The difficult fate of the Samsung Galaxy Note line, new patents and ideas Apple, announcements by Oppo and Huawei …
Of course, the main event of this week was the presentation of the Galaxy Note. I will not dwell on the description of the smartphone in detail – over the past couple of days as many words have been said about it, how many other devices do not get it in a year. There were three articles dedicated to the announcement of Note on MR alone.
Moreover, the reaction to this announcement from viewers and commentators turned out to be no less interesting than the device itself. Everyone was expecting some kind of wow-effect from Samsung, there were a lot of rumors on the network about the presence of six or even eight gigabytes of RAM and other similar things in the device. Moreover, most commentators stated in advance that all this is sheer self-indulgence and pure marketing. But when there were no eight gigabytes of memory in the smartphone, people still felt a strong disappointment. The idea that more is better is deeply ingrained in our heads.
The Galaxy Note has enough interesting finds, and it was clearly much more difficult for Samsung to implement them than just mindlessly adding an extra couple of gigabytes of 'RAM'. But the majority of commentators are simply not interested in them, because most of them absolutely do not care about stylus functions or support for virtual reality modes. These are too specific things.
It's time to remember that the first Galaxy Note was originally developed as a niche product that unexpectedly 'shot' for everyone. First of all, simply due to the size of the screen diagonal, which at that time seemed something unthinkable, and not at all because of the stylus and other features. Yes, Note was quickly made a style icon, it received the unofficial status of a super-flagship, but the bulk of users were still interested in only two things in it – that it is big and that it is 'cool'.
As a result, Samsung fell into its own trap – there is simply nowhere to further increase the display diagonal, and such 'shovels' no longer cause any special emotions among customers. Trying to increase the number of cores in the processor or the number of megapixels in the camera module is also pointless, this will not surprise buyers either. Most of the qualitative, rather than quantitative, changes either do not catch the eye of users, or remain unclaimed by a wide audience, and it is impossible to lose face.
Last year, there was an attempt to shift the user's attention from the Note line to the Edge line. The attempt is quite logical, because for the mass buyer Edge looked like a much more balanced option, without any unnecessary frills in the form of stylus and other incomprehensible things. But this idea did not end with anything good, users did not treat Edge devices as real flagships.
Samsung had two choices this year. The first option is to fall into cheap populism, trying to continue to pretend that Note is a kind of universal option for one and all. Necessary, understandable and interesting for absolutely everyone. In this case, follow the audience's expectations and add an extra four gigabytes of RAM, insert some 40MP camera module, and so on. In fact, to reduce everything to the level of OnePlus, in which the whole emphasis is just on the numbers. Yes, all this is necessary for a smartphone as a dog's fifth leg, and it is not clear where to develop this line next year, but commentators would be delighted.
The second way is to systematically develop the strengths of the model without fear that the majority of users will not be very interested in these changes. Trying to move forward and do something new, try to look into tomorrow. Continue to conduct research and development in-house, and not just increase performance numbers. All this makes the Note interesting, unusual and in some aspects simply unparalleled … but at the same time quite a niche model. Especially considering the non-budget price. But in my opinion, the way it should be, otherwise there would be no point in the parallel existence of the Galaxy Note and Galaxy S lines. And instead of the Galaxy Note 7, one could simply release some kind of Galaxy S7 SE, which would differ from the original only in more expensive hardware.
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Apple may find itself in about the same trap this year. The company does not have any quick and easy ways to shock the fans – it is pointless to increase the screen resolution without full VR support, there is nowhere to increase the display diagonal, it was decided not to change the design of smartphones (judging by the leaks). And most of the ideas in the leaks and recent patents are too niche for everyone to like.
For example, there have long been rumors that one of the following smartphones in Apple may abandon the physical Home key. You shouldn't worry about the fingerprint sensor – it can be completely replaced by an additional touchscreen layer of the display.
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The next patent concerns the smartphone's support for two SIM cards. We are talking about Dual SIM Dual Active technology, which will allow you to freely switch between incoming calls from different SIM cards right during the current call.
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The company did not forget about the new models iPad. According to one of the recently lighted patents on the network, in one of the next versions of the tablets, a new control may appear, painfully reminiscent of the Digital Crown on Apple Watch.
