Galaxy Unpacked 2024 Announcements

Samsung introduced new smartphones and wearables at Galaxy Unpacked 2024.

Samsung also teased its new XR platform, which will launch later this year.

Samsung hosted the Galaxy Unpacked event in Paris on July 10, 2024. The event marked the launch of several new devices and features, expanding the company’s artificial intelligence offerings.

Aside from new smartphone launches, the mid-year event focused primarily on two major features, including health tracking and the integration of artificial intelligence, which continued the trend from January’s Unpacked event.

Galaxy Unpacked 2024 included two new smartphone additions—the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6—integrated with generative AI tools.

See More: Top Tech Conferences in July 2024

Top Takeaways

1. Health Tracking and Wearables

Samsung launched three new AI-powered activity tracker wearable devices: the Galaxy Ring, Galaxy Watch Ultra, and Galaxy Watch 7. The Galaxy Ring, made from light titanium, features Samsung’s sensor technology in its most miniaturized form. It is designed for 24/7 health and sleep monitoring and has a seven-day battery life on a single charge. Users do not need to subscribe to a service to use the device; access to the Samsung Health App is free. It will be available starting at $399.

The Galaxy Watch 7 provides an overall health-tracking solution with more than 100 workouts and build routines, AI-powered sleep analysis, the first-ever FDA-authorized sleep apnea monitoring feature, and heart rate monitoring. The device also introduces advanced glycation end products (AGEs) from the AGEs Index feature, which helps to gauge metabolic health and biological aging.

The watch is also powered by Wear OS 5, which allows for more seamless performance and access to popular apps directly from the device. Other key features include a dual-frequency GPS for accurate tracking and, for the first time, a 3nm processor, which provides a 30% improvement in power efficiency. It will be available to users at $299.

The Galaxy Ultra is Samsung’s flagship smartwatch, specially designed for adventurous and active users. In addition to the features offered by the Galaxy Watch 7, the Galaxy Ultra also offers users up to 100 hours of operation in its power-saving mode. The device also enables Functional Threshold Power (FTP), a feature that allows cyclists to measure their performance metrics customized for each user with a four-minute session. The Galaxy Ultra will be available at $649. The Galaxy Ring, the Galaxy Watch 7, and the Galaxy Ultra are set to be released by the end of July 2024.

Samsung also unveiled a new feature in its Samsung Health App, Energy Score. Galaxy AI powers this feature and uses health metrics from the device, including activity, sleep, heart rate, and sleeping heart rate variability, to provide insights about how each affects daily life. Users can also receive personalized messages to improve their overall health.

2. New Smartphones

The event showcased two new smartphone offerings from the company: the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6. Samsung’s larger foldable phone offering is thinner and lighter than any of its previous iterations. It comes with a hefty price tag of $1899. While the phone does not boast any significant hardware changes, according to Samsung, it uses recycled materials and is integrated with Google’s Gemini AI tool.

Some of the primary highlights include ultra-thin glass made with Samsung’s proprietary Shear Thickening Fluid (STF) and reduced bezels. The Gemini Tool can utilize the large screen for a more effective overlay, improving productivity. The phone boasts an NPU, GPU, and CPU improvement of 42%, 19%, and 18%, respectively. As a result, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 offers superior performance in terms of internal AI processes, image and graphics rendering, and overall computing power by notable margins.

The event also showcased AI-powered features that allow for the easy creation of artwork. The Sketch to Image feature enables the creation of detailed artwork with a simple S Pen sketch. AI can also manipulate art and real photographs with simple instructions.

The Galaxy Z Flip 6 boasts a 50-megapixel camera and AI tools for creativity powered by the ProVisual Engine. These tools enable AI-powered object and light detection, sharpening of details, and AI-based zoom. Notably, the flex cam leverages the phone’s foldability to capture hands-free videos and group selfies without a tripod by propping up the phone at the desired location and simply using its auto zoom feature. The phone also provides an Instant Slo-mo feature, which uses additional frames to create slow-motion effects.

The phone costs $1099 and comes with Samsung’s Vapor Chamber, which allows for superior heat dissipation. It also has a host of AI features, including real-time text and voice translation and live wallpapers with time and weather adjustment features. Both phones will be available with seven generations of OS updates and seven years of security updates. Both phones will officially be available by the end of the month.

3. Artificial Intelligence

Galaxy Unpacked reiterated its push towards Galaxy AI features, including Circle to Search, ProVisual Engine, Chat Assist, Interpreter, Live Translate, and Note Assist.

The Circle to Search feature allows users to perform Google search operations within apps by long pressing the home screen button and then circling, highlighting, scribbling, or tapping the element of interest. The ProVisual engine is an AI-powered suite that is used to capture and manipulate images.

Chat Assist spells out the tonality while engaging in text conversations. Interpreter is a feature for instant translations of conversations delivered live on a split-screen view. Live Translate allows for real-time call translations in 16 languages, which will be expanded to 20 by the end of 2024. The Note Assist feature automatically aligns and spaces S Pen handwriting made with an S Pen, ensuring a neat presentation.

4. Other Surprises

Samsung launched new wireless earbuds, the Galaxy Buds 3 and Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, which cost $179 and $249, respectively. They will also be available to users by the end of July. These devices allow ear shape customization to minimize sound leakage, a machine learning algorithm-powered noise reduction engine for adaptive noise control, active noise cancellation, two-way speakers, and a safety feature that allows sounds such as emergency sirens to override active noise cancellation.

The devices also offer a choice of on-device or cloud-based AI offerings to meet evolving privacy and security standards. The event also teased the release of Samsung’s XR platform, a collaboration between Samsung, Qualcomm, and Google, by the end of 2024.