(Credit: Samsung)
Samsung today announced that it will hold its first Galaxy Unpacked event of 2024 on Wednesday, Jan. 17, at 10 a.m. PT. This Galaxy Unpacked extravaganza will take place at the SAP Center in San Jose, California, and will be livestreamed on Samsung's YouTube channel.
The company says it will show off "the newest additions to the Galaxy mobile device portfolio." In its teaser video, the company goes a step further and explicitly states that "Galaxy AI is coming," so get ready for some form of on-device, Samsung-developed artificial intelligence. It's most likely camera-related, as the event's additional slogan is "Zoom with Galaxy AI is coming." The secondary teaser videos showcase a person using the pinch-to-zoom gesture to enlarge objects in their photos, which semi-confirms an earlier rumor about the devices' potential feature set.
(Credit: Samsung)To drum up interest ahead of the event, Samsung plans to once again let people in the US receive a $50 credit if they reserve one of the new Galaxy phones on its website or via the Samsung app between Jan. 2-16. No payment is required; just provide your name and email address, and you can redeem the $50 credit once you place an official preorder.
Galaxy S24: What We Expect
For months, rumors have suggested that Samsung will announce the Galaxy S24 in January, and it appears those reports are on point. In recent years, Samsung refreshed the Galaxy S series in February, so it's pushing its next-gen phones a little earlier than usual.
The Galaxy S24 Ultra is expected to have a titanium frame, which will surely draw comparisons to the similarly outfitted Apple iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max.
Internally, we expect the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 system on a chip (SoC) to power the S24, S24 Plus, and S24 Ultra. As we witnessed in the RedMagic 9 Pro, the 8 Gen 3 is ridiculously powerful, and importantly, it powers on-device AI calculations, which is what Samsung could be referring to with its event tagline.
Another report suggests the S24 Plus and Ultra will be available with 12GB of RAM for a boost in performance, while the base S24 will stick to 8GB like the S23 model.
Recently, a leaker by the name of MysteryLupin published what looks like ad copy for retailers that describes the new S24 line. The text says the S24 Plus and Ultra models will be able to take advantage of AI to move or remove items in pictures and fill in empty spaces using Generative Edit. This sounds a lot like features that launched on the Google Pixel 8 line last year.
Other reports suggest the Samsung Phone app will add a live translation feature so two people who don't speak each other's languages can have a conversation.
Ice Universe also reports that the S24 Ultra may be able to record video in 4K at an astounding 120fps, but warns that the feature is in the testing phase and may not be available at launch.
We look forward to seeing which reports hold water and which turn out to be nothing more than fantasy. Stay tuned for PCMag's full coverage of Samsung's Jan. 17 Galaxy Unpacked event.
Until then, check out the Best Android Phones to see where Samsung phones rank in 2024.