Samsung Unpacked July 2026: An Unbridled "Meh"?

Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked event for the middle of the year came and went and I found it lacking again. This is the Andres Segovia Show. Hey everyone it's Andres and I'm coming at you my reaction to some of the major products that were announced at the Samsung Galaxy event. Normally this is the event that I'm most interested in not the one at the beginning of the year. The beginning of the year kind of gives you an idea of the direction that Samsung would go but I haven't been excited for a flagship product from Samsung since the S24 Ultra days because that's the one that I ended up getting and never look back because that to me is the toughest phone I ever used and everything that was introduced there and because the promises of long life OS upgrades is why I still have it instead of trading it in for a lesser device in yours truly's opinion. But normally the ones that have the most expensive products are the summer unpacked events because of the foldables and Samsung announced a new device this year in the form of the Fold 8. Wait a minute isn't that what the other series is called? This one? The Fold 7? Oh yes that's because now the this type of form factor is called the Fold 8 Ultra and yeah I have a lot of choice words for that so before I pull up my reaction so I'm gonna be telling you about my thoughts on the Fold 8 Ultra the Fold 8 and all the Watch Ultra 2 I gotta just very quickly make mention that some of your favorite tech tubers have had these devices for a week and they had to stay mum about it because the embargo for their videos wasn't lifted until the event started okay and then they dropped their videos. I noticed several of them a lot of them that I respect some of them that I'm in touch with were very carefully crafting their words to not be too hard on Samsung for basically a disappointing showing on their devices because they didn't want to lose access to what they've enjoyed being able to have this device days or even a week ahead of time to be able to tell you about it. Now some of them were dropping videos because of the London event because that was more public and they were able to cover that but others literally had these products for about a week and some of them said as much so if they're not harsh enough on Samsung as they know they should it's disappointing because then how can you trust them to really be honest about this product that Samsung is constantly encouraging you to take advantage of pre-orders trade in your existing device for you know this major trade-in value and in the time in the past several years we see some of those trade-in values drop yet the phones get more expensive and the raw materials are getting from this which they're reusing another device and they sometimes probably say this made from recycled materials they're saving on raw materials but they're still passing on the cost of the consumer so they're not paying you what the phone should be worth and then they're sticking you with a higher bill and the phone isn't that much greater than the previous generation except when they actually do beyond just refining they actually make a sizable difference such as what can we compare the Samsung Wide Fold to in the case of other Samsung products we can't it's to them it's a new form factor but the pricing though ouch so I will get to that but it's just that I'm just disappointed with some tech tubers that if they were not saying at the very end that it's not worth buying the Fold 8 Ultra because it really isn't much there to justify spending even more money for a device if you already have the Fold 7 I wouldn't listen to them anymore so let's quickly take a look at this Fold 8 Ultra I don't like the naming scheme it is the Fold 8 so yeah you could keep it but now they slapped ultra on it I don't know what makes it ultra when they stripped things away that the that the Fold 6 could do that this one can't but they're making it slimmer I did they put the anti reflective film on this one the nudge I don't really use that some people still have issues with that I so do I I know this one has the newer chip I think has a bigger battery it does I think they're using carbon silicone this time and this part's true about durability I am very impressed with how this Fold 7 despite being armor aluminum not titanium like my 24 ultra has held up so well and by the way did you guys notice I'm wearing that carbon fiber case yes this is that ripoff of a case that you charge $100 for I didn't pay that I bought an open-box one for like $60 and then I put this it didn't have like MagSafe so I bought an aftermarket magnet and I had to measure it where it was but it's worked out really great but I gotta tell you this carbon fiber case even though just covers one part of the phone for a hundred freaking dollars it's done a phenomenal job my phone looks fantastic despite the hard falls this thing has taken over concrete asphalt and a bunch of other stuff but hey it's it's held up really well so yes kudos to Samsung for making a very durable device unlike my pixel fold first generation that I had and my first surface dual before I got it replaced by warranty at the time for Microsoft so violet shadow this is supposed to be their hero color I think this one does green shadow yeah it's exclusive to Samsung so some of these are like it's only samsung.com or some carrier exclusive so