Samsung has been unveiling new Galaxy S series phones every February or March for a few years now. Most of these events took place in late February on the eve of the Mobile World Congress trade show each year, although Samsung made some exceptions. The Galaxy S8 was delayed a few years ago because of the Note 7’s battery recall, and the Galaxy S10 preceded the trade show by a couple of weeks last year so Samsung could be the world’s first major smartphone maker to unveil a foldable handset. A report a few days ago said that Samsung has settled on February 18th for the Galaxy S11 Unpacked event, claiming that the next-gen Samsung foldable would also be unveiled at the show — that’s the clamshell Galaxy Fold 2 that Samsung already confirmed it’s developing. As was the case last year, Samsung seems interested in putting some space between its announcements and everything else set to debut at MWC from its biggest rivals. Now, if a new leak is accurate, Samsung might launch the Galaxy S11 even sooner than that February 18th date we heard previously.
February 11th is the new date, according to Israeli blog Girafa. It’s unclear where the site got its information from, and it doesn’t show any proof to back it up. But the blog claims Samsung will hold a press conference on February 11th in San Francisco. The previous report also had San Francisco pegged as the city where the new Galaxy S11 will be announced.
If accurate, this launch timeframe would give Samsung a two-week head start over competitors coming to MWC to unveil their mobile plans for 2020. Samsung’s most significant Android rival, Huawei, is set to unveil a foldable handset at MWC, while the P40 Pro’s launch event is set for March in Paris, France. By the time Huawei takes the wraps off of the P40 series, the Galaxy S11 might actually already be on sale in stores in various markets.
The Galaxy Fold 2, or whatever it’s called, is also expected to be unveiled at the event, although Girafa doesn’t have any new information on any of the upcoming new Samsung devices. That 2/11/2020 Unpacked event date does have a nice ring to it, especially if Samsung calls these devices Galaxy Fold 2 and Galaxy S11. Interestingly, however, a report a few days ago said the Galaxy S11 might get a brand new name, Galaxy S20. The clamshell foldable doesn’t have a name of its own for the time being. And Galaxy Fold 2 doesn’t necessarily make sense for it, even though that’s what we’ve been calling it.
Samsung is yet to reveal the date of its next Unpacked event. Before that happens, Samsung will take the stage at CES 2020 early next month to announce the Galaxy S10 Lite and Note 10 Lite smartphones, and maybe even the Galaxy Tab S6 5G tablet.
