Samsung held Unpacked to unveil a major smartphone announcement. Say hello to the new Galaxy S24, Galaxy S24+, and Galaxy S24 Ultra.
But Samsung also had a few other other highlights up it's sleeve. The company announced Galaxy AI, a set of AI-powered tools designed to work alongside the trio of next-generation phones. Samsung also revealed an entirely new product altogether.
Here's everything you need to know about Samsung Unpacked.
Galaxy AI
Samsung Unpacked's real headliner wasn't the new Galaxy S phones, which we will get to shortly. It was Galaxy AI.
Galaxy AI brings a slew of AI-powered features to all three of Samsung's new phones and select other Android devices as well.
The first feature Samsung unveiled is real-time voice translations while on a call. Users can see text translations on-screen as well hear an AI voiceover translate the call verbally. AI translations also come to text messages as well, as texts automatically translate when a user both sends and receives them.
Unpacked also showed off some Samsung Notes features, like the ability to clean up messy handwriting in order to make note-taking neater and more readable. In addition, the Note Assist feature can autoformat quickly typed notes into well-written summaries and easy-to-read bullet points.
Samsung also showed off its new AI photo and video features like AI-powered HDR, nightography, and video stabilization. The company boasted how it worked with Instagram to bring the first HDR-enabled photos to the platform.
However, the most unique AI feature here has to be the AI generations within the image editor. For example, these photo editing features can fill-in out-of-frame visuals and movie objects within the picture using AI. When utilizing these features, Samsung will add a watermark to the photo and label in the metadata that the visual contains AI-generated content.
Samsung also rolled out a partnered video with YouTube giant MrBeast to show off the ultra zoom on its new Samsung Galaxy S24 camera and how easily the AI can edit photos. MrBeast also showed off Samsung's Quickshare feature, which can speedily send full-resolution images and other files across all Android devices and PCs.
Google and Circle to Search
Along with its own AI, Samsung has partnered with Google to bring the search giant's own AI models to Samsung smartphones and other Android devices.
The biggest announcement from Google at the Samsung event was the new Circle to Search feature.
Coming to the Samsung Galaxy S24 lineup, as well as some other Android devices, users will be able to perform searches by simply circling, highlighting, scribbling, or tapping an object on their screen. Users can search this way using text, photos, or even videos displayed on their device. For example, if their favorite creator is wearing a shirt they'd like to buy, the user can simply hold the Home button and circle the shirt. A Google search will then automatically be performed and link the user to result pertaining to the shirt and where they can buy it.
Samsung also announced that many of its announced AI features like translations will have seamless integration with Google's phone-to-car service, Android Auto.
Galaxy S24 Ultra
The main event of Samsung's smartphone lineup is the Galaxy S24 Ultra. The Ultra is the most powerful model of Samsung's Galaxy phones and the latest version is no different.
The Galaxy S24 Ultra is powered by Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile chipset. Some benchmark tests have found the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 to be faster than Apple's own speedy M1 chipset, so it'll be interesting to see just how the Galaxy S24 Ultra performs.
The Galaxy S24 Ultra is 6.8 inches in size, like its predecessor, with a QHD display. The Android-device also comes with four rear-facing cameras: a 12MP ultra-wide camera, a 200MP wide camera, a 50MP telephoto camera with 5x optical zoom, and a 10MP telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom. Counting the 12MP front camera, the Galaxy S24 Ultra has a total of 5 cameras for users to choose from.
The Galaxy S24 Ultra will be available with 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB storage. Samsung appears to have tossed the 8GB of memory version of the Ultra and all the devices come with a whopping 12GB of memory.
The Galaxy S24 Ultra will start at $1299.
Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+
The more affordable models of Samsung's Galaxy S smartphones have received an upgrade, too.
And much like their more premium sibling, both the Galaxy S24 and S24+ will be powered by the latest Qualcomm mobile chipset, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.
The Galaxy S24 is much tinier than the Ultra, coming in at 6.2 inches with a FHD display. The Galaxy S24+ is only a bit smaller than the Ultra, 6.7 inches, and has the same QHD+ display.
Both smartphones have three rear cameras: a 12MP ultra-wide camera, a 50MP wide camera, and a 10MP telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom, as well as the 12MP front-facing camera.
The Galaxy S24 only comes with 8GB of memory, regardless if you opt for the 128GB or 256GB storage versions. The Galaxy S24+ start with the 256GB model and offers a 512GB storage version as well. However, the Galaxy S24+ offers 12GB of memory in both versions. So, it seems like if you're not missing the extra camera and the higher quality photos of the Ultra, the Galaxy S24+ may provide the best bang for your buck.
The Galaxy S24 base model starts at $799 and the Galaxy S24+ starts at $999.
Samsung Galaxy Ring
The event was closing with an overview of some new Samsung Health features, such as sleep analysis, when a surprise was introduced on the screen:
A new wearable device called the Galaxy Ring.
The video was pretty much a teaser of what the device looked like, without any real details regarding its capabilities. But Samsung seemingly has big plans for the Galaxy Ring.
