The Galaxy Z verdicts are in, and they come from Samsung's own superfans

Fifty-one Samsung Members Stars from 17 countries got hands-on time with the new Galaxy Z series and Watch9 in London, the same week Samsung unveiled them at Galaxy Unpacked. The event ran July 22-24 and also included the keynote and a cultural tour of the city.

The Stars are Samsung's most committed users: Galaxy fans who consistently post content and contribute on the Samsung Members platform. They are not reviewers in the usual sense. The meetup produced an infographic, published August 7, in which Samsung Newsroom collects the features the Stars picked as their favorites. That makes the whole thing both a thank-you to a loyal community and an early set of endorsements for the new hardware: real users talking, selected and framed by Samsung itself. It is a lesson in community marketing that rivals still phasing out their own consumer businesses could study, per the OnePlus exit report.

The contrast extends to pricing. As rival phone makers push flagship prices up to offset AI costs, Samsung front-loads brand loyalty and lets its most engaged owners sell the hardware for it, a dynamic explored in the Pixel 11 pricing report.

The devices behind the picks

The devices came from a single reveal. Samsung unveiled the Z Fold8 Ultra, Z Fold8 and Z Flip8 alongside the Watch Ultra2 and Watch9 at the July 22 event, and the newsroom's account puts the Stars' hands-on time on the Z series and Watch9.

A busy launch week around it

The London meetup is one strand of a wider launch cycle. Around Unpacked, Samsung also published a deeper engineering interview on the Z series, a connected-care vision with partners, and a teaser for an AI-powered health companion on the wrist. The infographic closes the community side of the launch. What the Stars chose to praise is now on the record.

How much that record is worth is the question. Samsung selected the participants, ran the sessions, and published the results. The same gap between curated enthusiasm and real-world outcome shows up elsewhere: French SMEs report strong AI adoption numbers, but the hidden costs tell the real story. This one is an early read on how its most vocal users received its newest hardware, no more, no less.