Rumour had it that the Samsung Galaxy S22 will be announced at Samsung's Unpacked event, which Samsung has now confirmed as scheduled for 8 February 2022 to Korea's DDaily.

That's a little earlier in the annual cycle than usual, with the rumour mill suggesting that pre-orders will open on 9 February, with pre-purchased handsets arriving to customers as soon as 21 February, with in-store sales commencing 24 February.

You'll note that the latest of those dates precedes Mobile World Congress 2022, which is set to commence in Barcelona from 28 February 2022. A good platform for Samsung to show-off its new devices, no doubt, but not the site for a launch event - more a showcase of the Galaxy ecosystem as a whole.

There's been a lot of focus on the Galaxy S22, as it looks to be the handset that finally lays the Note series to bed, as the former is believed to function with an S Pen stylus. It's thought this will be solely the reserve of the larger S22 Ultra handset though, with the smaller S22 and S22 Plus handsets not benefitting.

That the event is so soon following the launch of the Galaxy S21 FE (Fan Edition) is interesting, too, which seems more likely the result of delays in the supply chain rather than a pre-planned arrival.

The S22 is expected to step well beyond its lower-spec FE handset, though, with the use of Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 platform, or Exynos 2200 in the Korean market.

Other details we've wrapped into our Galaxy S22 rumours feature, detailing the past few months of build-up to the now imminent launch. Check that out for full details of what we might expect come 8 February.