The week is expected to be packed with news from Samsung as the South Korean company is set to host Galaxy Unpacked on January 22 in San Jose. All roads point to the “Next Big Thing”, which is something Samsung has lived up to for well over a decade. What’s coming our way? Plenty, if rumours are taken into consideration.
Galaxy S25 series?
Typically, Samsung announces its Galaxy S series during its first event of the year. If September is about the new iPhone series from Apple, January-February is reserved for Samsung’s Galaxy S phones.
Given past indicators, there will be the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S25 series and it appears that there will be three phones — standard, Plus and Ultra.
The new phones are expected to have a subtle redesign with rounded corners, flatter edges and thinner bezels, given the leaked images on Reddit from tipster Ice Universe.
What, nothing new from Hubert H. Lee, a former Mercedes-Benz designer who now leads the MX Design team? Drastic changes take time and probably next year we will see some major changes.
A recent article in Android Headlines claimed the screen size for the Galaxy S25 and S25+ would remain unchanged from last year at 6.2 and 6.7 inches, respectively. The Ultra gets an ever-so-slightly bigger display at 6.9 inches.
What most people are interested in is the processor that would power the new phones. It’s difficult to guess because there have been times when the US received Snapdragon chips while India was given Exynos. We hope to see Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, which the chipmaker revealed in October. It’s a chip that can handle on-device generative AI very well and that aligns with Samsung’s Galaxy AI marketing strategy. Ice Universe has claimed it will be all Snapdragon this generation. We hope that’s true because Snapdragon also translates into better battery life.
The company is also expected to offer top-of-the-line OLED displays that match the quality of the iPhone 16 Pro. Samsung displays are anyway among the best, so why change something that works well? Further, improvements in display will not help with better generative AI. Samsung may add the Qi2 wireless charging standard to its new flagships.
AI department
Last year, Samsung Electronics introduced Galaxy AI, starting a new era of mobile experiences. This groundbreaking technology helped the Galaxy S Ultra series evolve into an even more indispensable tool for maximising creative freedom. This year, we expect to see a lot more AI features.
We already have Sketch to Image, now integrated into Drawing Assist. Utilising more than a single input, like drawing with the S Pen or one’s finger, to a multimodal experience. Now, users can breathe life into their ideas by sketching them, describing the image they want with text or using voice commands to tell their Galaxy smartphone what to draw.
Overall, expect more creative freedom which is the foundation of Samsung devices, and we have been seeing that since 2011 when Galaxy Note arrived. That power and spirit of innovation lives on through the Galaxy S Ultra series, and it continues to evolve with Galaxy AI.
With One UI 7, Samsung’s integrated AI platform, Galaxy smartphones can become AI companions that understand natural language through text, speech and images.
Camera magic
The ultra-wide sensor should see an upgrade in the Galaxy S25 Ultra — to 50MP from 12MP in last year’s model. Rumours have it that the S25 Ultra will stick with a 200MP main sensor, 10MP 3x zoom and 50MP 5x zoom.
XR, AR and more
There is a chance that Samsung may tease Galaxy Ring 2 and augmented reality (AR) glasses during the event. But we doubt if Samsung would add any major hardware features. However, there is a chance that AI features and more accurate measurements would come to the wearable device.
What we want to see is Samsung’s AR glasses… at least a glimpse. It will look like regular prescription glasses and weigh around 50g. And it would use Google’s Gemini AI, which aligns with what we already know about Samsung’s partnership with Google and Qualcomm on Android XR. Also, it’s official that Samsung is co-developing an Android XR (extended reality) headset with Google and Qualcomm. So, this is nothing new. But can it compete with Apple’s $3,500 Vision Pro?
When and where?
The year’s first Samsung Unpacked event is set for January 22 at 10 am PT and you can watch it on YouTube and on Samsung’s website.