Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked Live Blog: Galaxy Ring, Z Flip 6, Z Fold 6 Reveals

Samsung's Unpacked event is just wrapping up in Paris and we're on our way to the experience area where we'll get to play with the products some more in person. I'll be heading straight to see the Z Flip 6, which I think is Samsung's most exciting phone in years.

Throughout the event here in the Louvre, excitement has ebbed and flowed depending on the product Samsung was discussing. The biggest cheers have been for the Galaxy Ring -- except for when the price was announced. The crowd also seemed excited about some of the AI features on the Flip and Fold, which included extra context around a math equation and transforming Sydney Sweeney into an avatar.

To lend some Google weight to Unpacked, Rick Osterloh, senior vice president of platforms and devices at Google, took the stage to reiterate all of the search giant's AI capabilities coming to Galaxy phones now and in the future. While he didn't say much of substance, it's interesting that he's featured at a Samsung event, reinforcing the partnership between the two companies -- and what they'll develop in the coming years.

"It's an exciting new era of mobile computing and we're thrilled to take our partnership with Samsung to the next level," Osterloh said. "Thank you Samsung for having me -- let's unpack that."

All of the products Samsung announced at Wednesday's Unpacked, including the Galaxy Ring, Galaxy Buds 3 line, the new Galaxy Watches, the Z Flip 6 and Z Fold 6, are all going on sale in two weeks' time, July 24.

Samsung and Apple often receive plenty of fanboy comments about "copying" from the other, but Samsung's Galaxy Buds 3 Pros aren't doing the company any favors. The new earbuds have stems, giving them a design that looks just like Apple's latest, albeit in a black finish (that admittedly looks nice). Even the Buds 3 seem to look an awful lot like Apple's latest AirPods, complete with the same open style and pinch controls. 

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I guess?  

Live Translate, which debuted earlier in 2024, gets updates that aim to help you communicate more widely. As Samsung revealed at its Unpacked 2024, the feature will be available in 16 languages by July and 20 by the end of the year. It will gain support on various third-party calling and messaging apps. Samsung also revealed that, in the interest of privacy, its Live Translate interpretation will be done on-device so that your call and message translations are secure. 

While Samsung used Sweeney to highlight the Z Fold 6 -- or really, using AI to create an avatar of the movie star -- and its new Sketch to Image feature, it went a different route to hype the Z Flip 6. It showed off its clamshell phone with a showcase from the K-pop group Tomorrow X Together. Samsung has used artists from its home turf to hype the more compact Z Flip series for years, including a BTS edition of last year's Z Flip 5, so it's clear the company thinks its smaller foldable is fit for a trendier crowd.

Samsung's Galaxy AI can help you make images and transfigure them into different styles -- like cartoon-looking pictures. To help Samsung demonstrate its Photo Assist feature, actor Sydney Sweeney (of Anyone But You, Madame Web, Immaculate and the underappreciated Everything Sucks) joined live. The company transformed a photo of Sweeney into a 3D stylized image. 

Samsung is leaning into the creativity and photo-editing aspect of Galaxy AI. A new feature called Sketch to Image will generate an image based on a rough sketch, just like the name implies. Samsung's demo got some "oohs" and "ahhs" from the crowd when the tech generated an image of Paris landmarks. You can also draw on top of photos to add new elements to images in your library.

I had the chance to try this out in my brief hands-on time with the Galaxy Z Flip and Z Fold. I'm not a great artist, so I stuck with simple shapes, like hearts and balloons. When I drew a heart on a photo of a shells on a beach, for example, Samsung's AI generated what looked like a shell shaped like a heart. 

Back again after a successful outing at last year's Unpacked, Samsung ambassador Sydney Sweeney is in the house once more. The actor is here as a Gen Z representative to sell the younger generation on the benefits of the Samsung Galaxy Flip 6. Samsung used her to demo its portrait studio AI tool by creating an AI-generated avatar of the actor.

