As of writing this, SGD 1560 can either get me either:
A brand new iPhone 15 Pro 128GB (and this is already based off prices from Carousell, where people mainly sell their phones after recontracting for cheaper.)
A brand new Samsung S24 Ultra 512GB via their student store, with a free upgrade from 256GB storage to 512GB.
With Samsung's new commitment to 7 years software updates for the S24 series, the choice is obvious here.
Getting used to Android
Unfortunately it took me a few days to get used to using the S24 Ultra after having an iPhone XR as my daily driver for over 5 years. Here are some of the things that made the transition easier.
Swipe gestures
The S24 Ultra is too big for me to use one-handed, due to its important buttons situated at the bottom of the screen. Being able to swap the back button from right to left does not solve the problem of being able to use the phone one-handed with both hands. Enabling Swipe Gestures under Settings > Display > Navigation bar will bring back the feel of iOS navigation, and make one-handed interactions more comfortable.
Firefox browser
The Firefox browser on Android supports extensions, so it is a no-brainer to install it together with uBlock Origin. This combination greatly enhances browsing over using Safari + Firefox Focus extension on iOS. To further mimic iOS's Safari, it is possible to being the address bar to the bottom by going into Settings while in Firefox > Customize > Toolbar > Bottom. You can also enable Pull to refresh in the same settings page.
Keyboards
This portion is more of my own opinions, coming from a guy that used the iOS keyboard for a long time before.
The default Samsung Keyboard feels nice to type on, but swipe typing has to be enabled in its settings if needed.
Gboard is also decent, with probably better swipe typing, though it is recommended to turn off the gazillion tracking settings under Gboard's Privacy settings. I've customized it to have a short long-press duration, so that typing punctuations is faster, and have been using Gboard a lot since.
Microsoft Swiftkey is not even close to the other 2 keyboards that I have tried. It feels generally horrible to type on.
iOS Radar alarm sound
I can't live without this now. Use Zedge to set the default alarm sound to the iOS Radar alarm sound.
Modes vs Focus
In One UI, the equivalent of the iOS Focus feature is Modes. Modes has more functions built-in that could have been otherwise achieved via Shortcuts in iOS. For example, similarly to iOS, I have configured the Sleep Mode which turns on automatically during my bedtime and turns off around my usual wake-up timing. It not only enables Do not disturb, but also turns Power saving mode and Dark mode on, which is more tedious to achieve on iOS, and is kinda nifty.
Using GPay instead of Samsung Wallet
For some reason, Revolut does not support adding a card to Samsung Wallet, and only supports GPay. These are the steps to make GPay the default payment app.
Get rid of the Samsung Wallet gesture by going into its Settings > Quick access > Swipe up gesture > turn off everything. This will make it stop interfering with the Swipe Gestures mentioned in the earlier section.
Go to the phone Settings > Advanced features > Side button > Open app > GPay. This effectively replicates the iOS behaviour of double-tapping the lock button to bring up Apple Wallet.
Other useful stuff
Battery maximization
The S24 has an impressive battery capacity already, though for the best battery:
You can set the resolution of the phone under the Display settings, though the default settings of FHD+ should be a good middle ground already.
Any Samsung flagships have the ability to set the screen refresh rate to either 60Hz or 120Hz. However personally, I limited the screen refresh rate to 90Hz to achieve a balance between responsiveness and battery life. This can be done by:
Enabling adb via Developer settings within the phone.
Execute adb shell settings put system peak_refresh_rate 90.0 from a computer while the S24 is connected.
adb shell settings delete system peak_refresh_rate to undo the settings.
Addendum: use min_refresh_rate to set minimum refresh rate as well.
Disable Fast charging under battery settings, since the default charging speed can already get the phone a little toasty (and heat is not good for the battery's life!).
ReVanced
ReVanced makes a couple of my often-used apps better.
The patched Youtube app gets rid of not only advertisements, but also includes SponsorBlock to skip over segments with sponsors. I can play videos in Picture-in-Picture or in the background too.
For Reddit, I opted to patch and use Sync for Reddit as it is the nicest looking client among all the choices. It is also sort of a reminiscence to the Apollo app that I cherished dearly, before Reddit decides to kill third party apps.