Samsung’s next Galaxy Unpacked is almost here, and in typical Samsung fashion, the company is offering a small glimpse of what we can expect from the festivities next week.
TM Roh, the current head of Samsung’s Mobile division, just shared his pre-Unpacked letter. While it’s mostly marketing hype to get Samsung fans excited about next week’s Unpacked event, there are a few teases that give us a small glimpse of what to expect.
Samsung’s foldables are getting lighter
In one part of the letter discussing Samsung’s design philosophy, Roh says Samsung has “raised the standards for foldable smartphone ergonomics” and that “a difference of millimeter in a device’s thickness may not sound like a big change, but every gram and millimeter in a foldable device requires an engineering breakthrough.”
The juicy bit comes a couple of sentences later, where Roh writes: “That’s why we’ve innovated to make our latest foldables slimmer and lighter than our previous generations.” There have been rumors that the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5 will be slimmer and lighter than their predecessors, and this confirms those rumors. How much slimmer and lighter we can expect this year’s foldables to be remains up in the air, but we have confirmation that upgrades are coming on this front — and that’s great to see.
New tablets and smartwatches
But that’s not all TM Roh shared in his letter. A little further on, the Samsung head writes, “Samsung Galaxy Tab and Wearables are designed in the same spirit. They work with each other harmoniously in an ecosystem that opens up a powerful connected experience, serving as a seamless extension of your needs, priorities and unique personality.”
The specific mentions of Galaxy Tab and wearables strongly suggest we’ll also see announcements in these categories, which again lines up with the rumors we’ve been hearing.
On the tablet side of things, Samsung will likely show off its new Galaxy Tab S9 series — including the Galaxy Tab S9, Galaxy Tab S9 Plus, and Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra. These are expected to be fairly modest upgrades to last year’s Galaxy Tab S8 lineup, but for Android tablet fans, there should be plenty to dig into.
What about wearables? Although Roh doesn’t mention it by name, “wearables” is almost certainly a reference to Samsung’s Galaxy Watch family. We’ve heard lots of rumors that Samsung has two new smartwatches in the works — specifically, the Galaxy Watch 6 and Galaxy Watch 6 Classic.
The regular Galaxy Watch 6 should see a very minor spec bump compared to the Galaxy Watch 5, likely bringing not much more than increased horsepower and (hopefully) better battery efficiency. The Galaxy Watch 6 Classic should be much more interesting, as it’s likely bringing back a physically rotating bezel to navigate the user interface — something that was desperately missing from the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro.
Unpacked is almost here
The letter doesn’t say much else about what we’ll see at Unpacked, but the good news is that we really don’t have too much longer to wait.
Samsung’s Unpacked event officially kicks off at 4 a.m. PT / 7 a.m. ET on Wednesday, July 26.