"Aw, thank you," said Sweeney.

Whereas the messaging around the Fold focuses on productivity, Samsung's focus for the Flip is creativity. The company is giving Flip phones to Olympic athletes this year, presumably in the hope they'll be recording and posting about their experience of competing at the Games with its phones.

Google's Gemini AI assistant will be present on the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6, and it'll bring its improvements to search. None of the features shown off today are necessarily new -- in fact, most of them were demoed not too long ago at Google's I/O development conference. (Others, like Circle to Search, have been around on Android phones for a bit.)

But Samsung remains one of Google's most important partners. So if both companies want to make AI a thing, spotlighting it at events like Unpacked could help. 

Circle to Search is an Android feature that lets you search from your screen without having to switch apps just by circling something. Samsung demonstrated Circle to Search's capability to translate a restaurant menu into another language. We also saw the example of a parent helping their kids with homework by using this feature to understand what's going on in a mathematical formula.

The big reason to pick the Z Fold 6? Unfolding that tablet-size 7.6-inch display to game. Whether you want room to make big plays in League of Legends Wild Rift or just to admire more of the beautiful scenery in Genshin Impact, there's a lot more screen real estate when gaming on the Z Fold 6. And that means the on-screen buttons won't clog up crucial parts of the game.

Samsung's newest foldables have hit the stage: the book-style Galaxy Z Fold 6 and the clamshell Galaxy Z Flip 6. Both are thinner and lighter than their predecessors, are powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset and have refined folding displays. 

The Galaxy Ring is coming, but it won't be available at launch at all major US wireless providers. Instead, you'll need to head to AT&T, which is the exclusive carrier for the new wearable, at least for now. Verizon says it plans to sell the Ring at some point, but exactly when is TBD. 

AT&T says it will have the Ring available in "about 250 stores."

Samsung announced that the Galaxy Ring will cost $400 (it's actually $399.99, not $399 as in the slide), getting a little bit of a groan from the crowd. My colleague Katie Collins has some thoughts on why that price may make people wince. 

Samsung's Galaxy Watch Ultra -- which we got hands-on with -- features some impressive on-paper specs, including a dual-frequency GPS system that utilizes a pair of satellite signals. It also touts a quoted 100-hour battery life and 10ATM water resistance, so it should keep up with your outdoor adventuring. Like the Apple Watch Ultra 2, the Galaxy Watch Ultra sports a titanium case. The Galaxy Watch Ultra is priced at a whopping $650, which might not be pocket change, but still undercuts Apple's $800 Apple Watch Ultra 2.

Samsung reveals more on the Galaxy Ring to cheers in the Unpacked arena. More cheers for the seven-day battery life and the fact there are no subscription costs. 

Samsung introduced the Ring directly after talking about its AI prowess and its Health tools. The connection is vital -- for Samsung to sell people on the Ring, it needs to sell people on its ability to collect and deliver insights into their health. There's a huge amount of tech packed into this compact device and we can't wait to spend some time with it to see what it's capable of and how it measures up against rivals like the Oura Ring.

As was rumored, Samsung is launching the Galaxy Ring health wearable at Unpacked -- and CNET Principal Video Producer Lexy Savvides already got her hands on it. After seeing it when it was first revealed in January and trying it out at Mobile World Congress in February, Savvides got time with the $400 rival to the Oura Ring and found what it can do (week-long battery life) and what it might not do (fully replace your smartwatch).

Samsung wants to help you get -- or stay -- healthy. Its Samsung Health app offers robust tracking of various metrics including sleep patterns, activity levels, your stress levels and heart rate. Not only that, but it helps you decipher that information and interpret the data. The goal is to have better health data and a better understanding of that information.

That 20 million more Galaxy AI devices coming this year builds on the 200 million Samsung phones that can already use Samsung's AI service, TM Roh said on stage. Galaxy AI launched on the Galaxy S24 series in January, and by Mobile World Congress in February, Samsung said it would come to last year's Galaxy S23 phones as well as the Z Fold 5 and Z Flip 5 foldables.

