Yesterday Patently Apple posted a report titled "Samsung Invents an Ingenious Magnetic Hinge System for a Possible Dual Display Smartphone with a Special Feature." Today Samsung announced that they'll be holding their Galaxy Unpacked event on February 11 in San Francisco at 11 a.m. PST. The event will be livestreamed. Samsung is claiming that they'll unveil new, innovative devices that will shape the next decade of mobile experiences.

Samsung is faster out of the gate for 2020 than in years past. Samsung usually reveals their next-gen Flagship Galaxy S smartphone around a day before the start of Spain's Mobile World Congress (MWC) event. This year MWC 2020 begins on February 24 and so Samsung's Feb. 11 event is clearly breaking with tradition.

With Samsung claiming that they'll be delivering new "devices that will shape the next decade," we're bound to see a second folding smartphone form factor to emerge beyond their Galaxy Fold. 

On December 24, 2019 Patently Apple posted a report pointing to the fact that the iPhone XR was not only number for Q3 2019 but number one globally throughout 2019.

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As noted in the chart above, Samsung's Galaxy A10 came in second behind the iPhone XR in Q3 2019. The price for the iPhone XR was US$749 before any trade-in discount. Apple's new entry level iPhone 11 starts at the lower US$699 price point before trade-in and activations between Dec. 25 to Dec. 31 proved that the entry iPhone 11 was the most popular smartphone in the U.S over the holidays. 

Being tired of playing second fiddle to Apple's entry iPhone in the 'most popular smartphone' category throughout 2019, Samsung introduced new smartphones on Friday to shake things up for 2020. Samsung introduced two models with only about a $50 difference to give consumers more choice against Apple's sole entry model. 

SamMobile is the only official Android site to be streaming Samsung's even on Feb. 11 and so when they provide pricing for the new Galaxy S10 Lite and Galaxy Note Lite that other sites don't, you could likely take it to the bank. According to their Friday report, Samsung will be selling their new Galaxy S10 Lite starting at US$720 and the Galaxy Note 10 Lite at US$670. 

Of course a close price alone isn't enough to appeal to most consumers and so Samsung aggressively delivered a much wider range of features than the entry iPhone 11 to appeal to mass markets. Features that are at least a year ahead of Apple's next-gen entry iPhone.  

The infographics below present you with the full range of feature highlights. For instance both of Samsung's Lite phones offer a 6.7" display versus the 6.1" display for the entry iPhone 11.  Other Galaxy Lite specs that beat the entry iPhone 11 include providing a triple back camera; a 32MP front camera; 128GB storage and 4,500mAh battery.  Both Lite smartphones also include new and  much improved on-screen fingerprint ID and facial recognition. Lastly, the Galaxy Note10 Lite includes their S-Pen which Apple has yet to bring to market on any level iPhone.  

For the average Apple fan that owns one iPhone, Samsung's new Lite smartphones are completely irrelevant. The iPhone with iOS, Apple Pay and the entire ecosystem could never pull them away for any Galaxy phone.

However, for business people that own more than one smartphone, the new Galaxy Lite phones could be appealing as a second phone. Especially to those that like to take notes and make scribbles about a project or legal case they're working on while being mobile. 

Yet in the end, the primary focus of the new Galaxy Lite smartphones is to remain competitive with Chinese smartphone vendors such as Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo and others, especially in Third World markets. Even Apple will reportedly be addressing these markets with the SE2 (or whatever they brand it) sometime in the first half of 2020. 

Huawei is consistently in the press touting that they'll replace Samsung as the number one smartphone vendor in the world in next few years. Of course without Google and Microsoft apps it's going to be a little harder for them to achieve that goal.

More importantly, Samsung isn't going to give up the crown without a fight and that has translated in the introduction of a wide range of new phone models available at every price point in order to keep their leadership in the "volume shipment game" that Wall Street covets.