Android Circuit: Galaxy Z Fold8 Launch Dates, New York’s Pixel 11 Event, Google’s Backup Change

Taking a look back at this week’s news and headlines across the Android world, including Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked dates, Pixel 11 even confirmed, Galaxy S27 Ultra specs, Xiaomi’s five-year battery offer, smartphone price rises, LineageOS updates, and Google’s sneaky backup change.

Android Circuit is here to remind you of a few of the many discussions around Android in the last seven days. You can also read my weekly digest of Apple news here on Forbes.

Samsung Confirms Launch Date Of New Galaxy Foldables

Samsung has announced its latest Galaxy Unpacked event. The community has this earmarked as the launch of the foldable Galaxy Z Flip8, Z Fold8 and the new larger form factor of the Galaxy Z Fold8 Wide. It is set to take place on July 22.

:The event will be streamed live on Samsung.com, Samsung Newsroom and Samsung’s YouTube channel beginning at 2 p.m. BS", 9 a.m. EDT and 3 p.m. CEST."

Rather than try to keep everything under lock and key, Samsung CEO TM Roh wrote the equivalent of a blog post to talk about Samsung’s upcoming phones, form factors, and new opportunities:

"The phone is closest to us, with us daily. The tablet is where we create and learn. The watch reads signals like sleep and heart rate. The TV and connected home appliances add context from where we live,” he said. And here’s the clincher: “New form factors, from foldables to intelligent eyewear, expand where AI meets us.” We know Samsung is working on smart glasses in conjunction with Google, and these were unveiled at Google I/O."

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Google Reveals Earlier Pixel 11 Launch Date

The second of the summer's big hitters is Google, with the launch of the Pixel 11 family. Following last year’s New York event, Google is staying in the Big Apple for the debut of new smartphones, and we have an official date: Wednesday, Aug. 12.

"This is a week earlier compared to last year, with Google once again opting for an earlier Pixel hardware unveil… The Made by Google 2026 keynote will start at 3 p.m. PT / 6 p.m. ET, which is much later in the day than usual. Officially, Google is teasing “the next generation of Pixel” and we see a gold metal frame that is shiny."

Samsung's Galaxy S27 Ultra Camera Details

Samsung’s foldable phones claim the summer and help push an obvious innovative angle, but it's the Galaxy S range that sits atop the candybar pyramid looking for the “number 1 phone” pennant. Work on next year’s Galaxy S27, S27 Pro and S27 Ultra is underway, with details on the new camera hardware under discussion. One option, highlighted by the team at GSM Arena, is a larger selfie camera on the S27 Ultra

"This will allegedly be a new 16MP one. The source of this information assumes that it might be a square sensor, emulating what Apple's done in the iPhone 17 series, but that's just speculation at the moment. The S27 and S27+ also getting the new sensor isn't entirely ruled out, but it's not clear whether that will happen just yet.

If The Battery Fails In Five Years, Xiaomi WIll Fix It

Redmi’s Note 17 Pro comes with an interesting guarantee, notes GSM Arena. The battery itself is confirmed as a 9,000 mAh cell with 67W fast charging and 22.5W reverse charging. And if the battery falls below a certain level of charge, Xiaomi will take care of that:

"Xiaomi believes in its battery tech so much that it offers a 5-year protection plan. If the battery capacity drops below 80% during the first four years of owning your phone, Xiaomi will replace it for free. And if it drops below 80% in the fifth year, Xiaomi will upgrade it for free."

The Rising Price Of Smartphones

The impact of rising memory and storage costs is becoming increasingly visible across the smartphone world. Omdia’s recent study found that the volume of phones under $400 will decline, while higher price points will offset the decline. Principal analyst Zaker Li goes into more detail:

“... global smartphone market will decline by 12% year-over-year in 2026, due to the significant drop in smartphone shipments priced at $400 and below, which are expected to decline by more than 22% this year. By contrast, smartphone shipments above $400 will remain resilient and are expected to grow by 5.7% in 2026. This reflects three key factors:"

LineageOS’ Summer Update

The LineageOS project, which builds on the Android Open Source Project to provide a downloadable clean version of Android, has published details on the summer update to the platform. There are extensive changes in the back end, there are also changes to its key apps:

"Our integrated backup Seedvault solution and the default calendar Etar have both been updated to their latest versions. Twelve, our default music app, has received Ampache support thanks to longtime contributor SebaUbuntu. And finally, Glimpse (our default gallery app) received a few improvements including Double-Tap to seek support in videos, better lock screen handling, support for motion photos, and a setting to remember the last playback position when watching videos."

And Finally...

Given that Android’s automatic backups are stored on Google’s servers, the recently announced change to include this in your storage will affect servers and each user’s relationship with Google.

"Starting on July 7, all data types that appear in Android backup settings are included and count against your storage limit. This now includes SMS messages (the actual text), call history, and device settings. On average, Google says this new data should increase your backup size by 40 MB."

Android Circuit rounds up the news from the Android world every weekend here on Forbes. Don’t forget to follow me so you don’t miss any coverage in the future, and of course, read the sister column in Apple Loop! Last week’s Android Circuit can be found here, and if you have any news and links you’d like to see featured in Android Circuit, get in touch!