Samsung's TM Roh announces that Galaxy AI will be available on 20 million new Samsung devices this year, with live translation into 16 different languages. As a picture of the Galaxy Ring pops up behind him, the crowd gasps with excitement. It's clear what everyone is most excited to see from the company today.

Samsung Unpacked kicks off at 3 p.m. local time in Paris, beginning with a video montage of people using various Samsung products. Its presentation opens with Samsung AI -- which the company says will be available on over 200 million devices. We expect AI to be a running theme throughout Unpacked, as it was at Apple's WWDC in June.

Alongside the main Samsung Unpacked event in Paris, Samsung is hosting a watch party in New York. It's standing room only here.

The event is starting with a commercial for the Galaxy Z Flip, and there are lots of Samsung phones in the crowd recording the moment. 

I'm here with CNET's Katie Collins and Jide Akinrinade as we wait for the event to start. The event venue is underground near the Louvre, and we had to walk through a shopping mall to get here. 

Now that we're about 15 minutes away from the event start time, the room is really starting to fill up. 

CNET's editors are in our seats, waiting for the presentation to begin. We're expecting to see new foldable phones and wearables, and how Samsung plans to incorporate Galaxy AI into these devices. The room is starting to fill up with media, analysts and Samsung's partners. Animations playing on screens around the room show the Galaxy AI logo and silhouettes of the Eiffel Tower, a nod to perhaps what we're about to see and the event's special location. 

Reading through the Galaxy Z Fold subreddit, fans are lamenting the current round of rumors, which suggest Samsung isn't radically upgrading the Z Fold 6. While it does seem the Z Fold 6 will have a new body -- one that's thinner and lighter, with smaller bezels on its cover screen over last year's foldable -- it's also rumored to sport the same cameras as the Z Fold 5. This tidbit comes from leaker Ice Universe and the Galaxy Club blog. But the Z Fold 5 had the same camera setup as the Z Fold 4. So if the rumors are true, the Z Fold 6 will have the same camera setup as the Z Fold 4 from two years ago.

Samsung has had wireless charging in its phones for years, but unlike Apple, it has yet to embrace magnets for easier charging. In January 2023, the Wireless Power Consortium introduced the Qi2 standard that brings Apple's MagSafe to other, non-Apple devices. Not only would this enable other devices to tap into that ecosystem of magnetic accessories, but it also would let other devices more efficiently wirelessly charge and refuel at faster 15W speeds. 

It would be understandable that this was introduced too late in the development cycle for last year's Z Fold and Z Flip to support the standard. But that excuse should be gone for the Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6 should they be announced today. (I still wish the S24 line supported it without needing a third-party case.) Here's hoping Samsung brings this feature alongside the other 2024 upgrades it has in store. 

After the new foldables, the biggest question will be whether we'll see the Galaxy Ring formally revealed and detailed. Samsung teased the device in January, only disclosing that it's a health wearable and leaving gadget fans to speculate on how it'll fit into the company's device ecosystem. But we know a few more things thanks to some early looks, hands-ons and interviews with Samsung executives. 

That includes CNET Senior Editor Lisa Eadicicco's chat in January with Hon Pak, vice president and head of the digital health team for the mobile experience business at Samsung Electronics, who said, "...you should look at the ring as one of many steps towards multi-device engagement." Ultimately, the Galaxy Ring will feed health and fitness data into smartphones, accompanying or even replacing smartwatches.

"We've come to realize that people have different needs and preferences -- for some, less is more," Pak later told CNET Senior European Correspondent Katie Collins during her hands-on with the device at Mobile World Congress. She got a better idea of what the device will offer users. "It's fair to say, of all the health possibilities, that the ring will be most effective at measuring your sleep," Collins wrote, noting that the wearable will use four metrics to track the quality of your slumber: heart rate, respiratory rate, nigh movement and sleep latency. It will also track menstrual cycles and contribute to Samsung's upcoming "Vitality score" for alertness.

