Samsung

It took Samsung four and a half months from announcing the Galaxy A56 to quietly adding it to its US store, though other countries have had the phone since March.

Today Korea’s Supreme Court cleared Lee Jae-yong of stock manipulation charges related to a merger which helped him take control of the company founded by his grandfather. He was acquitted by a lower court last February, which prosecutors appealed, but the country’s top court sided with the Samsung man.

If you missed anything from Samsung’s big event earlier this week, we’ve got the highlights for you to watch right here, along with our first impressions of the new Fold / Flip and Galaxy Watch 8 series.

If you thought Samsung’s more affordable flip phone felt like an afterthought during yesterday’s Unpacked, apparently so did every major US carrier. SamMobile points out that none of Verizon, T-Mobile, or AT&T lists the FE, and even Samsung’s own site only offers the phone unlocked.

Doesn’t look like we’ll get a trifold tease as a “one more thing” thing here. Guess there’s always January...

Sigh. Oh well. That’s a wrap. I guess BTS is just out of the military, and Stray Kids already finished their North American tour. Sob. Well, at least we had the K-Pop Demon Hunters soundtrack blasting earlier.

The crowd has been relatively quiet thus far, but Gemini on the wrist got some claps, woos, and enthusiasm from the crowd. Gemini isn’t just coming to the Galaxy Watch 8 series though; It’s rolling out to compatible Wear OS watches — the Galaxy Watch 8 series is just the first to get it out of the box, without relying on a software update.

Samsung is highlighting the acquisition of Xealth to enable connected healthcare so that physicians can see your wearable metric data. This is essentially telehealth, and signaling where Samsung’s head is at for its overall wearable and health tech strategy. To quote Xealth’s CEO just now: A “bridge between wellness and healthcare that allows digital health to scale.”

We just got a big video about the Running Coach feature on the Galaxy Watch 8 series. “If you’re a runner, this definitely made you want to run.” As a runner, I plead the fifth. But we do have Jacob Kiplimo, the half-marathon world record holder onstage now sporting a Galaxy Watch. Blink, Jacob, if you need our help.

There’s one more flip phone this year and this “Fan Edition” didn’t exactly get a big spot in the presentation. It’s $899, which sure, that’s a few hundred bucks cheaper than the Z Flip 7. But its... not that cheap? I dunno. It exists.

You can read everything that’s up in my hands-on, but here in the Unpacked warehouse, we were just treated to a light show and a 50-foot SQUIRCLE view of the Galaxy Watch 8 and 8 Classic. “These aren’t just pretty faces,” Samsung says. They’re calling it a “cushion system” but I’m telling you this is a SQUIRCLE.

The bigger front screen on the Galaxy Z Flip 7 makes space for my favorite new lock screen feature: a clock the gets dynamically shorter and longer depending on your wallpaper photo. It’s on iOS 26 too, so I guess Long Clock is officially a trend.

They should’ve just done a livefeed of Allison liveblogging. Do I want a $2,000 foldy phone now? I think I do? Am I losing it? I can’t get over it.

That’s the starting price for the Z Fold 7, which goes up for pre-order starting now. Better hope those trade in deals are strong!

Samsung has been highlighting creators and their work throughout this keynote. We just saw one video from a creator highlighting the new blue color of the Z Fold 7. (It’s very blue and fetching.) There was even an influencer sign at check-in, and they have their own prime seating inside Duggal Greenhouse while several tech journalists were scrambling to find a single seat. It’s a new era, man.

We are two years into the era of AI on phones and I’m just going to say it: I don’t need any more explanations about how AI can generate useful summaries of text for you. I get it! Let’s just take this for granted and not trot it out at every product launch, please? Anyway, the new foldables have lots of AI. Again.

She has Slack pulled up, she’s taking photos, she has the CMS on one screen. This is the future of mobile blogging. Meanwhile, I have two phones and a laptop too and I’m struggs to func.

Android and Pixel boss Rick Osterloh is here to talk about Gemini on Samsung phones. He’s plugging Circle to Search getting access to AI mode, plus Gemini Live on the Z series. Samsung and Google are good friends, Google and Samsung would like us to remember.

The newest Fold is the thinnest Samsung foldable ever, and Samsung calls it an “ultra” experience... without actually calling it an Ultra phone. Weird! But it really is super thin!

Unpacked is underway, but just before “Golden” from K-Pop Demon Hunters was blasting in this industrial warehouse. I’m bopping along to it while Allison is blogging from the Z Fold 6. That’s dedication. The wifi is struggling, though, because, well, it’s a metal warehouse.

TM Roh is getting us started with some lofty talk about how technology improves lives. Also, we have our first mention of AI phones, so take a drink. I would but we’re not allowed even water in here.

Samsung’s summer foldable extravaganza starts soon and we are here in Brooklyn ready for the big unveil. We’re expecting to check out foldables, wearables, maybe even a trifold if we’re lucky. Stay tuned!

Samsung Electronics keeps promising a turnaround but it’s once again projecting a dismal quarter, with weak AI chip sales to blame for a projected 56 percent plunge in operating profit. At 4.6 trillion won for the April-June period, it would be its weakest result in six quarters.

Some images that reportedly show the new Galaxy Watch 8 (40mm/44mm dial size), Watch 8 Classic (46mm), and Watch Ultra (47mm) have leaked ahead of the Samsung Unpacked event on Wednesday, where they’re expected to be officially unveiled. The round body of the Watch and Watch Classic has notably been updated to the round watch face and squircle body design used by the Ultra, alongside other changes and specification upgrades.