It is supposed that such a wheel will allow users to quickly change the size of the text, adjust the volume of the sound, take screenshots and do a lot of other useful things. Although why a separate control element is needed for this, I still do not understand.
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It is impossible to guess which of these patents will be used in the development of new devices, and which ones will forever fall under the carpet. But one thing is for sure – we won't see any of this in iPhone 7. And in general, so far it is very likely that the new smartphones will differ from last year's devices only by the presence of a dual camera (presumably in the Plus version) and colors. Anyway, this is hinted at in the China Unicom teaser.
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In general, it will be extremely difficult to surprise buyers with the photographic component of smartphones this year Apple. Not only are there smartphones with a dual camera on the market for so long, but there are more than enough devices with excellent image quality this year.
Over the past years, I've somehow got used to the fact that Samsung is the leader in terms of camera quality in mobile phones. The majority of experts and the users themselves agreed on this. But this year the situation is fundamentally different, and it is simply impossible to quickly determine the leader.
So, DxOMark specialists divided the first place between three smartphones at once – Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, HTC 10, and Xperia X Performance. All three models scored 88 points in the test of the same name.
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Due to the excitement around the Note 7, announcements of other companies went almost unnoticed.
On August 3, the Chinese company OPPO unveiled its new smartphone under the F1s index, which it is promoting as another 'selfie smartphone'. The main feature of the device is that the resolution of its front camera exceeds the resolution of the main one.
OPPO F1s specifications are as follows:
- Support for communication standards: 4G / LTE; 3G WCDMA 850/900/2100 MHz; GSM GPRS / EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz; two slots for SIM cards
- Dimensions: 154.5x76x7.38 mm
- Weight: 160g
- Processor: eight-core, MediaTek MT6750
- Platform: ColorOS 3.0 based on Android 5.1 Lollipop
- Display: 5.5-inch, TFT IPS, 1280 × 720 pixels, 2.5D Corning Gorrilla Glass 4 protective glass
- Main camera: 13 MP with LED backlight
- Front camera: 16 MP
- Memory: 3 GB of RAM, 32 GB of internal, slot for microSD memory card
- Communications: Wi-Fi 802.11 a / b / g / n (2.4 / 5 GHz), Bluetooth v4.0, USB, GPS
- Battery: 3075 mAh
Other: Accelerometer, Proximity and lighting sensors, Electronic compass, Fingerprint scanner
The start of sales of OPPO F1s is planned first in India, then in the market of South and Southeast Asia, and then in other countries at a price of about $ 275.
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The company Huawei presented in its homeland its version of the premium phablet – Honor Note 8, equipped with a 6.6-inch Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 2K, a capacious battery (4500 mAh) and a fingerprint scanner.
Features Huawei Honor Note 8:
- Support for communication standards: 4G / LTE; 3G TD-SCDMA, WCDMA, CDMA2000; GSM GPRS / EDGE, CDMA; two slots for SIM cards
- Dimensions: 178.8×90.9×7.18 mm
- Weight: 219g
- Processor: eight-core (4×2.5 GHz Cortex A72 + 4×1.8 GHz Cortex A53 + i5 micro-core), Huawei Kirin 955
- Platform: Android 6.0 Marshmallow, EMUI 4.1
- Display: 6.6-inch, Super AMOLED, 2560 x 1440 pixels
- Main camera: 13 MP with autofocus, optical image stabilization system, color backlight
- Front camera: 8 MP
- Memory: 4 GB of RAM, 32/64/128 GB of built-in, slot for microSD memory card
- Communications: Wi-Fi 802.11 a / b / g / n / ac (2.4 / 5 GHz), Bluetooth м4.2 + BLE, USB 2.0, GPS / GLONASS / Beidou, audio jack 3, 5 mm
- Battery: 4500 mAh, Li-Pol
- Other: Fingerprint scanner, Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Electronic compass, Hall sensor, Light and proximity sensors
The younger model with 32GB of internal storage will cost customers 2299 Yuan (~ $ 347), while the 64GB version will cost 2499 Yuan (~ $ 377), and the 128GB model will cost 2799 Yuan (~ $ 422).
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