Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event: what to expect

On February 1st, Samsung will maintain its first in-person smartphone launch because the Galaxy S20 manner again in February 2020. The corporate is extensively anticipated to announce its new flagship smartphone lineup on the occasion, specifically the Galaxy S23 collection. However, as is custom, Samsung will virtually definitely embrace a few extra product bulletins for good measure. Right here’s a roundup of every little thing we’re anticipating on the occasion, which is because of kick off at 1PM ET / 10AM PT / 6PM GMT on Wednesday. 

Let’s begin with some context as a result of previous occasions typically present clues about what’s coming. Samsung held a really comparable launch occasion final 12 months in February 2022 when it introduced the Galaxy S22 lineup consisting of the S22, S22 Plus, and S22 Extremely. Alongside it, the corporate additionally launched new tablets, the Galaxy Tab S8, Tab S8 Plus, and Tab S8 Extremely. 

This 12 months, rumors counsel Samsung may shake issues up a bit of bit. It’ll apparently nonetheless have a brand new lineup of smartphones to announce, however relatively than tablets, it’s anticipated to have new laptops. The keen-eyed have noticed that Samsung’s reservation web page for the upcoming launch particularly name-checks a brand new “Galaxy E book” alongside the brand new smartphone, and rumors counsel this can be a lineup of Galaxy E book 3 gadgets. 

Right here’s every little thing we expect we learn about what’s coming:

This one’s straightforward, and never simply because Samsung has introduced a brand new flagship smartphone lineup like clockwork at first of every 12 months for a decade. No, it’s additionally straightforward as a result of Samsung’s upcoming smartphones have kind of leaked of their entirety already, which means we now have a fairly good concept of their seems and specs even when we don’t but know precisely how this can translate into real-world efficiency.

Like final 12 months, the lineup seems to be three-strong. There’s the usual Galaxy S23, the marginally greater S23 Plus, and at last, the high-end Galaxy S23 Extremely. Rumors counsel the primary two will share comparable designs and specs, whereas the third can be extra visually distinct with a minimum of one important distinctive function.

We’re referring, after all, to the S23 Extremely’s principal digital camera, which has consistently been rumored to be utilizing a high-resolution 200-megapixel principal sensor. That’s virtually double the 108-megapixel sensor present in final 12 months’s Galaxy S22 Extremely. As my colleague Allison Johnson wrote final August, greater decision sensors like these matter as a result of they imply telephones can bin extra pixels collectively to assemble extra gentle and produce brighter, extra detailed photographs. The precise sensor is predicted to be Samsung’s ISOCELL HP2, which Samsung introduced simply weeks in the past. 

Alongside this 200-megapixel sensor, a leaked spec sheet suggests the Galaxy S23 Extremely can have three extra cameras, a 12-megapixel ultrawide, a 10-megapixel telephoto with a 3x optical zoom, and one other 10-megapixel telephoto with a 10x optical zoom. It quantities to a considerably higher digital camera system than each the Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 Plus, whose own leaked spec sheets counsel will each have triple-camera techniques consisting of 50-megapixel principal sensors, 12-megapixel ultrawides, and 10-megapixel telephotos.

Leaked photos counsel it received’t simply be the digital camera techniques that distinguish the S23 and S23 Plus from the S23 Extremely however their designs as effectively. The Galaxy S23 Extremely will seemingly have sq. corners and an accompanying S Pen stylus, reiterating its standing because the non secular successor to Samsung’s discontinued Galaxy Word telephones. In the meantime the Galaxy S23 and S23 Plus have a lot softer rounded edges, even when they’ve ditched the digital camera bump that distinguished the S22 and S22 Plus from the S22 Extremely final 12 months. 

Subsequent up, screens. As its title suggests, the Galaxy S23 is the smallest of the three telephones, with a 6.1-inch 1080p 120Hz OLED show. The S23 Plus is barely greater at 6.6 inches, although its display screen specs are in any other case largely the identical. Lastly, the S23 Extremely has a bigger display screen nonetheless at 6.8 inches, and importantly, it bumps the decision to 1440p. It’s nonetheless OLED and nonetheless 120Hz.

Those self same leaked spec sheets we talked about earlier counsel all three telephones are going to be powered by Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor in Europe, and historic precedent suggests we’ll see the identical processor utilized in North America as effectively. What’s attention-grabbing is that there’s no signal of Samsung’s personal Exynos processors within the Galaxy S23 lineup, which the corporate has traditionally used to energy its telephones in choose areas around the globe like Europe and India. Qualcomm instructed as a lot in an earnings name final 12 months when chief monetary officer Akash Palkhiwala mentioned Qualcomm’s processor share would improve from “75 % in G S22” to “international share in G S23.”

