Big news and big phones at Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2015

Samsung gave the world a brief first glimpse at the Gear S2 smartwatch this morning before saying that we'd have to wait until September for the full announcement. But apparently we don't have to wait until then to actually see what the watch looks like: the Gear S2 is already being shown off by Samsung in a fashion shoot, of all things. Samsung has a weird history with fashion wherein it continually partners with high fashion companies to make tacky accessories and the public continually facepalms; this time, it's just partnered with fashion figures to put together a photo shoot showcasing the new phones it announced today, the Galaxy Note 5 and the S6 Edge+, as well as its upcoming smartwatch.

Read next: The Samsung Gear S2 watch review.

Samsung's newest Note comes to the US this month, but sales may not expand much beyond that. Multiple publications in London are reporting that the Galaxy Note 5 won't be coming to Europe this year. Instead, Samsung appears to be focusing on the Galaxy S6 Edge+ for that market. The two phones are nearly identical, save for their unique features — the Edge+'s edge and the Note's stylus — but not offering the Note 5 certainly seems like a strange choice. The Note basically defined the phablet, and it's one of Samsung's strongest lines. According to the BBC, focusing on the Edge+ was entirely a marketing choice. We've reached out to Samsung for more detail on its Note 5 launch plans.

Over the past few years, Samsung has hit it big with big phones. In fact, you can thank it — or curse it — for making flagship smartphones all get so darn huge. But this year, things have changed: now Apple is in the game, and Samsung needs to do something interesting to keep customers coming back.

Its solution? Build two new phones. At an event called Unpacked this morning, Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Note 5 and the Galaxy S6 Edge+. They're similar phones in similar packages, but they're Samsung's plays to get attention before the next iPhone comes out. On top of that, Samsung unveiled a mobile payments system and a hardware keyboard add-on. It's a series of strong announcements that should give Samsung fans a lot to look forward to.

Read next: The Samsung Gear S2 smartwatch review.

During today's unveiling for the Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 Edge+, Samsung revealed an interesting, potentially powerful new feature for video makers. Both phones will tout a feature called Live Broadcast, which will allow users broadcast a live video stream from their phones directly to YouTube.

Live Broadcast appears to be Samsung's play against popular live streaming apps like Periscope and Meerkat. The feature is built directly into the native camera app, and it allows you to schedule schedule streams or push them live immediately. Stream are up to 1080p resolution at 60fps. It should be noted, though, that there's no social integration within the camera app, so you can't see comments. Also, older phones like the Sony Xperia series from years past have touted a similar feature. Still, Live Broadcast could be a game changer, as it could make the feature a must-have for manufacturers going forward.

Do you love styluses but hate not having something on your writing utensil to compulsively play with? Then Samsung has some very good news for you: the Note 5's stylus — the S Pen, as it would really like us all to call it — has a clicky back that you can keep on clicking endlessly. It's basically like having a retractable pen, only there's no tip to retract or unretract when you press it. That said, the clickiness does have some purpose; the S Pen's slot inside the phone appears to be spring loaded, and you need to click the pen's back to make it pop out. It's definitely a nicer way of handling the stylus than having to drag it out with a fingernail. For more on the Note 5, see our full writeup.

If there's one thing that's missed more than anything else in today's smartphones, it might be the hardware keyboard. Once a staple on every smartphone produced, the physical keyboard has all but disappeared, showing up on a handful of BlackBerry devices that no one actually buys. Some companies, like the Ryan Seacrest-backed Typo, have tried to bring the hardware keyboard to modern phones, but without much success.

Never content to sit on the sidelines, Samsung is now trying its hand at blending yesterday's hardware keyboard with today's modern, slab-style phones. A new accessory for the just-announced Galaxy Note 5 and S6 Edge+ brings back those tactile keys that so many people have long forgotten.

Samsung is officially taking the wraps off of the Galaxy Note 5 today, the latest in its flagship line of Note phablets. The Note 5 is best described as a blend of the Galaxy S6 introduced earlier this year and the Note 4 from last year. It's a familiar shape and size, and it's likely to be the best Note Samsung's ever made.

That's important for Samsung, because while it essentially defined the large smartphone (or phablet) market, it's seen its market share and profits get chewed away from both Apple and its larger iPhones as well as lower-end Android makers. The Galaxy S6 might be the everyman's smartphone from Samsung, but the Note line has always represented the pinnacle of Samsung's smartphone lineup, and it carries a lot of weight on its shoulders.

Until recently, talking about mobile payments without using words like "confusing" or "mess" meant essentially lying. A confounding mix of banks, carriers, manufacturers, point-of-sale systems, and all the competing interests behind those businesses served to make paying with your phone unreliable. Those problems are finally beginning to fade away thanks to wider adoption and simpler back-end systems, but they're not gone yet.

Even with Apple Pay, Google Wallet, and the soon-to-be-launched Android Pay, consumers can't be entirely sure that the little NFC icon they see at registers will guarantee that they can tap to pay. Samsung thinks it has a solution for that last problem, though, and predictably enough it's called "Samsung Pay."

Samsung released two phones in March that featured some radical shifts in design philosophy: the Galaxy S6, and the Galaxy S6 Edge. Both echoed the look and size of Apple's iPhone 6, and are still arguably among the best phones on the market. Now, just five months later Samsung is pushing one of those sleek-looking phones into phablet territory with the introduction of the Galaxy S6 Edge+.

If you’ve held or even used an S6 Edge, you might be surprised at how easy it is to mistake the new, bigger version for its smaller predecessor. Samsung managed to fit a larger 5.7-inch version of the S6 Edge’s quad HD AMOLED screen in the new phone without drastically increasing the overall size of the device — the S6 Edge+ is just 12mm longer and 5mm wider than the S6 Edge. It’s even a hair thinner, measuring just 6.9mm compared to the 7.0mm-thick S6 Edge.