Now that Samsung has officially announced that Unpacked 2020 will take place Aug. 5, the rumor mill has gone into overdrive. Samsung is expected to launch…
Now that Samsung has officially announced that Unpacked 2020 will take place Aug. 5, the rumor mill has gone into overdrive. Samsung is expected to launch a slew of new hardware, including an extra-large version of the Note 20, called the Note 20 Ultra, the rumored Galaxy Z Fold 2, a confirmed 5G version of the Galaxy Z Flip (in bronze!) and the Galaxy Watch 3.
Following in the footsteps of Huawei, OnePlus and Apple, the unveiling will take place completely online.
It’s been a strange year for Samsung and other phone-makers, whose plans to go big into 5G and foldable phones have been largely torpedoed by the coronavirus pandemic. Despite Samsung warning that phone sales would suffer as a result of COVID-19 and the global recession, Samsung reported on July 6 that its profits are up as a whole — just likely not due to phone sales.
Read on for the top Galaxy Note 20 rumors, including all the specs we’ve heard of or think we know. This story updates frequently, so check back for the latest rumors.
Samsung Unpacked 2020 will take place Wednesday, Aug. 5 at 7 a.m. PT (10 a.m. ET, 3 p.m. BST) during a completely virtual event. It will stream on Samsung.com — CNET will also host a live show and cover the event with live analysis and news.
The official invitation depicts a liquid “splash” in the same copper color as the leaked Note (more on that below).
Just a little over a week before the Aug. 5 Samsung Unpacked event, Samsung released a 30-second Vimeo teaser trailer on its Mobile Press website. The trailer gives a brief sneak peek at the lineup of products to be announced, in the form of a stylized silhouette that appears to include the Galaxy Note 20. You can catch a glimpse at the 23-second mark in the video below.
A short YouTube video posted by user Jimmy Is Promo shows a device purported to be the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. We see a large-screen device, in black, with squared corners and a large camera module consistent with previous leaks. There’s also an S-Pen stylus to indicate this is part of the Note series.
The video demonstrates a few things:
On July 1, photos of a phone said to be the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra appeared online, captured from a Samsung website in Russia. Samsung seems to have accidentally leaked the image itself, and not just on one site.
On Twitter, journalists and phone fans also chimed in that it appeared on Samsung Ukraine and Samsung China as well. Engadget’s Richard Lai suggested it might have been an error affecting multiple Samsung websites in the Asia Pacific region.
Is it copper? Is it bronze? A July 10 tweet from frequent Twitter leaker Evan Blass suggests that the color, Mystic Bronze, will come to the Galaxy Z Flip 5G, too. Either way, the renders look beautiful so far. Seeing the play of light on the actual finish, in person, will make all the difference.
Now that one rumor has been confirmed — that the new phone will launch on Aug. 5 — there’s more credence now than ever that the Note 20 phones will go on sale Aug. 20. The rumored dates came early in June.
An Aug. 20 sale date also makes sense according to Samsung’s historical pattern. The annual August unveiling of nearly every Note phone is strategic, timed to predate Apple’s fall iPhone launch and set Samsung up for the holiday rush. It’s rumored that Apple may postpone its iPhone 12 sales release to as late as October as a result of the coronavirus.