The remainder of the lineup’s specs seem like broadly in keeping with earlier Samsung flagships and the trade at massive. We’re taking a look at between 8 and 12GB of RAM and 256GB to 1TB of storage within the Extremely, whereas the 2 different fashions will reportedly solely ship with 8GB of RAM and between 128 and 512GB of storage. Battery capacities vary from 3,900mAh to five,000mAh throughout the three telephones, with 45W quick charging on the Plus and Extremely and 25W on the bottom S23. 

When it comes to pricing, inside Verizon paperwork posted to Reddit counsel we’re taking a look at a $799.99 beginning value for the Galaxy S23, $999.99 for the Galaxy S23 Plus, and $1,199.99 for the Galaxy S23 Extremely, which is in step with final 12 months’s fashions. European consumers won’t be so fortunate, nonetheless. In nations like Spain and Germany, leaked pricing suggests the beginning costs might have elevated by round €100 for sure fashions.

If Samsung’s reservation web page is something to go by, this 12 months’s Galaxy S smartphone launch can be accompanied by a brand new line of Galaxy E book laptops. Rumors counsel we may see as many as 5 laptops introduced, which MySmartPrice experiences can be known as the Galaxy E book 3, E book 3 360, E book 3 Professional, E book 3 Professional 360, and E book 3 Extremely. Final 12 months, Samsung introduced its laptops a bit of later in February at Cell World Congress in Barcelona. 

As you’d anticipate from its title, the E book 3 Extremely will reportedly be the highest-end mannequin. In line with leaker Ishan Agarwal, it’ll have a 16-inch 1800p OLED show, an Intel i9-13900H CPU, an Nvidia RTX 4070 discrete GPU, 32GB of RAM, 1TB of storage, and can be suitable with Samsung’s S Pen stylus. Its touchscreen is also thinner and lighter than typical because of having its contact sensors built-in immediately into the panel. 

The remainder of the lineup is reportedly cut up between 360 laptops, with shows that may flip all the best way round for use tablet-style, and commonplace clamshell laptops. MySmartPrice experiences that the Galaxy E book 3 Professional 360 may even be out there with a 16-inch 1800p OLED show, with a selection of an Intel i5-1340P or i7-1360 CPU, built-in Intel graphics, 16GB of RAM, as much as 1TB of storage, and stylus assist. The non-360 Galaxy E book 3 Professional will reportedly be out there with a 14-inch display screen along with the 16-inch model. 

Pictures of the Galaxy E book 3 Professional, 3 Professional 360, and three Extremely had been leaked final 12 months by The Tech Outlet, displaying the laptops’ USB-C ports, headphone jacks, and charging ports. 

There’s not a lot concrete details about what we are able to anticipate from the non-Professional Galaxy E book 3 laptops. MySmartPrice experiences each will include only a single display screen measurement — 15 inches — however their precise specs are much less clear. Judging by the remainder of the lineup, nonetheless, we’d anticipate each to function thirteenth Gen Intel processors. 

It appears unlikely that we’ll see Samsung announce a brand new lineup of Android tablets, true wi-fi earbuds, or smartwatches alongside this 12 months’s Galaxy S23 smartphones. The perfect proof we now have, frankly, is that if an announcement was coming, it’d in all probability have leaked by now.

Samsung did announce a brand new lineup of Tab S8 tablets alongside the Galaxy S22 final 12 months. However in keeping with a report from South Korean outlet The Elec, the corporate pushed again the discharge of its upcoming tablets (presumably the Tab S9) from their unique December 2022 launch date because of a drop in demand for client tech. In line with The Elec, nonetheless, we must always nonetheless anticipate a brand new technology of tablets to launch this 12 months, which suggests they may nonetheless launch alongside Samsung’s anticipated Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Z Flip 5 foldables on the firm’s conventional summer time launch. Simply don’t maintain your breath for an look in February. 

It’s an identical story with Samsung’s true wi-fi earbuds. The corporate at present has between two or three traces of earbuds, relying on whether or not you assume it’ll ever launch a follow-up to the (for my part wonderful) Galaxy Buds Stay. The corporate final up to date its Galaxy Buds Professional lineup in August final 12 months with the Professional 2 and launched the non-Professional Galaxy Buds 2 in August 2021. That implies the latter is due for an improve this 12 months however perhaps not for just a few months but. 

Lastly, there are smartwatches, which final noticed an replace with final August’s Galaxy Watch 5 collection. Samsung’s smartwatches have been on a 12-month launch cadence for the previous couple of years, which means the most probably time we’ll see a Galaxy Watch 6 introduced is in August 2023. 

Samsung’s Unpacked occasion can be livestreamed over on its YouTube channel on Wednesday, February 1st, beginning at 1PM ET / 10AM PT / 6PM GMT.