are workarounds

The Galaxy S24 Ultra is touted as one of the first true flagship AI smartphones on the Android market, and still starts at well over $1,000 on Amazon today (March 31, 2024). Despite that, it has been found to suffer from rear camera shutter lag.

The new Samsung flagship does indeed seem to have inherited the bug from forebears that include the S23 Ultra, and can result in blurry incursions into an otherwise ideal shot - an issue made all the more frustrating by the fact that devices of the Pixel or iPhone lines are associated with practically instantaneous shots out of the box by comparison.

S24 Ultra owners might be able to verify the bug by setting it up in a static tripod alongside a rival such as the Pixel 8 Pro and taking photos of a device with its stopwatch app on (one with a larger screen for preference, such as the Pixel Tablet) in a manner as simultaneous and corrected for hand dominance as possible - as recently demonstrated by Android Authority contributor Rita El Khoury.

El Khoury determined that the S24 Ultra's latency to take a shot was up to 340 milliseconds (ms) compared to the 8 Pro - or even more in sub-optimal lighting conditions. It looks bad for Samsung's top-end handset - then again, its One UI 6 shutter button is set to switch to video on a long press by default, which is the main culprit in the shutter lag issue.

The smartphone can be set to avoid this behavior with the Quick Tap option, which was shown to reduce shutter latency to as little as 87.75ms (in good lighting; otherwise, it went back up to 239ms at night) is only unlocked if you install the Good Lock suite of customization features, one of which is Camera Assistant. More immediate workarounds in the Samsung camera app include switching to its Pro Mode.

Ironically, Night Mode can also improve shutter speed, albeit mostly in good lighting. Finally, it should be noted that other options, most notably Expert RAW, can actually make it worse due to heightened processing requirements. 

Meanwhile, there are no indications that the S24 Ultra's most recent camera app update improves this situation thus far.