Samsung has just announced that its midyear Galaxy Unpacked event will be held at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, August 10, effectively confirming an early leak of the date that surfaced yesterday.
However, there’s more to Samsung’s news than merely the date. In preparation for the next wave of Galaxy devices, the company has also announced the opening of its U.S. reservation offers. Beginning today and running through August 10, customers can sign up on Samsung’s website or in the Shop Samsung app to reserve their place in the pre-order lineup for whatever Samsung will be announcing and take advantage of credits of up to $200 on a Galaxy phone, watch, and buds bundle.
This is the second Galaxy Unpacked event to be held this year, following Unpacked February 2022, where Samsung unveiled its Galaxy S22 lineup. Typically, Samsung uses its winter events to set the tone for the year by focusing on its flagship smartphones, saving some of its more exotic products for its midyear event.
For instance, over the past two years, Samsung has used its August unpacked event to debut new models of its Galaxy Z series devices, such as last year’s Galaxy Z Flip 3 and Galaxy Z Fold 3. New Galaxy Watch models also generally show up at Samsung’s August event.
This means it’s a safe bet that the Galaxy Z Flip 4 and Galaxy Z Fold 4 will be the event’s highlights, which is also apparent from the invitation graphic that Samsung is using (above). Some sources report the tagline for the event will be “Unfold The World,” although Samsung hasn’t mentioned that in its announcement.
By all reports, we expect the new pair of Galaxy Z series devices to feature mostly iterative design changes, suggesting that Samsung has settled on its style for its folding smartphones — for now, at least. From the renders making the rounds, the Galaxy Z Fold 4 will be more about refining the design for a cleaner and more elegant look that will align more closely with the Galaxy S22 Ultra.
The Galaxy Z Flip 4 is expected to change even less on the outside, although both new models will gain the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chip, a beefed-up version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 used in the Galaxy S22 series. Performance between the two will be differentiated mostly by memory and storage capacity, with the pricier Fold 4 expected to get up to 12GB RAM and 512GB of fast UFS storage, while the Flip 4 sticks with an 8GB and 256GB configuration.
Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 5 and Galaxy Watch 5 Pro are likely to be the other big news next month. The pair of new models will change the lineup’s branding from the previous Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 4 Classic duo. The Galaxy Watch 5 series will likely sport some exciting design changes if recently leaked renders are accurate, along with improvements to the health sensors that could also see the addition of skin temperature monitoring to Samsung’s wearable.
There’s also a possibility that Samsung could take this opportunity to release the Galaxy Buds Pro 2, a follow-up to the original Galaxy Buds Pro that showed up in January 2021. Rumor has it that the new earbuds are already in production, with some analysts suggesting that we should have seen them on shelves by now. Since this hasn’t happened, Samsung is likely saving them to round out its August 10 Unpacked event.
Samsung has also opened its reserve offers, and the deals give us a pretty good idea of the type of devices we can expect.
Specifically, anyone who signs up for a Galaxy phone, watch, and buds bundle can get a $200 credit on the whole package. The offers drop from there, with Samsung giving $150 toward a Galaxy phone and watch or $130 for a Galaxy phone and buds. At the bottom of the scale, reserving Galaxy buds alone reaps a $30 credit.
However, Samsung is also offering an additional $100 credit to use on Samsung.com toward other eligible products when you reserve a Galaxy phone. That’s double the credit it provided with the Galaxy S22.
Samsung notes that these are no-commitment offers, which makes sense since you don’t know exactly what it is that you’ll be reserving until Samsung unveils its new devices on August 10. You only need to provide your name and email address to reserve your devices, and you’ll be able to redeem your reserve credit when you actually place your pre-order.
The OnePlus Buds Clip are a new pair of open-ear earbuds built around a simple convenience. They join Sony’s LinkBuds Clip in the growing ear-cuff category, but either OnePlus bud can go on either ear.
Sensors recognize how the earbuds are being worn and route the audio channels accordingly. There’s no label to check before putting them on, and the feature also works when only one bud is used.
We buy fitness bands and activity trackers to keep tabs on our exercise, but it is easy to forget to start tracking or switch modes when moving between different activities. For Fitbit and Pixel Watch users, that could soon become a lot less annoying, as Google is rolling out a major upgrade to automatic activity tracking that can recognize more than 100 types of exercise, up from just 10 before.
Google first showed off the improved tracking earlier this month alongside the Fitbit Edge. It is now coming to Fitbit Air and the Pixel Watch 3, 4, and 5, and Google claims the added context behind the system makes workout detection nearly twice as accurate while cutting missed activities by more than half. Fitbit Edge will support it too.