I can’t recall if there was ever a true lull in the weeks between CES and MWC, or whether this is the sort of thing we tell ourselves to cushion the blow of a hardware season that now spans 11.5 months of the year. Whatever the case, the days of big companies saving big news for big events appear to be mostly done.
Once upon a time, Samsung split its big top-of-year announcements between CES (TVs, monitors, appliances) and Mobile World Congress (phones, tablets, maybe a wearable). Several years ago, however, the company moved its big mobile flagship news to a standalone event — albeit one that was more closely tied to MWC.
This year’s first Samsung Unpacked, on the other hand, returns to the West Coast of the U.S. less than a week after CES. Thankfully, some things are a bit more predictable than the company’s event schedule — namely the devices set to be announced at said event. Today at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET, Samsung will unveil its latest flagship, the Galaxy S24. This much we can say we know with near absolute certainly.
Because this is Samsung we’re talking about, we also think we know plenty about the device itself, courtesy of a steady drip of releases. As ever, the Ultra will be the (high price tag) centerpiece of the line. Here’s some of what we think we know:
- New flatter display
- Another four-camera array, though the 10x telephoto has been halved
- A titanium frame à la the iPhone 15
AI will, unsurprisingly, take center stage today. The company is expecting to incorporate some form of third-party generative AI on-device. By the end of 2024, I’d anticipate that pretty much every major Android handset will offer some version of this, but points to Samsung for being ahead of the curve on this one.
One specific AI tidbit we’ve heard about is the new “Circle to Search” feature from Google, which aims to make search engine access even more accessible.
Samsung will most likely also announce the standard S24 and S24+ options. Additional hardware could be on the docket, as well.
You can follow along with the announcements here.