Samsung has equipped its Galaxy S24 with numerous AI features. Surround to Search in particular seems particularly useful to us.
Among the eight new AI features introduced alongside the Samsung Galaxy S24, one in particular caught our eye. At first glance, however, nothing special: Surround to Search, as it is called, consists of an improved Google Lens, Google's image-based search engine. Surround to Search was even developed with Google and the Mountain View giant plans to integrate it into its own Pixel 8 by March 2024.
And yet the new functionality could potentially appeal to many users of future S24s. Here's why.
Quick and easy to use
The great strength of “Surround to Search” lies in its easy accessibility and quick triggering. Let's compare with Google Lens, starting from an image sent by a friend on Messenger.
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To use Circle to Search, we simply press the gesture bar at the bottom (or the middle button if I'm using keyboard navigation) and then circle the item we want to search for. The search starts immediately, without the need to click again, in the form of a tile at the bottom of the interface.
To perform the same action on the Google Lens page, we must download the photo, exit the application, go to Lens and open the photo in question.
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It doesn't seem like much, but these little frictions are how we know whether or not we're having a smooth experience. This is also how users get used to a feature or eventually turn away from it.
For the sake of conscience, we would like to point out that any Android smartphone with the Chrome browser installed can speed up this process. All you need to do is press and hold on an image and then click “Find image with Google Lens” from the drop-down menu.
There is still a bit of work to be done to fully refine it.
However, not everything is perfect. We were able to take control of the functionality and three small aspects seemed like we could perfect it.
If you use it on a video player, it will be a bit difficult to achieve your goals. As soon as the search is started, the video player interface will appear. Even if such a feature had to be integrated natively, the player's buttons would have to be disabled during use.
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Another small problem: although we welcome the flexibility of the functionality, we have to admit that starting it is not the easiest process at first glance, at least during the short time it takes us to do it. You have to place your finger on the bottom part of the screen for a certain amount of time before it triggers. However, when using gesture navigation, the bar at the bottom of the screen, which you have to keep pressed, can quickly seem small. As a result, we sometimes had to do it several times.
Final point that some will regret: It is not possible to search for people other than celebrities. While this may seem interesting for finding old friends of long-lost colleagues, for example, it's easy to understand why Samsung doesn't want to give as many people as possible access to a potentially very harmful tool.
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