Next week Samsung will hold its Unpacked event in San Francisco and will launch its next flagship device as well as possibly an all-new foldable phone. So what can we expect to see?
The Samsung Unpacked event will be held at the San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts at 11am Feb 11 (6am Feb 12 Sydney time) and will be live streamed on the Samsung website.
Samsung has again decided to hold its own event before Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in late February where all the other phone companies will unveil their 2020 line-ups.
Tech Guide will be in San Francisco next week and will bring you the latest news and announcements.
But there has already been no shortage of rumours and alleged leaks about what Samsung will be unveiling at the event.
Here’s what we can expect:
SAMSUNG GALAXY S20
The biggest speculation is what the new Samsung flagship smartphone will be called.
With the release of the Galaxy S10 last year we assume it would be the S11 this year but there have been a lot of whispers that the new device will be called the S20.
Why the jump from 11 to 20? One suggestion was that the number was changed to match the year – the S20 in 2020.
Naming conventions aside, the device will obviously be packed with features.
And again there will be three versions of the S20 with even larger screens.
Rumours suggest there will be the S20 (6.4-inch screen), the S20 Plus (6.7-inch) and the S20 Ultra with a huge 6.9-inch display.
Each are expected to feature Dynamic AMOLED displays with a single hole punch to accommodate the front facing camera believed to be 10-megapixel.
Going by the leaked images the new design is not a huge departure from the S10 and will still have an edge-to-edge look with the screen and an improved in-screen fingerprint reader.
But it’s the rear camera that has already got people talking.
The Samsung S20 will reportedly have four lenses on the rear panel arranged inside a rectangular section in the top left corner.
One model is believed to have a 108-megapixel main lens alongside 48-megapixel ultrawide and telephoto lenses plus 10x optical zoom thanks to a new periscope lens system.
Under the hood we can expect battery capacities up to a huge 5,000mAh with fast charging.
The new Samsung smartphones are also likely to be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor and will include either 12GB or 16GB RAM.
It is also believed that all models, or maybe two of the three, will be 5G compatible.
GALAXY FOLD 2
It was at the Unpacked event in San Francisco a year ago that we got our first official look at the Samsung Galaxy Fold.
There are signs we’ll be getting a look at another foldable smartphone this year but it might not necessarily be a follow up to the original but an all-new foldable altogether.
If the rumours and leaks are to be believed, Samsung will unveil a device called the Galaxy Z Flip.
And unlike the original Galaxy Fold which was a phone that opened up to a tablet, the Galaxy Z Flip will be a clamshell device.
It will open up to reveal a large 21:9 display. No word on exact size of the screen but from the leaked images and videos it looks like about 6.8-inch display.
When folded down the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip will be smaller than a wallet and will include a small display on the outside so you can see messages and notifications and even make and receive calls.
But what does this mean for the Galaxy Fold which was only released a few months ago?
It will still be a part of the Galaxy range with a possible Fold 2 to be unveiled later this year.
GALAXY BUDS
The Galaxy Buds were introduced at the 2019 Unpacked event in San Francisco and we’re expecting an upgrade this year.
Reportedly the new Galaxy Buds – believed to be called the Galaxy Buds+ – will offer improved sound quality, better battery life and possibly even noise cancellation so they will go up against the popular Apple AirPods Pro.
GALAXY WATCH
Samsung introduced its most recent watch – Galaxy Watch Active 2 – at the Galaxy Note launch in in New York in early August last year so we’re not expecting a watch announcement in San Francisco.
Tech Guide will be in San Francisco for the Samsung Unpacked event to stay tuned for the latest updates and hands-on reviews.
