Samsung Electronics has unveiled the sixth iteration of its folding smartphones alongside a new high-end smartwatch aimed at taking on the best watches from Apple and Garmin.
The company used a stage in Paris, France to unveil the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6, Galaxy Z Flip6 and a series of new smartwatches.
Once again pushing the software’s artificial intelligence features – as the company did when it launched the Galaxy S24 series earlier this year – the Z Fold6 and Z Flip6 offer iterative hardware updates to last year’s folding models, with slightly better cameras and processors.
The Flip6, for example, now has the same 50-megapixel camera found in the S24 series (up from 12MP in the Flip5). It also features auto-zoom and auto-framing features.
The Galaxy Watch Ultra is likely to garner a lot of attention. Samsung said the device offers “extreme durability” and it is clearly squarely aimed at fitness enthusiasts. That’ll put it on a collision course with Apple’s Watch Ultra 2 and Garmin’s high-end Fenix 7 and Epix Gen 2 sports watches.
The new Galaxy Watch7 series, also announced on Wednesday, can now check for sleep apnoea and can even check a user’s biological age.
Also announced at the event were new earbuds, the Buds3, which have an overhauled design. There is a Pro model, too. Active noise cancellation is now adaptive, adjusting based on ambient sounds for the best listening experience. Call quality is improved, and so is battery life, according to Samsung.
Galaxy Ring
All these new products will be launched in South Africa in the coming weeks, with pre-orders starting on 24 July.
Unfortunately, Samsung has confirmed that it has “no immediate plans” to launch the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Ring health ring in South Africa. It will only be launched in four markets initially as it needs to go through a range of regulatory approvals before it can be made more widely available.
“We should get it to 12 markets by the end of the year and will consider 2025 for a South African launch,” Justin Hume, vice president of Samsung Mobile in South Africa, told TechCentral ahead of Wednesday’s launch event.
Hume said the folding phone category – which Samsung pioneered – is “progressing well”, though he admitted that the Galaxy S series remains the company’s smartphone flagship.
“What we have seen — and it’s very pleasing for us — is the folding phone base has the highest retention rate. There is an average replacement cycle of just over 18 months, which is phenomenal. S-series device upgrade time is typically 28-29 months,” he said.
“We are not looking to supplant the S series [with the Z series],” he added. However, the growth in sales of the Z series is more than double that of the S series, but from a much smaller base.
Below is the South African pricing for the new Samsung devices:
- Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra: $1.103 (indicative)
- Samsung Galaxy Watch7: $386 (40mm) and $414 (44mm)
- Samsung Galaxy Buds3: $2.399 and $220.6 (Pro)
- Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6: $2.399 (256GB) and $2.538 (512GB)
- Samsung Galaxy Z Flip6: $1.434
The company said it will offer trade-ins for the new smartphones up to a value of $828.
