Ultra flagships for 2024

Samsung Galaxy S24 ultra

Pros:

There is no replacement for the S-pen. More useful if you're invested in the Samsung eco-system.
A big bright display, that's also very crisp.
Has bypass charging for gaming and streaming content, without negatively affecting battery longevity.
One UI is one of the most feature rich UI there is, and it's going to have 7 years of updates.
Camera's are great for most people, zoom is better than iPhone 15 and Pixel 9.
Samsung's service and part availability is very good in most countries, with replacement parts available even after 6+ years.
One of the best battery flagships you'll find on the market.
Samsung Dex is one of the best desktop mode, and is feature rich. Pretty useful if you use your s24 ultra for work when you need to quickly work on something.
Titanium? In theory it is better, but 80% of the users slap a case on it, making it pretty useless for the most part.
The anti-reflection screen protector it comes with works like magic. The best screen protector to use outdoors and under direct light.

The phone is too big for one hand use, unless you got really long fingers.
Hardware upgrades from s23 ultra are very minor, and for a lot of people buying the cheaper s23 ultra makes more sense.
The periscope sensor has been downgraded, and Samsung is using AI to compensate for up-scaling. Which is a hit or miss, a better sensor is always more reliable.
There has been a price increase in many countries, which makes this phone even less of a worth the extra money over S23 ultra.
While oneui is good, it can be complicated for new users with its vast amount of settings for each feature, and a lot of default notifications from samsung apps that need to be manually turned off.
45w charging is slow, takes over an hour to fully charge while competitors have 0-100 charging in less than 45 mins. Samsung is using 45w as an advertising gimmick, since the phone only stays at 45w for a few % when charged from 0%.

Although the upgrades from S23 ultra are minor, it's still the best flagship for most people. Especially if you love the S-pen and it's features.

"The best productivity android."

Cons:

Choose your ultra

Note: the phones are not in order from best to worst, its upto your needs what makes one better than other.

Xiaomi 14 ultra

Best camera phone you can buy, with a new HyperOS UI.

Priced lower than s24 ultra and iPhone 15 pro max in many markets, while providing better hardware, and faster charging.

Pros:

The best camera hardware you can get in a globally available android.
All 4 cameras are top notch, no compromise in sensors.
AI enhancement for 10-30x zoom is better than the competition.
Has a comprehensive cooling system, to make sure sustained performance stays stable.
HyperOS promises a new era of software optimization, features, and updates, for new Xiaomi phones. Moving on from the MIUI era, which caused several issues for the brand reputation.
Feature rich, has a vast amount of media editing features built in the phone, something that many competitors lack.
Extremely fast charging, with upto 90% in just 30 mins, depending on the ambient temperature. 90w charging lives upto its name.
Unlockable bootloader. Be able to flash EU rom, which is a clean build of HyperOS without any bloatware and unlocks some features that may have been region locked.
Video recording is one of the best in an android phone.
Animations have been improved, making the UI more visually appealing.

Cons:

While the battery is 5000mah, it falls short of S24 ultra and oppo find x7 ultra, both of which also have the same capacity.
While HyperOS has a lot of features, certain optimizations can be hit or miss. Particularly in the battery consumption of the UI, although it has improved a lot over the months since release, with software updates.
The prices in european region are extremely high, compared to Asia.
Selfie camera is good, but could be a bit better when compared with others.
Speakers are good, but sound narrower than s24 ultra and iPhone 15 pro max.
HyperOS requires a lot of settings to be changed as per user preference, to work well. Something that Apple has always been good at out of the box.

Vivo x100 pro

Camera centric phone with dimensity 9300, performs great and has one of the best HDR processing, in low light and challenging scenes.

Battery on par, and even better in many scenarios, than s24 ultra, but also faster charging. Going 0-100 in a mere 30 mins.

Pros:

All 3 cameras are great, especially the zoom. It brighten ups low light photos to capture subjects clearly and has different color modes if you want to tone it down.
Funtouch OS has improved drastically in the last 3 years, with Funtouch OS 15 right around the corner. Promising even smoother performance and animations.
100w charging is amazing, charges to 100% in just under 35 mins. Battery retains 80% health for upto 1600 charge cycles, promising no damage to battery health with fast charging.
Main camera is improved, AI processing for long range zoom works well to retain details and color. One of the better phones in long range zoom compared to S24 ultra and iPhone 15 pro max.
Speakers can get pretty loud, display is one of the best, making it a great media consumption device.
Front camera can capture 4k after a software update enabled it.

Cons:

Ultrawide camera could have been better, although its good, but competition is better.
Performance is great all round, and so is sustained performance, but sadly some developers still don't optimize their apps as well for dimensity as they do for snapdragon processors.
The front design may seem slightly outdated, hasn't changed in 3 years and many others like xiaomi and honor have already moved to better screen designs with smaller bezels.
The vegan leather may wear out after 3-4 years, depending on you use it. Which could potentially affect its durability.
While Funtouch OS is great, it can still improve upon a lot of things when compared to One UI, Hyper OS and even color OS.
In some regions vivo has many pre-installed apps, which need to be manually deleted, and notifications for some pre-installed apps need to be turned off.

