After months of rumors, the day has finally arrived when we will get first sight of the latest flagship from Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.

At its Unpacked event, taking place in New York City today, Samsung will unveil its Galaxy S8. The device will be Samsung’s first smartphone following its Note7 exploding battery disaster and subsequent recall of the device. Despite a costly recall, which saw the company’s profits and sales tank in quarter three last year, Samsung jumped back in Q4 with a 50 percent growth in profits.

The Note7 fiasco hasn’t seemed to tarnish the company’s reputation and alienate Samsung customers too much. According to a survey of 1,500 Americans, conducted by Fluent LLC., “63 percent of Samsung phone owners said that the Note 7 recall had no impact on their likelihood to purchase a Samsung phone in the future.” For consumers who owned a Note7, 46 percent said the experience would not deter them from buying another Samsung smartphone in the future.

Here’s a look at how you can watch today’s Unpacked event together with a rumor roundup of what we can expect from the Samsung Galaxy S8:

How to watch the launch event live

The Samsung Unpacked event starts at 11 a.m. ET and will be streamed live from the David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center in New York City. A separate launch event will take place in Korea on Mar. 30.

Samsung’s website

You can watch the unveiling of the new Galaxy S8 on Samsung’s website. You can pre-register for the live stream and stand a chance to win the new Galaxy S8.

Mobile app

You can also watch the Samsung Unpacked event on the mobile apps available for Android and iOS. In addition to the live stream, there will be various related videos.

You can download the Unpacked app from the Play Store (requires 4.3 or later) or the App Store (requires iOS 9.0 or later).

YouTube

Samsung will also broadcast its event on its official YouTube channel.

What to expect

Unlike previous launch events, today’s Unpacked event won’t showcase a new tablet from Samsung as the company launched its Galaxy Tab S3 at Mobile World Congress last month. The main focus of the event will be the much-anticipated Galaxy S8, which will launch in two sizes if the rumors are to be believed.

Samsung Galaxy S8 rumors

With the number of rumors that have been making the rounds, together with leaked images, there’s unlikely to be many surprises when the Galaxy S8 is unveiled.

The biggest leak came this weekend with new images and full tech specs for the devices, which leaked online by German-language site WinFuture.

Leaked images of the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ via WinFuture

Previous rumors include the launch of two devices, being referred to as the 5.8-inch Galaxy S8 and 6.2-inch S8+. As both devices are rumored to have curved sides, the company will do away with the “Edge” lineup.

The tech specs for both devices from WinFuture include curved Super AMOLED displays (2960 x 1440 pixels), USB-C support, 64GB of base storage, a microSD card slot with 256GB support, a Snapdragon 835 processor in the U.S., 4GB of RAM, dual-band gigabit Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth 4.2, NFC support, and an IP68 rating for water and dust resistance.

The rumored tech specs also confirm the previously rumored 3,000mAh battery for the S8 and the 3,500mAh battery for the S8+ with both devices featuring fast wireless charging.

The Galaxy S8 is expected to have an almost bezel-free display with rumors suggesting that the fingerprint scanner will move to the back of the device and virtual navigation buttons will be incorporated into the display.

In addition to iris scanning technology, the Galaxy S8’s fingerprint scanner will also support gesture recognition, which will allow users to open up and close designated apps, according to WinFuture.

Both devices will reportedly feature 12MP dual rear cameras and an 8MP selfie camera. The camera is also rumored to include a 1,000 frames per second super slow-mo video recording mode. The latest rumor suggests the Galaxy S8 and S8+ will have one of the best cameras on the market and will include a Sony IMX333 sensor that isn’t available in any other smartphone yet.

If the rumors are to be believed, you will have a variety of color options to choose from, including black, silver, violet and blue.

Bixby: artificial intelligence assistant

Today’s event will likely showcase more of the capabilities of Bixby, Samsung’s AI assistant that the company launched last week. The AI assistant has been in the news since last year when the company announced its plans to launch a digital assistant.

Rather than only taking care of a few key tasks, the versatility of the Bixby software will allow the almost complete substitution of the touch interface for supported apps, according to the company.

Bixby will compete with the likes of Google Inc.’s Assistant and Apple Inc.’s Siri and we will likely see it in action at today’s Unpacked event in the new Galaxy S8.   

Image: Samsung