Should YOU buy it? Five scenarios.
Refurb shopper looking for flagship value
Great fitAt $650-800 refurbished, the S24 Ultra is the best Android flagship deal available. You get titanium build, S Pen, periscope camera, top-tier display, and 5 more years of OS updates — for roughly the price of a new mid-range phone. Buy from Samsung Certified Renewed, Best Buy Geek Squad refurbished, or Amazon Renewed for warranty coverage. Avoid sketchy eBay listings without IMEI verification. The math here is unbeatable for anyone willing to buy refurbished.
S Pen user choosing between S24 and S25 Ultra
Good fitIf new pricing puts S24 Ultra at $1,099-1,199 and S25 Ultra at $1,299, the $100-200 delta is small enough to recommend the newer phone — you gain a year of software support and the latest chip. If S24 Ultra is at $900-999 with trade-in or sale pricing, the $300-400 savings justify it. The S Pen hardware is identical, so you're choosing primarily on chip generation and update window. For most buyers, either choice works for the next 4-5 years.
iPhone or Pixel user curious about Galaxy ecosystem
Good fitRefurbished S24 Ultra at $650-800 is a low-risk way to try Samsung's ecosystem. If you don't love it after 90 days, resale at $500-600 means you lose $100-200 — cheap tuition for figuring out whether One UI and the S Pen suit you. If it works, you've gotten flagship-tier hardware at mid-range cost. One UI takes 2-3 weeks of adjustment from iOS; expect to disable Bixby, change default browser/keyboard/maps, and learn Samsung's gesture system. Try unlocked rather than carrier model to avoid pre-installed carrier apps.
Heavy gamer / on-device AI experimenter
Skip itBuy the S25 Ultra instead, or wait for S26. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in S24 Ultra is fine for current games but doesn't have headroom for the heaviest 2027-2028 titles, and on-device AI inference (running LLMs locally, Stable Diffusion variants) benefits significantly from the Gen 4's NPU upgrades. For sustained demanding workloads — which is the use case where the chip generation matters most — the extra $200-400 for the newer phone pays back through usable life and performance headroom.
Existing S24 Ultra owner considering S25 upgrade
Skip itDon't upgrade. Your S24 Ultra has 5 more years of OS support, the camera hardware is identical to the S25, the display is functionally indistinguishable, and the S Pen is the same. The S25's improvements are marginal — slightly faster chip, marginally brighter display, refined camera tuning. You'd be paying $1,000+ for incremental gains. Hold your current device until at least the S26 (or S27), which is more likely to be a meaningful generational leap.
