Samsung is preparing to hold its August Galaxy Unpacked event where it plans to announce its flagship hardware of the latter half of 2021.
The company often holds two such mobile-focused Unpacked events, with the first being to announce the Galaxy S21-series earlier this year. This second one is today, and the company is focusing entirely on its foldable line for the first time since the first original Galaxy Fold debuted. If you’re interested in watching the event yourself, check out the Samsung Galaxy Unpacked August 2021 livestream below.
Samsung will stream the virtual event via YouTube at 7 a.m. PT (10 a.m. ET, 9 a.m. CT, 8 a.m. MT, and 2 p.m. in GMT) on Wednesday, August 11. To stream it live, you’d need to go to the company’s YouTube channel to catch the announcements as they happen. You can also register to reserve your new device and watch directly on the Samsung website.
Samsung, like all other tech companies, has moved to virtual events in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. With the viability of mass physical events involving intercontinental travel uncertain, we’ll likely see more virtual events like this one for the better part of a year — at least when it comes to phone launches.
What is coming is hardly a secret since all the upcoming products have been extensively leaked and we have a good idea of what to expect. Samsung has confirmed that Galaxy Unpacked will be focusing on the Galaxy Z Fold and Flip series this time around.
“We are out to set new heights and open up a whole new world of exciting experiences for even more people. I hope you’ll join us as we debut our next Galaxy Z family and share some foldable surprises — including the first-ever S Pen designed specifically for foldable phones,” Samsung’s Dr. TM Roh announced in July.
According to reports from a mix of sources, Samsung is expected to announce the Galaxy Z Flip 3 5G and the Galaxy Z Fold 3 for their foldable lines. Both phones will come with improvements over the previous generation, including tighter designs, bigger screens, and IPX8 certifications for waterproofing for the first time on a foldable.
We also expect to see the first fruits of Samsung’s collaboration with Google on wearables and smartwatches, announced at I/O.
“It fueled the development of a new unified wearable platform, which we built jointly with Google,” Roh said, adding, “Furthermore, our One UI Watch user interface is deeply integrated with our other Galaxy devices and provides consistent connectivity between your Galaxy Watch and Galaxy smartphone.”
From this, the company is said to be bringing out the Galaxy Watch 4 and the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic, the most powerful Wear OS watches so far, and the first from Samsung in a very long time.
Finally, Samsung is expected to launch the Galaxy Buds 2, a pair of true wireless earbuds with upgrades over older models including Bluetooth 5.2, better battery life, active noise cancellation, and a potentially low starting price of around $149.
This Samsung Unpacked will be a bit of an atypical one. Typically, Samsung would have been expected to launch the Galaxy Note 21 as well as the Galaxy S21 Fan Edition (FE) if things went to plan. The company has already announced that the Note would not be making an appearance this year, the first time in 10 years. The Galaxy S21 FE, while not fully absent this year, will also not be making an appearance due to the same chip shortage that is reportedly to blame for the Note 21’s absence, though the lackluster S21 sales may also have something to do with the pivot.
You can read all about everything Samsung plans to launch over here. With Unpacked coming in days, we’ll know just how accurate those rumors were. You’re already able to reserve your new device and take advantage of higher trade-in value, 12 free months of Samsung Care+, and an unspecified special offer during the pre-order period.
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