something to know about these colors are muted graphite and then I think this one's just white or cream as they call it that's why I'm glad that they did silver for the fold 7 of my favorite color now this is what they're trying to justify the expense for a dual layer of titanium has been applied to the shock absorbing layer underneath this display strengthening the screen so now you don't have to worry about puncturing the screen with your fingernail but they won't give us a stylus but they made the device thinner and they reduced the amount of crease you can see but not as good as Oppo I know they have this like design smooth folding lasting durability I'm gonna go through all of that so let's compare it yet nice when you're comparing it to the fold 6 let's go to the fold 7 because the one that I have same weight and just one millimeter thinner that's pretty impressive but not enough to justify spending over 2,000 bucks on the device so that's what I mean that the if you're gonna really compare it's gonna be to the fold 6 and the fold 6 can do more than this one can this one just looks better doing it so yeah the performance of course that's what we expect but I believe that they did not put the anti-reflective coating on this display and that's my major gripe with the Samsung z-fold 7 compared to my s24 ultra because once you use the anti-reflective coating it's really difficult to enjoy any other device because my goodness when you're out in bright daylight it's a big time difference maker and my glossy screen on the z-fold 7 and in bright daylight here in Southern California it oh my goodness it's so glossy it's annoying so I have to go to find shade someplace somewhere all right but let's see the camera differences here okay so the ultra-wide is the big difference was not the same carryover cameras 50 megapixel ultra-wide 12 megapixel true as on the current one the new one on the fold 7 is 12 megapixels so major major difference there and you have the telephoto lens as well so that's one thing but is the ultra-wide camera being bigger the new chip and I guess the bigger battery is that enough to justify switching from the 7 when basically they're pretty much the same size look and feel just different color availability I leave that to you but then if you are going to upgrade let me ask you this then what's the point of holding these companies accountable to their software updates a promising up to five seven years later if we're just gonna be trading in our devices every six months to a year what's the point I had the conversation with Daniel Rubino so like dude I don't I don't know what the point of it is if we're gonna be excited about these OS upgrades but not wait for them because we're just trading on our devices I've been doing the beta program with Samsung with s24 ultra and before they roll out the official ones also on the z-fold 7 so I was able to experience the newer devices before they kind of came out or some of the newer you eyes I don't have you I 9.0 just yet that's launching on these so one UI 9 it's gonna come to these devices so I look forward to experiencing on my older devices so it will feel the same okay but that's it for the ultra there really isn't much there for me to get excited about because there's no stylist there was rumors that we might get it we aren't so to me it's pointless so let's talk about this one because this is the hero device that everybody's talking about so this one is pretty much for content consumption and the only reason this is of interest is because if you're looking to Apple to do the same this is pretty much what it's gonna be like the cameras might be arranged a little differently but Samsung's the one providing the screen so that's how you know and that's why Samsung is cutting off Apple at the past so though what we don't have confirmation we just have expectations as is if Apple will launch the fold this year or if it's ultimately being delayed for next year it's a very curious thing because they will only launch the one and it would be this and Google is in prime position to compete against them because they got their own event coming next month and of course they're expected to unveil the pixel 11 and I'm assuming the pixel 11 pro ball whatever it is to build off what they had before so this is what is from the renders that we've seen before this is what the iPhone fold is expected to look I would have gone with the clamshell first but this is very interesting that these industry Titans want to focus on this all of a sudden this passport shape as if it didn't already exist because it looks to me it looks like the Blackberry passport footprint but more importantly for anybody that's had the pixel fold or even better because the better device in my opinion the surface duo which I still have this is pretty much that form factor is just that the surface duo obviously has the hinge this one doesn't and this one is supposed to have the the anti-reflective coating on the display on the inside so there's the lavender color that we've been seeing the other ones that go a little bit darker very similar about flex titanium lightweight design smooth folding etc etc created for content exactly so you can't say getting immersive social media when both tick-tock at Instagram work on a candy bar size type of ratio not this kind of ratio for the front this might work better for timeline scrolls like like X or parlor or a pickaxe shout out