Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked events are used as big product showcases for the South Korean electronics company, often seeing it reveal the latest-generation Galaxy phones and foldables, as well as smartwatches, earbuds, and more.
The first Unpacked of 2024 kicks off on January 17, where we expect to see the reveal of the Samsung Galaxy S24, Galaxy S24 Plus, and Galaxy S24 Ultra at the very least. There’s also scope for the Galaxy Ring, Samsung’s rumored smart ring, to make its debut, as well as upgrades for the likes of the Galaxy Buds 2.
But Unpacked also acts as a bit of a weathervane for Samsung’s direction of travel in consumer technologies, and with Samsung recently trademarking the term ‘AI Phone’ we can expect a good dose of AI-powered features and services to be touted by the company on January 17.
So read on for everything you need to know about Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2024.
When is the next Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event?
The first Galaxy Unpacked of 2024 will take place on January 17 at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm GMT on Wednesday, January 17 – that’s 5am AEDT on Thursday, January 18 for people in Australia.
The showcase will be livestreamed, with the best places to watch set to be Samsung’s YouTube channel, But you can also follow Samsung’s social accounts, such as Samsung Mobile on X, to get the latest updates ahead of and during the event.
But TechRadar will also be heading to the Unpacked showcase being held in San Jose, California, so make sure you check back with us as we’ll be live blogging Unpacked 2024. We’ll also have plenty going up on our TechRadar TikTok account, so go and give that a follow for the latest news and rumors ahead of Unpacked, as well as news, reactions, and analysis from the showcase.
How to watch Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2024 online
To follow the Galaxy Unpacked showcase live, we suggest you head on over to Samsung’s YouTube channel where the live stream will be hosted and is easily accessible. There’s currently a teaser video for it, which we’ve embedded below.
Alternatively, head to Samsung’s website where you can register to watch the live stream and you’ll get a £50 /AU$100 voucher to spend on Galaxy devices. Unfortunately, no such offer exists in the US but if you reserve a new Galaxy device you can get $50 in Samsung credit, and if you then put in a Samsung Galaxy S24 preorder you can score up to $970 in savings with a trade-in.
What could be revealed at Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2024?
We’ve had no official confirmation of what will be launched at this Galaxy Unpacked on January 17, but from the rumors and teasers so far, we’ll almost certainly see the new Galaxy S24 series, comprising standard, Plus, and Ultra models.
But with Samsung touting a big AI push, expect the showcase to have a heavy AI element, with Samsung championing how generative AI – whereby AI algorithms are used to create content rather than simply disseminate it – can be used with the latest Galaxy phone features and specs upgrades.
Read on for more details of what we think will be announced at Galaxy Unpacked 2024.
Samsung Galaxy S24 series smartphones
As sure as night follows day, we can expect to see the Galaxy S24, Galaxy S24 Plus, and Galaxy S24 Ultra revealed on January 17. Samsung’s promotional material and discussions around its latest Exynos 2400 chip all point towards new Galaxy S-series phones being shown off at Unpacked 2024.
From the rumors and tips so far, we can expect hardware upgrades on the Galaxy S24 phones over their Galaxy S23 counterparts to be rather incremental. iPhone 15 Pro-style titanium sides are tipped for the Galaxy S24 Ultra, while trimmer display bezels are expected for the standard and plus Galaxy S24 models; for more details check out our breakdown of the Galaxy S24 Ultra design.
Specs wise, we expect the phones to have Exynos 2400 or Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chips in them, depending on the model and region; see our roundup of the Galaxy S24 specs rumors and Galaxy S24 Ultra specs rumors.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 cameras are expected to be in line with what came before but perhaps with some software upgrades to improve photo results. But it’s the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s cameras that are tipped to have the bigger changes, with the phone rumored to drop the 10x optical zoom 10-megapixel telephoto camera and instead go for a 50MP camera with a 5x optical zoom and a 10x digital crop – this could result in higher quality zoom photos even if the optical range is halved.
It’s in AI, though, where Samsung is expected to make big leaps with the Galaxy S24 series. While many smartphones have tapped into machine learning and AI-powered tech for a few years, notably the Google Pixel 6 with its Magic Eraser, these smart tools have been more for support and optimizing actions, say providing on-the-fly translations. But the next step is to lean on generative AI, whereby algorithms can better learn about what you want and generate it for you, from art out of words to holiday plans and responding to calls for you.
