According to the rumors, the Samsung Galaxy S24 is expected to be announced on the 17th of January, 2024. Samsung has yet to officially confirm those dates, but a post on X by reputable leakster Evan Blass might have confirmed it.

In what appears to be an official countdown to the event, it mentions that the launch date for the upcoming Galaxy S24 series will be taking place at 3AM KST on the 18th of January, 2024. Converting that to US time, that's basically 1PM EST on the 17th of January, 2024, confirming what the previous rumors are claiming.

Like we said, the 17th of January date had been mentioned in earlier rumors so it shouldn't really be that surprising, but it's good to have additional confirmation, especially when it comes from a pretty reliable source. Also, unlike the Galaxy S23's launch which was held in South Korea, next year's event is expected to see Samsung return to the US.

The Galaxy S24 is expected to come in three variants - the base Galaxy S24, the Galaxy S24+, and the Galaxy S24 Ultra. The phones have also been rumored to be sold in Exynos and Qualcomm variants depending on the region save for the Ultra model, where it will only be available with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset globally, which is good news for those who are planning on getting it.

While Samsung's hardware forte lies mostly with its Galaxy-series smartphones, the South Korean tech giant also sells some rather-impressive laptops with its Galaxy Book range. Just recently, Samsung announced the launch of the Galaxy Book4 Ultra, its new flagship laptop model.

Opening the laptop greets you with a 16-inch touch-enabled screen, which features a Dynamic AMOLED display with a 2,880 x 1,800 pixel resolution, a 16:10 aspect ratio, 400 nits of brightness, as well as a 48-120Hz variable refresh rate.

This is encased in a very sleek-looking metal chassis, which features a pair of USB-C ports, a USB 3.2 A port, HDMI 2.1 connectivity, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and even a fingerprint scanner for biometrics.

In terms of internal specs, there's a base model of the Book4 Ultra which packs a setup consisting of a 14th Generation Intel Core Ultra 7 CPU, 16GB RAM, and 512GB SSD, although buyers can opt for a more powerful model.

The more premium variant comes with Intel's 14th Generation Core Ultra 9 processor, with up to 64GB of LPDDR5x RAM, and up to 2TB of internal storage. Unsurprisingly, Samsung has equipped the Book4 Ultra to be able to keep up with demanding games and productivity tasks - the laptop comes with either an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 laptop GPU with 6GB GDDR6 VRAM or an Nvidia GeForce RTX 470 laptop GPU with 8GB GDDR6 VRAM.

Like a lot of smartphones these days, the Book4 Ultra also features generative AI capabilities, made possible with an onboard NPU that allows for faster AI processing - this all takes place on the device itself, which is all the more impressive.

Inside is a 76WHr battery with support for 140W USB PD charging, and comes bundled with a 140W USB Type-C charger. It's scheduled to launch initially in South Korea in January 2024, with a starting price of around $2,600 (when converted).

The Samsung Galaxy S24 will be the company's next flagship phone and is expected to launch in 2024. From what we can tell based on the leaks and rumors, it looks like it will be a marginal upgrade in the hardware department with some minor design changes. The biggest change is most likely in the form of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and the implementation of AI.

Will this be enough to convince customers to hop on board the Galaxy S24 bandwagon? Samsung seems to think so. According to a report from Korean publication The Elec, apparently Samsung is aiming to ship as many as 35.2 million units of the Galaxy S24 by the end of 2024.

This consists of 13.5 million units of the base Galaxy S24 model, 5.8 million units of the Plus model, and 15.9 million units of the Ultra model. For context, the Galaxy S23 series reportedly shipped over 25 million units, so these numbers, if accurate, represent quite a huge increase.

Whether or not Samsung will be able to achieve their goal remains to be seen. The company's flagship of smartphones is one of the more popular devices and is highly anticipated every year, but seeing as how the design of the phone is remaining more or less the same and there not being any particularly significant upgrades, it's hard to see how the Galaxy S24 will be a much bigger hit over its predecessor, but we'll have to wait and see.

These days, many handset makers are bumping up the megapixel count on their phones, which is more of a marketing gimmick rather than practicality. Don't get us wrong, a higher resolution does have its benefits, but since most photos tend to end up on social media which are then viewed on small screens, it's not quite as useful.

That could change in future Samsung phones. According to a post by Tech_Reve on X, apparently Samsung is working on a 1-inch camera sensor. There aren't too many phones with 1-inch sensors at the moment and only Xiaomi comes to mind where they used a 1-inch sensor made by Sony.

The post claims that Samsung is apparently developing their own sensor, but it is unclear when it will debut. A separate post on X by Tech_Reve also claims that for the Galaxy S25, which is coming in 2025, will no longer use Samsung's own GN3 sensor and could use a Sony sensor, so it seems that Samsung's 1-inch sensor could debut after that.

It is also unclear if this Sony sensor that will launch in the Galaxy S25 will be the same 1-inch sensor (or a successor) as the one found in the Xiaomi 12S, so we'll have to wait and see. 2025 is still a very long way to go so while Tech_Reve does have a pretty good track record when it comes to leaks, it's still a good idea to take it with a grain of salt for now.

Samsung killing off its Note series was a great idea as it helped consolidate the company's lineup of phones into a neat little bundle. Now users won't have to decide which phone to get as the Galaxy S Ultra series will now offer the best specs while also featuring support for the S Pen.

That is expected to continue in 2024 with the upcoming Galaxy S24 series, and now thanks to a report from MySmartPrice, it looks like the S Pen that is expected to accompany the Galaxy S24 Ultra has been spotted at the FCC with the EJ-PS928 model number.

In terms of the design, it doesn't look like anything has changed as it still looks pretty much like its predecessor. The physical button is still very much present, and according to the FCC listing it looks like it will have a 2402-2480MHz frequency range along with BLE support, which is honestly not too surprising.

While the sighting of the S Pen doesn't reveal any surprises, it does suggest that the launch of the phone could be close at hand. Samsung has been rumored to announce their new Galaxy S24 phones in the middle of January 2024 shortly after CES, so we only have a little over a month before we get all the official details.