to those of you guys over there but when you open it up a 4 by 9 ratio that's actually really good that's the ratio that you would find on the surface laptops when you open them up and also on an iPad I like that ratio because for me documents that's perfect books yeah movies 6 technically 16 by 9 but there are some that's kind of like the whole they're trying to fill out the letterboxing for now 4 by 3 might work fine but then when you hold it up right now it's like you're optimized for reading documents so that I do like because I did that with my surface do I did that with my pixel fold so this is the only one that I have somewhat of interest in but it's just very very expensive and it's tough to justify something that expensive but what makes it really attractive though is that it's a lot smaller and that whole anti-reflective coating on it that's the part that that really calls to me because that's a very important thing so when you're you're pitching something as business some people will look at this constant content consumption that's not what I'm looking at I'm looking at my goodness there's a lot that I can do with that 4 by 3 inner display and yes I can type more comfortably on a wider display on the outside especially since I'm already used to it with the surface duo when I had the pixel fold but more importantly when I had the blackberry passport so I'm used to this wider aspect ratio altogether and I can make more of that so we'll see but there's some things that it lacks and for the price lacking a telephoto camera that is a no-go for me already so that's why I'm not immediately in a rush to try to pre-order something like this and when it comes to this type of foldable they're leading the pack right here in the United States no one else competing really outside for Motorola but no one really talked about Motorola even though they make very attractive products some of them I feel are very overpriced so that's the industry all together but we'll see how this really turns up when the reviews start coming in and which foldables right for you is gonna be a comparison thing how does it compare yeah we'll see there you go these are the three that that they have because I'm not gonna cover the flip 8 nothing really for me to talk about there and you gotta ask yourself is that really worth starting price $1,900 ish that's that's rough man that's really rough and there's more competition in this field than there are in the candy bar tall one so we'll see about that what really is the big deal for me and it is the watch the watch is the one thing I'm keeping my eyes on because I knew they were overdue to try to refine it the galaxy watch ultra 2 they made some enormous strides it's the brightest screen 5,000 nits it's the brightest display on a smartwatch out there and it has a huge battery and the the chip that's powering this is what I really care about now this is still titanium which is fantastic but they're only available in two colors this time I like both colors but it's fewer options either silver or titanium gray I think that's what they call the other one but the design I still am NOT used to those so-called squircle so they're supposed to be thinner it's supposed to last way longer titanium silver titanium gray so I was right it's either one or the other they still keeps the orange button there and it looks like they have more protection on the button so that to actually trigger them but I like the Samsung wearables they gotten better over the years but the X on those processor will always hold them back know that they're really touting the whole diving I'm never gonna go diving but the long lasting battery is a big thing for me charging faster is really big for me a more uniformed experience with the ownership of the bands is also important to me I know you can buy the lugs but still that's the big difference between this and the previous generation of the watch where the bigger battery and the fast charging that's not supported on the older watch is supported on this one so that really really matters but this is the big deal to me it's powered by snapdragon snapdragon where elite platform so this I think is the first time you're seeing it on a watch so I am excited to see this powering this watch because this might be the one that I get and it is more expensive at $700 is built in with LTE but it has all these not just health stuff but emergency services that are attached to this now while I never go diving it's nice to know that it's there and that means a better dust and water resistance rating it's a bigger screen than the previous watch almost twice as time is bright that's crazy man that's gonna be searing your retinas you know so I am interested in this and if I do go for this I'm tempted to go for the silver one because I love silver so I know they're touting outdoors and and all that but Samsung health and folks are interested you can follow me on the socials that's where I pretty much talk about my health journey I'm gonna try to bring some more of it to my to my video content but I really do do this for and for my social media group particularly over on Instagram Samsung health been my go-to for almost ten years now and so I have been in the Samsung ecosystems ever since they had their own exclusive collab with Under Armour following across socials at the Andres Agovia anything anything about me is at the AndresAgovia.com as always I'll see you the next one