With the AI Phone moniker coined, we expect Samsung to go big with AI as a new feature for the Galaxy S24 phones, likely with onboard execution of AI actions.
Samsung Galaxy AI
Building upon the aforementioned AI-phone tech, Samsung is likely to further champion its ambitions to deliver “on-device AI”, whereby smart machine learning algorithms can be powered by a device’s chips rather than needing a connection back to cloud-based server power.
So we can expect big presentations on how Samsung can use AI in Galaxy S24 phones, from improving phone photography to generating whole new images on the fly. But we’d not be surprised to see Samsung reveal a whole host of AI-centric tools for its Galaxy devices as some form of a suite for productivity, organization, and entertainment.
We can totally see Samsung having developers take to the stage to talk about how they integrated such AI tools into their apps. Or how these tools can be used to not only boost productivity but also make things like planning holidays a lot easier.
AI got a lot of attention in 2023, so we don’t expect it to go away in 2024, and an increasing number of tech brands are likely to lean into AI with Samsung helping lead this year’s charge.
Samsung Galaxy gaming
While certain models of the Galaxy S24 Plus and Galaxy S24 Ultra are likely to use the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, others – notably those not in the US – are expected to use the Exynos 2400 chip. This would be in contrast to the Galaxy S23 series as they all used Snapdragon silicon.
But while Exynos chips have been seen as weaker slices of silicon compared to Snapdragons, the Exynos 2400 appears to have put in some solid early benchmark scores. However, its potential ace in the hole could be the Xclipse 940 GPU, which uses AMD’s RDNA 3 architecture that has been touted to deliver “substantially enhanced ray tracing” and thus better graphics and realism in gaming.
Samsung has partnered with Microsoft before to help bring Xbox Cloud Gaming to its Galaxy flagships, so it’s no stranger to championing smartphone gaming. With the potential for ray-traced games and higher-end graphics, we could see the Galaxy S24 phones come with impressive gaming chops, maybe nipping at the heels of the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max with their A17 Pro chip, which also supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing and can power console-quality games like Resident Evil 4 Remake.
So at Unpacked 2024, Samsung could use some of its showcase to tout the power of the Galaxy S24 phones as gaming devices that can deliver experiences akin to the latest consoles. That’s been a promise of many smartphones and mobile games for years, but it’s not quite come to fruition, so maybe Samsung can finally change that for Android phones.
Samsung Galaxy Ring
The Samsung Ring has been rumored for some time and would be the company’s first smart ring. And like others, it’s expected to have a fitness and wellness tracking focus, helping keep an eye on step counts and distance covered through to measuring heart rates and monitoring blood pressure.
Given January is a time when a lot of people start new fitness programs, it would make sense for Samsung to debut a health-centric wearable. But a lack of recent rumors has us unsure of whether the Ring will indeed make an appearance.
However, Samsung could be doing a good job at keeping the Galaxy Ring under wraps for a ‘one more thing’ style reveal at the end of Unpacked 2024.
Samsung Galaxy Buds and Galaxy Watch updates
A pair of outliers here, but there’s scope for Samsung to reveal updated Galaxy Buds wireless earbuds at Unpacked 2024. Rather than offering a dramatic step up in design or audio quality, they could just get a case with a boosted battery life or some new color options to sync with what’s expected of the Samsung Galaxy S24 colors.
The same could be said for the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6; we don’t forecast a new Galaxy Watch to make its debut on January 17, but the current model could get a software upgrade introducing more complications and perhaps gaining some AI features by linking to the Galaxy S24 phones. Some new strap options also wouldn’t be beyond the realms of imagination.
What is Samsung Galaxy Unpacked?
Galaxy Unpacked is the name given to the big Samsung product showcase. Normally these revolve around new Galaxy S-series phones and Galaxy Fold and Flip series foldable phones.
But Galaxy Unpacked events are also used to debut new Galaxy smartwatches and wireless earbuds, as well as laptops and tablets. There are also nods given to Samsung’s SmartThings smart home platform and its interoperability with the new Galaxy devices.
In general, you can expect two Galaxy Unpacked events a year; one at the start, ranging between January and March, and the other in around July or August.
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This post originally appeared on TechToday.