The 5 biggest announcements from Samsung’s August Unpacked event

Samsung has finished up its Galaxy Unpacked event, where it announced the next generation of its foldables (it called them the new mainstream of smartphones), wearables, and earbuds. Here are the biggest pieces of news from the event.

Image: Samsung

Samsung’s flagship foldable has some new tricks up its sleeve, including support for the S Pen, IPX8 water resistance, and an under-display selfie camera for the main screen. It is powered by a Snapdragon 888 processor, and its cover screen (the screen on the front of the device) now runs at an adaptive 120Hz.

The Z Fold 3 is also getting an experimental setting that will allow any app to be used in the phone’s multi-window mode, even if the developers haven’t designed the app for it. It’ll cost $1,799 and be available on August 27th, with preorders starting today.

Image: Samsung

Samsung also showed off the Z Flip 3, which has the same processor and water resistance as the Z Fold, but comes in at a much lower price, starting at just $1,000. Samsung made the outer screen bigger and more useful than the one on the Z Flip 3’s predecessor and upgraded the main screen to 120Hz instead of 60Hz. Plus, it comes in seven fun colors! The Z Flip 3 will be available in stores on August 27th and can be preordered today.

Image: Samsung

Samsung announced two smartwatches today, the Galaxy Watch 4 (which starts at $249) and the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic (starting at $349). Both watches have a new Exynos processor, but more importantly, they’re running a long-promised new OS — the product of Google and Samsung combining Wear OS and Tizen. The watches also feature a bevy of health-related features, including sleep tracking. And if you were worried that a new OS and redesign would mean losing out on genuinely cool features from previous Galaxy watches, worry not. The Classic features the physical rotating bezel that’s been a staple for years.

Image: Samsung

Samsung has announced the latest in its lineup of true wireless earbuds, and they’re coming in some fun colors. The company also says that the Galaxy Buds 2 are the lightest in its lineup and that they’ll include active noise cancellation. The Buds 2 will be available for preorder today for $149.99. You can read our review here.

Image: WhatsApp

Historically, it’s been difficult to transfer your old WhatsApp conversations when switching devices. During its segment on One UI 3, Samsung announced that now, you’ll be able to take your chat history with you if you’re coming from an iPhone. Details are still a bit sparse, but it seems like the functionality will be coming to phones beyond just the Z Flip and Z Fold 3.

Note-ably absent

Though new Galaxy Notes are usually announced around this time, we had a good idea that Samsung wouldn’t be making a new one this year. Instead, we saw the Note’s S Pen make its way to the Galaxy Fold. The Note hasn’t stood out as it did in years past with Samsung making phones like the S21 Ultra that support the S Pen and rock a screen nearly as large. But it’s still considered Samsung’s most premium phone — at least until now. It sure seems like the Z Fold 3 is the Note’s true successor. But Samsung will have to prove that a foldable, not a Note, deserves its place as the flagship-among-flagships this year.

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