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5600mah battery, 80w charging, a 6.8 screen, make it a great phone for media and gaming.

Great cameras and Overall a great package if you can get it a lower price than others.

The only flagship with a 3D face unlock other than Apple.

One of the most complete flagship along with s24 ultra and xiaomi 14 ultra.

ColorOS is improved, smoother, and battery performs better than ever.

It's limited by China only sales, and some features don't work outside china.

The best IOS phone. If money is not an issue, it will give you the best battery life, long support both in service parts and software, and a fluid ui with great optimization.

The only thing holding this phone back is very slow charging (0-100 in 2 hours), and inferior camera sensors when compared with other flagships.(iPhone 16 pro max hasn't changed the sensors welp)

Honor Magic 6 pro

Oppo find x7 ultra

Iphone 15 pro max

Pros:

The best flagship for people who miss huawei. It carries on a lot of elements of EMUI.
That display is not just big, but beautiful. Great to look at, and a lot of focus towards eye health. Supports dolby vision.
One of the best flagships for gaming, even used in gaming tournaments by a large amount of players(by sponsorship), adding on to it's capabilities.
This is the best battery flagship in 2024, with its 5600mah battery lasting 2 days easily on moderate use.
Along with great sustained performance; large battery, a gorgeous display, this is the perfect phone for media consumption.
The phone has a 3D face unlock, just like apple, making it the only Android flagship with secure face unlock.
Portraits from this phone are amazing, it's likely to get more features for portraits in MagicOS 9.

Cons:

While magicOS is great, it suffers from the same issues as old EMUI. Missed notifications, random apps being put to sleep, and inconsistent fluidity.
MagicOS looks very 2018-ish, while competitors have moved on to new design language and elements.
Software updates are slow, sometimes months late, but they arrive. If you care about updates, you should probably look elsewhere.
While the cameras are good, they are nowhere as good as the other flagships. Zoom is only good for upto 5x, and ultrawide camera seems underwhelming for a premium flagship.
Long-term replacement part support feels questionable in many markets where honor is still struggling.
Main and ultrawide sensors are slightly smaller compared to magic 5 pro, no idea why they downgraded. Perhaps to keep it cheaper than the competition.
You can get the same main camera sensor in Honor 200 pro, half the price.

Pros:

A complete ultra phone, but sadly China-exclusive.
Two zoom cameras at 3x and 6x. Both perform great in all lighting conditions, zoom upto 30x have good quality with AI upscaling.
Main and ultrawide are one of the best, no compromise in any camera.
Has built in AI features and assistant based on GPT, but only work in China.
One of the best battery flagships this year, with 100w charging promising upto 4 years before battery health drops below 80%.
Color OS is great, animations are some of the best and there's fluidity all around the UI.
Build quality is great, with a large, bright, and crisp display.
Heat management is improved from the Find x6 pro, and the device can do better in sustained performance.

Cons:

Being China exclusive means many features don't work outside. Many features require you to verify location or a chinese phone number.
Many AI features don't work outside China, limiting it's appeal for global audience who want to import it.
Fast charging is only supported by official Oppo/oneplus chargers, third party charging is limited to 30w.
High zoom makes the camera laggy, while normally it's very fast. But thats something most phones struggle with.

Pros:

A complete ultra phone, the best speaker of any flagship(except gaming phones).
All 3 cameras are great, the image processing has been improved, especially for lower light.
ios is optimized really well, works smoothly, and apps are all well optimized.
A17 pro is a powerful chip, based on 3nm platform.
The best phone for video recording.
Brightest display there is, although it'll heat up the device pretty fast.
The best battery life you can find on a flagship.
Apple intelligence update adds even more life to ios, now that everyone else has already moved on to ai features.
Integration within the Apple eco-system is amazingly smooth, and easy.
Face ID works as good as always, instantly unlocks even in low light.
Accurate skin tones in all 3 cameras, especially for darker skin tones, something which many phones struggle with.

Cons:

A17 pro is great, but this time its similar to 8 gen 3, but with worse cooling, so sustained performance especially in GPU is not as good as competition.
IOS is limited in flexibility when compared with android.
Many features are locked for apple eco-system, which is quite expensive.
Charging is pretty slow for 2024, or even 2020, takes almost 2 hours to full charge.
Battery quality has gotten worse, with battery health degrading faster than previous iPhone generations.
Cameras are great, but still lag behind Xiaomi 14 ultra, Vivo x100 pro, and the Oppo find x7 ultra. All of them have better sensors and AI enhancement within the camera app.
Poor cooling solution, phone gets especially hot in warmer climate.
The USB-C charging cable provided by Apple is one of the most fragile, will easily break. Something you don't expect when you're paying a premium for official Apple products.