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Galaxy S24’s Note Assist feature tested: What is it and how does it work?
One of the big highlights of the new Samsung Galaxy S24 series is AI. The new phones come with a host of features that are powered by Galaxy AI. AI permeates every aspect of the new Galaxy S24 experience, as is the case with the new Note Assist feature. But what is Note Assist, and how does it work on the Galaxy S24? I tried out the feature on my Galaxy S24 Ultra, and here is what I think about it.
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Note Assist is the suite of Galaxy AI-enabled features in the Samsung Notes app. These include auto-formatting, summarising, spelling correction, translation, and generating covers for notes. All of these features except translation require an active Internet connection to work, while translation also requires the language pack to be downloaded, although it runs on-device.
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What is Galaxy AI-enabled Note Assist?
The new Samsung Galaxy S24 series comes with a feature called “Note Assist” that is accessible within the Samsung Notes app.
Note Assist essentially brings AI to the Notes app, using it to offer supercharged functionality. This includes:
- Auto-formatting notes with headers, bullet points, and paragraphs.
- Summarising notes to see what they’re about.
- Generate covers based on note content.
- Correct spelling and grammar.
- Translate text in your notes.
You can use various external services to achieve similar results, but Note Assist brings them all under one roof in the Samsung Notes app. It is even more useful for the Galaxy S24 Ultra since you can use the S Pen to take notes, which are then transcribed by the Samsung Notes app to let you process them with AI.
Of these five features, only the translate feature can be processed on-device (and it still needs you to pre-download a language pack). The other four features require an Internet connection.
What phones does Note Assist work on?
Samsung has announced Note Assist for the following phones:
- Samsung Galaxy S24 series:
- Galaxy S24
- Galaxy S24 Plus
- Galaxy S24 Ultra
Samsung hasn’t announced a broader rollout of Note Assist specifically. However, the company has mentioned that the wider Galaxy AI features from the Galaxy S24 series will also be supported on previous models, including the Galaxy S23 series, Galaxy S23 FE, Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Flip 5, and Galaxy Tab S9 series, presumably with their impending OneUI 6.1 update. So, there’s hope to see this feature on more devices in Samsung’s portfolio.
How to activate Note Assist?
Note Assist lives within the Samsung Notes app, so you can activate the feature from within.
- Open the Samsung Notes app on your supported Samsung phone.
- Click on the three-line sidebar button in the middle left side of the screen.
- Once the sidebar slides out, click on the settings button.
- Go to Note assist and toggle it On.
You can also enable it from within the system Settings app by going to Settings > Advanced features > Advanced intelligence > Samsung Notes > On.
How to use Note Assist: All AI features explained
Now that you have activated Note Assist, you can invoke it in any of your existing or new Notes within the Samsung Notes app. Within any note, click on the three-star button and select from the four available AI functions.
Auto format
The Auto format function uses AI to restructure your notes. By adding headers, bullets, and other formatting data, Auto format makes your notes easier to read. Samsung says you need a minimum of 200 characters for the Auto format function to work.
You can choose how you want to format your note: Headers and bullets or Meeting notes. Either option gives you five choices of auto-formatted results. You can browse the options to see which suits your note and needs better.
Once you have reformatted your note, you can either copy the formatted data, replace the old note with the newly reformatted note, or add the new note to an existing note.
Summarise
As the name implies, the Summarise function in the Samsung Notes app produces a condensed summary of your note containing all the key information. You need a minimum of 200 characters for the Summarise function to work. Much like the Auto format option, you can copy the summary, replace the old note with the summary, or add the summary to an existing note.
By default, the feature generates a concise summary. You can choose to get a more detailed summary by clicking on the adjustment icon (placed next to the info icon) and selecting Detailed.
Correct spelling
The Correct spelling function identifies and revises spelling and punctuation errors. It’s basically spell check but with AI. Once again, you can copy, replace, or add to an existing note. However, unlike Auto format and Summarise, Correct spelling does not require a minimum word count.
Translate
Translate uses AI to translate your text. The AI should automatically detect the source language on your note and prompt you to download the language packs needed for the translation. From what I can tell, the translation feature works on-device and does not require an internet connection once you have downloaded the language packs.
Here are the languages and regions that Translate supports:
- Chinese Simplified
- English (India, United Kingdom, United States)
- French
- German
- Hindi
- Italian
- Japanese
- Korean
- Polish
- Portuguese (Brazil)
- Spanish (Mexico, Spain, United States)
- Thai
- Vietnamese
As you can see, while Translate supports many languages, the list isn’t as exhaustive as you would find with conventional translation services.
Generate cover
The Generate cover feature is accessed from the main landing page of the Notes app and not from within any note like the other four features. Generate cover allows you to create unique thumbnail icons for your notes so you can distinguish one set from another. This makes it easy to locate the note you are looking for, especially if you have a bunch of random notes collected over the years.
To access Generate cover, open the Samsung Notes app, long press to select notes, click on the More icon in the bottom right corner, and click on Generate cover. A cover will be generated, and you will be prompted to apply the cover to your note. You can click on Done to apply the cover.
How good is Galaxy AI-powered Note Assist?
From my testing, I found Note Assist to do its (limited) job very well. Most processing takes only a few seconds, and the results have been satisfactory.
Note Assist isn't revolutionary by itself, but it rounds up the Galaxy S24 experience.
I found Auto format to be my most used feature, helping me make sense of my quickly typed notes. Summarize is also decent at generating summaries, though chances are that if you typed out the note, you already know what you have written. It would be better if you could directly import a web page or message into Notes to summarize. Translation also makes sense if you want to run it on-device; otherwise, services like Google Translate offer a wider language selection.
Individually, none of the Note Assist features stand out as revolutionary new features. However, they add that small dash of novelty and utility to the Galaxy S24 experience to help it stand out. Coupled with the other Galaxy AI features, there might be just enough here to make you switch phones.