The Galaxy Z Flip 6 is expected to receive minor hardware changes this year. Its predecessor underwent some dramatic changes, by contrast, including the addition of the largest cover screen Samsung's flip lineup had ever seen. 

We've heard a lot from Samsung about AI this year. The company has already said the "introduction of Galaxy AI on the Galaxy S24 series was only the start." Given all that, it'll be interesting to see how Samsung's suite of new AI features manifests in foldable phones. Perhaps the more salient hardware changes will make their way to the Galaxy Z Fold 6.

An April rumor seemed to suggest that Samsung was testing its upcoming Z Flip phone with last year's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 (which last year's Z Flip 5 runs on). Another rumor found that Samsung was also testing Qualcomm's latest-generation Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. 

The South Korean company has been working to lower the price of its foldable phones, and offering an additional lower cost option could be one way for Samsung to achieve that goal. Motorola has already adopted this strategy, introducing the $1000 Motorola Razr Plus alongside the lower-cost Motorola Razr 2023, which launched at $700. While foldable phones still comprise a small fraction of the overall smartphone market, clamshell-style phones have been the bright spot in the sub-category. Lowering prices further, with the help of an older processor, could make flip phones shine even brighter in terms of sales.

It's always interesting to see which features companies "borrow" from each other when releasing new products and software. While the 2022 Galaxy Buds 2 had traditional earbud shape nestling within your ear, rumor has it the Galaxy Buds 3 could in some ways resemble Apple's AirPods Pro by featuring a similar bulb and angular stem design. They could also come in a rectangular case that opens from the top, with an indicator light on the front, like what you'll find with AirPods 3 and AirPods Pro 2. 

Samsung will surely add its own signature touch – photos suggest the Galaxy Buds 3 will come in dark and metallic colors, as opposed to Apple's signature white, and the case could have a transparent top, making it easier to see if your earbuds are where they need to be.

It's always interesting to see which features companies "borrow" from each other when releasing new products and software. Rumor has it the Galaxy Buds 3 could in some ways resemble Apple's AirPods Pro by featuring a similar bulb and angular stem design. They could also come in a rectangular case that opens from the top, with an indicator light on the front, like what you'll find with AirPods and AirPods Pro. 

Samsung will surely add its own signature touch – photos suggest the Galaxy Buds 3 will come in dark and metallic colors, as opposed to Apple's signature white, and the case could have a transparent top, making it easier to see if your earbuds are where they need to be.

Years ago, Samsung used its midyear Galaxy Unpacked event to launch its Note series of stylus phones. Once that phone line was summarily retired, the company started debuting its new Z Fold and Z Flip foldables at the event, which it held in August. But last year, the company moved Unpacked up to July and held it on its home turf of South Korea; this year, Samsung has pulled out the stops to hold it in Paris, to ride the hype of the Summer Olympics happening soon in the famous city by the Seine.

Holding events in glamorous cities adds some prestige to device launches, but Samsung moving Unpacked up to July makes it stand out in another way: It's one more month ahead of Apple's big iPhone events, which usually happen in September. Given all the AI coming to iOS and the iPhone 16 that Apple revealed at WWDC last month, it makes sense for Samsung to secure the spotlight for its own devices and generative AI in its Galaxy AI software. For now, Samsung still has the edge with its foldables -- though with the iPhone Flip reportedly being in development for years, Apple may close that gap in the future.

Who's ready for another Galaxy Unpacked -- this time in beautiful Paris. Samsung kicked off the year with its flagship Galaxy S24 phones back in January, but this midyear showcase is for its more boundary-pushing devices. We expect to see new versions of its foldables and smart accessories, including smartwatches and -- very possibly -- the debut of the Galaxy Ring health wearable the company teased at the start of the year. It's clear that Samsung is using its July event to push its more intriguing devices.