It’s been a long few weeks since the last major tech event. Thankfully, that draught is about to end.
Samsung is back with a new batch of product announcements next week. The latest Galaxy Unpacked livestream takes place at 7 a.m. ET on July 26 (an early start because it’s in South Korea), and we already have a pretty good idea of what we expect to see at this event.
Let’s not waste any more time. Here are the products you’ll most likely see next week when Samsung goes live from Seoul.
Samsung Display shows off a touchscreen that can read your vitals
Galaxy Z Flip and Fold 5
Around this time last year, Samsung held a Galaxy Unpacked stream to announce the then-newest Galaxy Z Flip and Z Fold phone models. Common sense suggests the same will be true this year.
In fairness, though, there’s a lot more than common sense going into this prediction. Both of these phones have leaked to varying degrees, up to and including alleged product photos circulating around the internet. Photos of the Z Fold 5 are on Reddit, and photos of the Z Flip 5 were leaked to Twitter before being taken down. Luckily, you can still see them courtesy of 9to5Google.
So, what’s new? Both phones look pretty similar to the way they’ve always looked, with the Z Fold having a similar tablet-like form factor to the Google Pixel Fold and the Z Flip coming in more of a clamshell style. The big new upgrade for both phones seems to be a new hinge that allows the two sides of the phone to lay completely flat when folded, as opposed to last year’s models that left a small open gap when folded.
Other than that, the Z Flip 5 seems to have a much larger outer display that can support a full keyboard for typing out messages this time. It’s reasonable to also expect the usual processor and camera upgrades, though to what extent, we don’t know yet. Finally, a leak on the Greek website TechManiacs suggests the Z Fold 5 could have a slight price bump over last year’s whopping $1,800 price tag.
Galaxy Tab S9
Another announcement we can be fairly sure about heading into the next Galaxy Unpacked stream is that of the Galaxy Tab S9.
More specifically, leaks from sites like WinFuture indicate that we’ll most likely see three Tab S9 models: a base version, the Tab S9 Plus, and the Tab S9 Ultra. All three models look pretty similar to the Tab S8, though a dual-camera array on the back is worth noting. Aside from that, not much is definitively known about the new Galaxy tablets.
There are a few snippets of info, to be fair. Display analyst Ross Young revealed that the base Tab S9 will have an OLED display, which is nice. According to SamMobile, it’ll also have IP67 water resistance, giving it a leg up over previous models. Another Twitter leak indicated that the Tab S9 Ultra will run on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2+ chipset, though we still need to wait and see on what kind of processing power the other two models will have.
Galaxy Watch 6
Samsung’s summertime showcase has been the place to see new Galaxy Watch models in recent years, so let’s go ahead and assume the latest batch of Galaxy Watches will show up here, too.
Thing is, assuming is about all we can do at this stage. We don’t know exactly what to expect from the Galaxy Watch 6 in terms of model differences or new features because there haven’t been very many leaks. The most substantive info we have came from leaker Ice Universe on Twitter, who said the new Galaxy Watch could have a curved display.
Other than that, your guess is as good as ours.
Samsung XR?
Every “what to expect” piece should include at least one pie-in-the-sky prediction that’s not all that likely to actually show up. That’s what this is.
Back in February at its last Unpacked event, Samsung announced that it is working with Google and Qualcomm on some kind of upcoming mixed reality platform. Whether this is a specific product or line of products (or something else entirely) remains to be seen. There’s no real indication that Samsung will elaborate on this partnership at the July Unpacked, but with Apple recently revealing its Vision Pro XR headset, we can at least cross our fingers and hope to see more from the burgeoning XR arms race.
