Samsung

The Galaxy Ring, Galaxy Watch 7 and Ultra, Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6, and Galaxy Buds 3 and 3 Pro each made appearances at Galaxy Unpacked and are available starting on July 24th.

We’ve prepared a 12-minute supercut of the event for you, in case you missed the livestream.

Google’s Rick Osterloh mentioned the elusive XR collaboration briefly in his onstage appearance at Unpacked, without providing any new details. That’s the at least the third time we’ve heard about it without actually hearing anything at all about it. But I guess now we know it’s still a thing in the Osterloh Android era?

Setting aside their Apple-ness and the Cybertruck-like angles, what do we think? Here’s a gallery of new Galaxy Buds images from Galaxy Unpacked.

For more on what they’re like, check out Chris Welch’s hands-on.

Osterloh heads up hardware over at Google and is taking time to really cement the Google / Samsung partnership. The thing that stuck out most to me was when he said: wherever you are on your Galaxy phone, just hit up Gemini. And does he have that Galaxy Ultra on his wrist? Looks like it.

“Lets unpack the future together.”

The Z Flip 6 starts at $1,099, while the Z Fold 6 is $1,899. All the products, including the Galaxy Watches, Ring, and Buds will be available starting on July 24th.

Samsung’s Galaxy Buds 3 Pro and Galaxy Buds 3 ditch the more discreet look of the company’s past earbuds for a familiar stemmed design. The company says a ton of research and analysis on ear shapes and comfort led to the big design shift.

Samsung is expanding its feature that translates phone calls in real time to cover 16 languages in July and 20 languages by the end of the year.

Google and Samsung confirmed that their deal for Gemini AI features on Galaxy devices will bring updates (announced at I/O earlier this year) that let it read and respond to what’s on your phone screen or in a video you’re watching, as well as new Circle to Search features.

Yeah, they’re kind of gimmicky, but I’ll admit that I was entertained when playing around with them the other day during our hands-on experience. The FlipSuit cases for the Z Flip 6 were also fun, especially the ones with LEDs.

Somewhere in Seoul, I think our former laptop reviewer Monica Chin is fangirling. BTS is still mostly going through their military service, but K-pop stars making an appearance at Unpacked is a time-honored Samsung tradition.

She was in the audience at last year’s Unpacked, too, and is now being subjected to Galaxy AI creating an uncanny portrait of her. Sydney, blink if you need help.

Gemini is available on the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6, and Google is touting a bunch of new AI features it previewed earlier this year, like homework help in Circle to Search and contextual suggestions. But they’re still coming “soon,” so it doesn’t look like we’ll get to try them out right away on the new foldables. Bummer.

I say yes. No, I say HELL YES.

Now six generations into its foldable devices category, Samsung just showed a video about the Galaxy Z Fold 6’s display, which has a new coating, a less noticeable crease, fewer layers between the screen and your eyes, and smaller bezels. And apparently it’s even flatter than before when open.

Here’s a gallery of the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra’s detail shots. That strap connection looks pretty familiar!

A lot of these features look awfully similar to the Apple Watch Ultra. Samsung isn’t shy about where it got its inspiration for this beefy squircle watch from.

This is an industrywide first. Fitbit first started working on this back in 2017! It’s not meant to be a diagnostic tool — these features never are. Rather, it’s meant to alert you and encourage you to talk to a doctor.

I got a chance to play around with the Galaxy Ring, but here’s the gist: it’s made of titanium, comes in three colors, has up to seven days of battery life, and will be a really great, discreet way to track your sleep.

The Energy Score uses four health metrics to tell you how ready you are to tackle the day, while the Wellness Tips feature gives you personalized advice based on those metrics. Annnnd these metrics get us into the Galaxy Ring.

Samsung says yes, you can. The company’s kicking this event off with a video about how its new phones, particularly the Z Flip 6, can live translate “Can I kick it” and “Yes you can” in a number of languages.

Watching the intro to today’s Galaxy Unpacked event, I’m reminded of this great David Imel video answering the most important question of our time: why did everyone decide that the official logo of AI is ***sparkles***?

Just days after it reported a 15x increase in operating profit, over 6,500 workers are taking part in a three-day walkout at Samsung Electronics over pay and conditions. According to the FT:

The labor unrest is a new challenge for a company with an anti-labor reputation. Its union membership has sharply increased since chair Lee Jae-yong declared an end to the company’s no-unions policy in 2020.

Workers are threatening a five-day strike next week if demands are not met.

The August update for the S24 Ultra will tweak things like how it handles HDR, processing, and exposure, but so far doesn’t touch “telephoto and night mode above 10x,” writes Samsung leaker Ice Universe in a post spotted by SamMobile.

Earlier this week, a leaked spec sheet revealed an odd hardware downgrade for Samsung’s incoming Galaxy Z Flip 6. The specs listed an IPS LCD for the outer display.

Now, SamMobile is reporting that someone likely just goofed up when making the document. The external cover screen will likely be OLED just like last year’s phone.