Samsung Unpacked 2026 will take place in London on July 22 and is expected to showcase the company’s next-generation foldables, redesigned smartwatches, and its first extended-reality glasses — all tightly integrated with Google’s Gemini AI.
An event positioned to counter the competition
The presentation will stream live from London on July 22 and will be available via Samsung.com and the company’s official YouTube channel. Broadcast times listed are: London (BST) 2:00 PM, New Delhi (IST) 6:30 PM, Nairobi (EAT) 4:00 PM, and New York (EDT) 9:00 AM. Samsung frames this Unpacked as a strategic response to pressure from Apple and Chinese manufacturers, shifting emphasis toward contextual software capabilities rather than a pure hardware-specs race.
Three new foldables to cover the premium segment
The centerpiece of the show is expected to be an expansion of the Galaxy Z lineup with three premium models. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 aims to evolve the dual-screen architecture with an improved hinge mechanism to reduce the visible crease, revamped camera sensors, and a thinner chassis. The Galaxy Z Flip 8 — a clamshell design — is believed to gain a larger external display to enable more complex tasks and interactions with AI features without opening the device. Finally, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is presented as a hyper-premium variant targeted at content creators and professional users, offering the largest possible display area and S Pen integration.
Reworked watches: new chipset and on-device health computation
Samsung’s wearables division will highlight two new models: the Galaxy Watch 9 and the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2. Exterior designs are expected to remain similar to previous generations, but the internal architecture has been completely redesigned. Both watches will ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon Wear Elite processor, promising significant gains in energy efficiency and battery life. Samsung also emphasizes local processing of health data: the increased compute should accelerate biometric calculations and improve measurement accuracy.
Android XR Glasses: Gemini at the core of the experience
The most disruptive announcement anticipated is the Android XR Glasses, a direct play against Meta and Apple’s smart headset initiatives. Built in close partnership with Google, these glasses will leverage Gemini to provide real-time contextual awareness: micro-cameras will analyze the scene and allow the AI to overlay relevant information, capture video, and ensure des… (source text truncated)
