Samsung set to unveil Galaxy Note 7 in Aug.

Samsung Electronics on Wednesday sent out an invitation to the global media and partners for its upcoming Unpacked event to introduce the Galaxy Note 7 phablet. The unveiling is to take place in New York on Aug. 2.

This iteration of the Galaxy Note, most often compared with the Galaxy S series and distinguished by its stylus pen and larger display, will skip the serial number 6 and be branded as the Note 7 to avoid long-time confusion and facilitate marketing activities.

The Galaxy S7 was unveiled in February on the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Samsung said the New York event will take place at 11 a.m. on Aug. 2 at the Hammerstein Ballroom in Manhattan. The company added that it will simultaneously throw launch events at local time in Rio de Janeiro at 12 p.m. and in London at 4 p.m. Live streaming of the New York event will be available on Samsung’s website (www.samsung.com) and Samsung Newsroom (news.samsung.com/global).

The company chose to hold a Rio event because it is an official sponsor of the 2016 Summer Olympics set to kick off in the city on Aug. 5.

The invitation includes an image of the Galaxy Note’s signature stylus pen in blue and white aligned inside an iris-shaped graphic, confirming rumors that the phone will be embedded with an iris scanner, an unprecedented feature for any Samsung phone.

The most dominant security and user recognition method thus far has been fingerprint scanning. Apple implemented the fingerprint scanner in the iPhone 5S in 2013. Samsung, HTC and Huawei followed suit.

Japan’s Fujitsu was the world’s first smartphone maker to offer iris recognition in May last year.

Images leaked over the past several days via Twitter are nearly identical to leaked renders of the Galaxy Note thus far. It appears the phablet will have a 5.7-inch display with dual-edge curves - a first for any Galaxy Note. New modules on the top of the device’s front face hint it might come with an iris scanner.

There are also rumors that the Note 7 may include a storage card socket that is compatible with both existing micro SD cards and a new hybrid storage format called UFS, which provides read and write speeds five times higher than micro SD cards.

BY SEO JI-EUN [seo.jieun@joongang.co.kr]