Let’s unpack a bit about Samsung’s Unpacked, shall we? The South Korean tech giant is set to release its next big Android hit with the Galaxy S24, and this time, it’s taking a roundabout route to proclaim its next smartphone as one of the true first “AI phones.”
Unpacked will be livestreamed from Samsung’s official YouTube channel or from its website. You can start watching Wednesday, Jan. 17, at 1 p.m. ET or 11 a.m. PT. This is when we’ll hear about the much-leaked Galaxy S24, S24+, and S24 Ultra, as per usual for this time of year (though they’re notably debuting a week earlier than past Unpacked events). Of course, we recommend you hang out with us at Gizmodo, as we’ll provide some up-to-date coverage and analysis.
What Do We Expect to See at Unpacked 2024?
This time, however, we expect to hear more about the touted “Galaxy AI” as well as more about the new phone lineup, so expect a lot of talk about software capabilities before we even get to the full phone specs rundown.
Samsung’s next flagship will likely be heavy on the software side, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be some big changes coming to the Galaxy phones’ hardware. For one, the S24 Ultra is expected to look a fair bit different going forward with a far flatter design. Not only that, but the company’s most-expensive smartphone will go full iPhone 15 Pro with an anticipated titanium frame. The flagship’s cameras will also receive additional upgrades with the long-range ISOCELL zoom, something already confirmed directly from Samsung. We also expect it to sport the most up-to-date Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, the same chips that are also promoting their ability to handle some on-device AI.
Samsung is sidling up to Google for a lot of these AI-enhanced features, and that company’s phones could be seen sitting alongside the Pixel 8 in the company’s big all-Android CES booth last week. That was where Google was also promoting future Android AI features like the Duet-enabled smart compose in Gmail and other Google apps.
What will be most interesting to see is which non-Google AI apps Samsung will try to promote for its own devices. At CES, Samsung promoted future AI features like automatic, near-instantaneous live translation. Personally, I’ve had a hard time with Google’s own Live Translate function using the Google Pixel Fold while abroad on a trip to Japan. It was slow, and its connection to Assistant made it far more awkward to use than it needed to be. If that feature can run on-device, it would be a big step up for easy language comprehension.