Updated January 16
• Galaxy S25 Slim renders have emerged ahead of Unpacked
• A teaser video shows off potential Galaxy AI additions.
• Samsung announced new Galaxy Ring sizes, suggesting an update may not be in the cards for Unpacked.
Get ready to feast your eyes on Samsung's latest phones, as we're less than a week away from the next Galaxy Unpacked event. Samsung has officially scheduled the first Unpacked event of the year for January 22, holding its next big product launch in San Jose, California. And that means we'll have a new batch of Samsung devices to check out in short order.
We don't have to guess about what the main attraction will be next week. Samsung's invitation specifically refers to the next generation of Galaxy S phones — that would be the Galaxy S25 lineup. While we've heard plenty of rumors about what's coming to these handsets, Samsung has indicated that AI features will be a major focus of its January 22 event. The invitation even features the Galaxy AI icon formed by what looks like different S25 models, for crying out loud.
But it's not just new phones that are likely to appear at Unpacked in a little more than a week. Samsung has also indicated a new headset is coming this year based on the Android XR platform. So a January 22 Galaxy Unpacked event would be an ideal time to tell us more about this device.
Beyond that, things are a little more up in the air about Galaxy Unpacked 2025, though there are plenty of other potential candidates for products that could make an appearance next Wednesday. Here's a closer look at what's potentially cooking for Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2025, including details about the event's time and streaming information.
When will Galaxy Unpacked 2025 take place?
According to Samsung, Galaxy Unpacked takes place on January 22 at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT / 6 p.m. GMT. The event returns to San Jose, California, where last year's Galaxy Unpacked event took place in mid-January.
Samsung says it will stream the event live on its website. You'll also be able to find a live stream on the Samsung YouTube channel.
The January 22 date squares with reports on when Galaxy Unpacked would take place, right down to the time and location. Now, the only question will be how quickly Samsung releases the products announced at Galaxy Unpacked.
In the case of the Galaxy S25 phones, the new models could go on sale February 7, according to one rumor. That would be a little bit more than two weeks after Galaxy Unpacked, which is consistent with pre-order periods for previous Samsung phones.
You don't have to wait until then to stake you claim on whatever new device Samsung announces. The company already has a deal in place where you can register to pre-order the new devices, and Samsung will give you a $50 credit toward anything announced on January 22. There's also a $300 instant credit when you register and pre-order plus up to $900 in credits from trading in your current device.
What will Samsung announce at Galaxy Unpacked 2025?
Flagship phones usually lead the parade of announcements at the first Unpacked event of the year, and 2025 doesn't figure to be any different.
Samsung Galaxy S25
Samsung is all but certain to announce the Galaxy S25 family at Unpacked, having already confirmed that new phones will arrive in early 2025. Its Unpacked invitation even refers to the next generation of Galaxy S phones.
We're expecting Samsung to offer the same models that usually make up its flagship lineup — a standard phone joined by the Galaxy S25 Plus and the premium Galaxy S25 Ultra.
Samsung has confirmed that it's going to use the Snapdragon 8 Elite, with leakers suggesting the new Qualcomm chipset will power every model. That's a departure from this past year when Samsung used a mixture of Exynos and Qualcomm silicon in the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus. (The Galaxy S24 Ultra featured the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 exclusively.) It's also a big deal because we've benchmarked the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset in a Qualcomm-supplied reference device, and it really blew the doors off of our speed and graphics testing.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite is also a more power-efficient chip, which could mean big battery life gains for the S25 phones. New power-efficient RAM could also be added (after Samsung had to ditch the original less-efficient RAM it wanted to use), hopefully meaning longer battery life as well as bigger benchmark numbers, better-looking games and faster processing speeds.
One new addition seems nailed on for the Galaxy S25 phones — Qi2 wireless charging support. Samsung appears in a Wireless Power Consortium press release, pledging to support the improved wireless charging technology. "You can expect to see Android devices supporting Qi2 from Samsung Galaxy devices in 2025," Samsung says in the statement.
On the camera front, the Galaxy S25 Ultra could see an upgraded ultrawide sensor and an improved telephoto lenses that promise smoother zooming. Camera changes on the Galaxy S25 and S25 Plus could be more modest, although renders suggest there could be a slightly modified design to the blocks housing them.
We'd expect the focus at Galaxy Unpacked to once again fall on AI capabilities. Samsung rolled out Galaxy AI features at the January 2024 Unpacked, and they've played a big role in setting apart Samsung's flagship phones from other handsets. We'll likely hear about new Galaxy AI capabilities at Unpacked 2025, though, as rumors tip the Bixby assistant on board Samsung's phones to gain a lot of AI-powered awareness. A new Samsung teaser video demonstrates what that might look like, with Bixby fielding a complex request to look for particular restaurants, send the info to a contact and book an appointment in the calendar app.
