Samsung Galaxy Unpacked live: Z Fold 8, Z Flip 8 expected

Brand new smartphones are always more expensive than older or refurbished models, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we wince at the price tag on the new Galaxy Z line.

Everything has gotten more expensive over the past few years, including new laptops, smartphones and other gadgets. Blame AI. The computer chips that run your PC and phone are in high demand and short supply, thanks to AI companies gobbling them up to create new models and keep existing ones running smoothly. The supply chain nightmare has been dubbed “RAMageddon.”

To deal with these rising manufacturing costs, tech companies have hiked up their prices. The Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus each got a $100 increase when they dropped in February, making it an even smaller price gap between the $900 baseline model and the $1,300 S26 Ultra premium model.

Last year’s Galaxy Z Flip 7 actually stayed at the same $1,100 price as the previous generation while doubling the storage. But the Galaxy Z Fold 7 got a $100 increase for an eye-watering final price tag of $2,000.

We’ll have to wait and see what this year’s pricing ends up being, but I’m warning you now: Start mentally preparing to spend more if you want a new Samsung smartphone.

Samsung has partnered with Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios to promote the upcoming movie, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, as well as its upcoming foldable phones. Samsung has been releasing several social media teaser videos in the lead-up to the Galaxy Unpacked event, including the fabulous Spider-Man tracker, an interactive fan site that lets you be the “guy in the chair.”

But in a recent video posted on Samsung Mobile USA’s Instagram page, Spider-Man returns home, takes out a broken phone and throws it onto a container filled with other broken phones. Clearly, Peter Parker isn’t familiar with Samsung’s durable phone, the Galaxy XCover7 Pro, which has a military-grade design. 

The video continues with Parker’s computer saying it came up with a better design. And then it starts “printing” a Galaxy Z Flip 8, which Spider-Man fetches with a web. The computer prints out an additional device, the Galaxy Z Fold 8. (It’s obscured by a lens flare – when did J.J. Abrams get here?) Spider-Man opens the Z Fold 8, and checks out its wider-screen design.

So did Spider-Man (or rather his computer) make the Z Flip 8 and Z Fold 8? If so, that might cause some patent problems for Samsung.

Watch the video below:

First, we found out that Spider-Man made the Galaxy Z Fold 8 and now it’s in the hands of one of the largest pop groups in the world. Last week, BTS member J-hope shared a video of the group’s sound check in Paris in a now expired (or deleted) Instagram Reel. You can see it here on Reddit. In it, J-hope has the Z Fold 8 onstage during a sound check, shares selfie videos (presumably from it) and he’s even kind enough to give the unreleased phone a close-up backstage.

You don’t need a crystal ball to know that Wednesday’s Samsung Unpacked event will heavily feature AI. It was certainly a big part of Samsung’s February Galaxy S26 event, where we saw a new Perplexity-powered browser, AI-powered call screening and photo editing tools. This time around, we can now glean a few clues about what’s coming.

Samsung said in its announcement that it will bring “more personal, adaptive experiences” to its devices. That’s certainly aligned with the personalized intelligence trend we’re seeing in the AI industry, particularly with Google, a longtime Samsung partner. Personal AI is exactly what it sounds like — it’s AI services and results that are tailored to your life and your needs. 

What could this look like for you? It’s too soon to know for sure. But it’s likely that Samsung will upgrade its software so the Galaxy AI can access more of your information across apps and services. That way, it has more data to pull from, so it can customize its options to whatever it thinks you’ll like best. 

Of course, very few people decide to buy a new phone purely because of its new AI. But that’s beside the point, at least according to Samsung, Google, Apple and every other major phone-maker. Samsung CEO TM Roh called the Galaxy S26 an “agentic AI phone,” after all.

Over the past few years, phone-makers have embraced the cover display on clamshell-style foldables. They’re now a key part of how people use flip phones. Gone are the days of a 1-inch capsule-shaped cover screen, which was great for showing the time and date, but not much else.

Motorola has always made the Razr’s cover display highly customizable and easy to use. It quickly lets you use nearly any Android app on the cover screen. It’s not nearly as easy on Samsung’s Flip phones. Yes, you can customize the Z Flip’s cover display but you need to install extra software and enable settings to do so. Neither step is particularly inconvenient, but both create more friction when setting up your phone.

Beyond battery life, I’d love to see Samsung bring meaningful improvements to the software and features on the Z Flip 8’s cover display.

Both Samsung and Google previously announced smart glasses, and Google dedicated a chunk of time at its 2026 I/O event to showcasing various models, including some made in partnership with companies such as Warby Parker. While we know Samsung has smart glasses in the works, details are sparse, so we’re predicting — and hoping — the company will provide more insight. 

CNET’s own Scott Stein has demoed a bevy of smart glasses prototypes, including some from Samsung. Hopefully, we’ll get more juicy details, like how much they cost, what microphones and cameras are onboard, plus how Samsung’s smart glasses interact with various apps, like Google Gemini.

The Galaxy Z Flip 7 is the most fully realized version of Samsung’s ideal of a flip phone since the launch of the original Galaxy Z Flip in 2020. The Flip 7’s appeal is simple: It’s a thin phone with a big, bold screen that folds in half into a coaster-sized square. Whether I was paying for gelato without opening the phone in New York’s Little Italy or watching Sinners on that 6.9-inch screen during a flight to San Francisco, the Flip 7 impressed me in nearly every way. There’s only one area where it let me down: its battery life. It’s not horrible but it’s not great either.

In our testing, the Z Flip 7 scored behind the $1,300 Motorola Razr Ultra 2025 and the brand-new $800 Motorola Razr 2026. I hope Samsung finds a way to improve the battery life, whether it’s using a silicon-carbon battery which can increase a battery’s capacity without changing its size or through efficiencies in its One UI software.

Samsung Unpacked is slated to kick off Wednesday at 9 a.m. ET (6 a.m. PT, 2 p.m. BST), live from London. You can blame the time zones for why it’s starting at such an early time in the US, but you can watch it live or archived later on CNET’s YouTube page as well as directly from Samsung’s own YouTube channel. 

We’ll keep you updated with our live blog leading up to, during and after the event. Plus, we’ll have lots of commentaries, hot takes and more to help you unpack Unpacked.