The January Galaxy Unpacked event for 2024 wrapped up a few days, and the event’s highlight was the introduction of Galaxy AI with the all-new S24 lineup of phones. This event also announces everything new with One UI 6.1.
A lot of it is new AI features and smoother animations. Samsung has decided to remove Gaussian Blur in favor of a more dramatic wallpaper motion, which contributes positively to the smoothness of the device.
Galaxy S24 Always On Display Wallpaper Feature
The entire S24 series runs One UI 6.1 out of the box, and you can now use your home screen wallpaper on the lock screen when Always On Display is turned on. This feature resembles Apple’s Always On Display on the iPhone 14 Pro. Apple lets you turn the wallpaper feature off, and you can choose not to display the wallpaper on the S24, too.
The point of an Always On Display is at-a-glance information with little to no power consumption. Adding a wallpaper goes against this, even though the wallpaper is dimmed down. Despite this, many people like the feature since it brings some color to the display and still displays relevant information. You can also show your Lock Screen widgets with Always On Display now.
Turning this feature on consumes a lot of extra battery for sure. Most of the display turns black if you choose not to show the wallpaper. On OLED displays, pixels turn off to represent blacks. As a result, it saves plenty of battery. That doesn’t mean it’s battery-friendly since it takes between 5 and 10% of the battery in 24 hours. This depends on your display’s efficiency, age, and whether it’s an LTPO or LTPS panel.
Coming to Older Phones?
According to internal sources at Sammobile, the Galaxy S24’s Always On Display Wallpaper feature will not make it to older devices. The new S24 lineup uses more efficient panels (Samsung M13 materials). All of them have LTPO technology and consume much less power. If they bring this feature to older models, it’ll significantly impact the battery life. Since all the new models have LTPO, they can dial down the refresh rate as low as 1Hz when nothing is happening on the screen.
Unfortunately, many of the features of One UI 6.1 are exclusive to the S24 lineup. This is to boost sales of the new lineup. It’s better if Samsung lets users of the S23 lineup before the device whether the extra battery drain is worth it, but they’re keeping the wallpaper AOD feature exclusive to the S24 lineup for now. A lot of Galaxy AI features are exclusive to the S24, too.