At any rate, you can get a good look at what the Galaxy S25 models might look like now that official-looking renders have emerged from a usually reliable source for Samsung leaks.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim
Samsung's rumored to be working on another member of the Galaxy S25 family — an ultra-thin version dubbed the Galaxy S25 Slim. So far, the distinguishing feature on this rumored device is that it would be dramatically thinner than other Samsung flagships. With the S24 measuring 7.6mm thin, we'd assume Samsung would try and make this new phone closer to the Galaxy Z Fold 6 in terms of size. That foldable phone is 5.6mm thin when unfolded.
Another Galaxy S25 Slim rumor tips the new phone to adopt a 200MP main camera, matching the Galaxy S24 Ultra's marquee hardware spec. That could suggest a phone that's closer in price to the $1,299 Ultra than the $799 standard model. Other details, like what chipset Samsung would use, are less clear at this stage.
A Korean paper that accurately forecast the January 22 date for Galaxy Unpacked 2025 also claimed in that same article that the Galaxy S25 Slim would appear alongside the rest of the S25 phones. That runs counter to other Galaxy S25 Slim rumors that claim the phone will debut later in the spring or early summer at a separate event.
Whether the Galaxy S25 Slim shows up at Unpacked or not, renders of the ultra-thin S25 model have started to appear just ahead of Samsung's event.
Galaxy Z Flip FE
Rumors of cheaper Samsung foldables have swirled around for a while now. At one point last year, we had heard talk of a Galaxy Z Fold 6 FE that was supposed to debut alongside Samsung's regular foldable and then later on in either 2024 or at the 2025 Unpacked event.
Talk of a cheaper version of the Galaxy Z Fold has died down, but rumors of another lower-cost foldable have risen to take its place. Samsung could have a Galaxy Z Flip FE in the works with an ideal of offering a cheaper version of its $1,099 foldable flip phone.
There are few concrete details about the Galaxy Z Flip FE, other than the assertion that it's going to show up at some point in 2025. Like the Galaxy S25 Slim, though, most of the rumors suggest a launch date later in the year and not at the Unpacked event in January. Still, it's a potential new model that's on our radar.
One UI 7
Let's talk about something that's certain to be at Unpacked 2025, if only because it's already been linked to the Galaxy S25 launch. Samsung's long-awaited One UI 7 interface based on Android 15 is expected to launch with Samsung's new phones, so the software could get some face time at Unpacked, particularly if there are new features to highlight.
In December. Samsung released a One UI 7 beta that Galaxy S24 owners can access. Features in the beta include new writing assist tools that build on the ones included with the Galaxy AI launch last January, support for call transcripts in multiple languages and upgrades to security. The lock screen sports a new look, highlighted by the Now bar that has live updates similar to Apple's Dynamic Island feature. Some leaked Galaxy S25 Ultra renders show a glimpse of the Now bar on the phone's screen.
Galaxy Ring 2
The original Galaxy Ring just started shipping in July so it's probably too soon for a sequel, even if rumors have the Galaxy Ring 2 arriving early than originally thought, which we take to mean ahead of July 2025 and the one-year anniversary of the first smart ring's release. So far, Galaxy Ring 2 rumors have promised a thinner model with longer battery life and unspecified new capabilities.
Samsung previewed the first Galaxy Ring at Unpacked 2024, so it's possible that the company could make time for an update, especially in the context of any new health tracking features it wishes to show off. However, just ahead of the January 22 Galaxy Unpacked date, Samsung announced new Galaxy Ring sizes, plus new features such as a sleep environment report, sleep time guidance and mindfulness tracker. While the announcement doesn't necessarily preclude Samsung from revealing more about a new Galaxy Ring during Unpacked, logic dictates that the company made this announcement separately so that it could focus on other products.
Mixed reality devices
Back at Unpacked 2023, executives from Qualcomm and Google appeared on stage to announce a partnership with Samsung on a mixed reality platform that would presumably result in new hardware like a headset. By the Unpacked event this summer, Google and Samsung were promising a 2024 debut for the platform, with reports immediately focusing on a mixed-reality headset built by Samsung and powered by Qualcomm's chips., though as you'd guess, that headset got pushed back to a 2025 release,
Well, 2025 is here, and Samsung's headset plans have come into focus after Google announced the Android XR platform that will support new headsets and glasses, like the planned Samsung offering. Samsung has confirmed that its headset, code-named Project Moohan, will be the first to run on Android XR and that it's coming out in 2025. That timing suggests at least a preview at Galaxy Unpacked.
All we know abut Project Moohan — other than Moohan means "infinity" in Korean — is an image shared by the device maker. Qualcomm has confirmed that the device will feature a Snapdragon XR Plus Gen 2 chipset. In a statement about the Project Moohan headset, Samsung said it would feature "state-of-the-art displays, passthrough capabilities and natural multi-modal input." Hopefully, Galaxy Unpacked will bring more concrete details about this potential Apple Vision Pro rival.
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