There are many leaks and rumours online already about the alleged January launch of the new Samsung Galaxy S24 series of phones, but a new leak has all but confirmed exactly when the new Android devices will be unveiled.
Legendary tech leaker Evan Blass posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, a countdown timer from Samsung that showed the next Galaxy Unpacked event will take place at 3AM Koran time on 18 January. Given previous rumours have all pointed to a US event to launch the Galaxy S24, that lines up with the reported date of 17 January, US time.
Samsung has since forced the leak from Blass to be taken down, but it seems pretty certain at this point that the Galaxy S24, S24 Plus, and S24 Ultra will be launched on 17 January, with Samsung returning to a US-based event after showing off the Z Flip 5 and Z Fold 5 in its native Korea at the last Unpacked in August.
Though you can’t see it now, the countdown timer was joined by text that said “Galaxy AI is coming”, a sure sign that backs up previous whispers that the S24 phones will come with Samsung-backed artificial intelligence features – though we don’t yet know exactly what form these will take.
With this leak adding to the usual barrage of rumours around Samsung launches – and the fact that 17 January isn’t too far off – we expect Samsung to confirm the S24 launch date very soon.
We expect the S24 Ultra to have the top of the line Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset in the UK, but the regular S24 and S24 Plus are widely rumoured to return to using Samsung’s own Exynos chips. This could be a disappointment for Samsung’s UK fans, as Exynos version of the Galaxy S phones have not performed as well as their Snapdragon counterparts in the past, and have also had worse battery life.
The S24 Ultra is shaping up to be quite similar to the S23 Ultra in design, though it is expected to have a flat display rather than curved, and have improvements to the already-excellent camera system. Samsung’s recent Ultra phones have had very versatile quad-lens set ups with up to 100x zoom, and the S23 Ultra had a 200MP main lens for incredibly detailed shots.
Despite this, one persistent rumour is that the S24 Ultra won’t have a 10x optical zoom, only 5x – this is a downgrade on paper, so if true it will be interesting to see how Samsung pitches it.
