Thinner, faster, bigger! This race has been going on for years and everything was thrown on the sacrificial altar: unique design, unusual functions, interesting form factors and even common sense. In this issue we will talk about old and new smartphones, leaks about Sony Xperia Z4 and LG G4, dubious ventures Microsoft, unique packaging Apple, template design, cons SGS6 and homemade pocket smartwatches.
Foreword
Yesterday, in honor of April 1st, several old reviews of iconic smartphones were posted on the Mobile-Review homepage. Of course, they no longer represent any practical value. But for me personally, it was still interesting to re-read them.
And you know what? Looking at pictures of the same Motorola V3, Nokia N91, Sony Ericsson K750i or Asus P525, I do not find them ugly at all. Yes, it’s funny to read phrases from the series “the phone is very thin (slightly less than 14 mm)” or learn from the review that the 4.3-inch screen is “very large”, but this does not affect the impression of the devices themselves.
I think that the majority of people, even if they were at the edge of those times, will completely agree with me. They were beautiful, comfortable and at the same time completely different devices. Each of them had not only their own face but also their own character. Or, if you like, your soul. And the fact that they resembled not so much 'shovels' as 'bricks' does not matter.
Can the new Galaxy give as much emotion as the old man Motorola e398 once gave a buyer? Which, even in its best days, was not considered a flagship model? I do not know. It's not just about smartphones, it's about ourselves. People do not get younger with age, and technical toys are slowly becoming boring. It is impossible to objectively compare the sensations in the distant 'then' and the present 'now', and all these endless games of 'if only if only', by definition, do not make sense.
But all this once again made me think – did we make the right choice? Was it worth changing quality for quantity, unique design for an ultra-thin body, and bright ideas for 'parrots' in synthetic tests?
Yes, the devices are not created by you and me. Engineers and designers of eminent companies hardly read geek forums all night long, listening to other people's complaints about life. But here we vote with a ruble for this or that idea. Old school smartphones didn't die out overnight. And buyers had a choice of which development model to support. In this regard, the entire mobile industry is a kind of giant Kickstarter, where no project can develop without the participation of buyers. Yes, here, it happens, they cheat. Or they make mistakes themselves, foolishly failing a promising project, simply not calculating their strength. And money, often, is invested not so much in the product itself as in its advertising. But in the long term, the decisions are made not so much by companies as by customers. Manufacturers propose ideas, and we approve or reject them.
At some stage, the race for the display diagonal was justified, the battle for the power of iron was necessary, and the rejection of additional form factors was a tribute to the fickle fashion. But the game in “the thinnest \ powerful \ fast \ lightest phone” dragged on. Nobody remembers that all this was started for a reason, but for the sake of very specific practical goals. “I’m fighting just because I’m fighting” – this phrase of Mr. Porthos can perfectly describe what is happening with the industry now.
Price of virtual parrots
Best the enemy of the good. And in the pursuit of beautiful numbers, common sense usually remains the losers. An example is the battery life test carried out by the phonearena resource. We are especially interested in the results of the SGS5 and SGS6 tests, which many proudly call the flagships of the world Android.
According to the test, under the average scenario of use, the SGS6 lives on one charge even less than the SGS5. Yes, he got a screen with a higher resolution, and the battery capacity, on the contrary, is slightly less than that of its predecessor. And it charges almost twice as fast. And this decrease cannot be called critical. Nevertheless, battery life is one of those indicators that directly affect the usability of a smartphone in real life. And the fact that it not only does not grow, but even slightly decreases, is not at all happy.
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The second example is the upcoming Sony Xperia Z4. Although there is no official confirmation of this data, several sources announced at once that it will use the Snapdragon 810 processor. The same processor, which, despite the large number of 'parrots' in synthetic tests, has serious overheating problems. What everyone could see once again with the example of HTC One M9, from which it can turn out to be quite a decent frying pan.
By the way, it was recently reported that the company HTC solved the problems with overheating of the M9 in the new firmware. Most likely – by lowering the frequency of the processor, after all interested parties have already checked how cool it is. And published the test results on the pages of sites and blogs.
In addition, a screenshot from the benchmark recently leaked to the network, which shows the rest of the characteristics of the Z4. Namely, this is a 5.1-inch screen with a resolution of 1920 × 1080 pixels, 3 GB of RAM and a 20 MP main camera.
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Gradually, this whole race for numbers begins to tire even the buyers themselves. Who just love to know exactly which phone is 'fastest', 'most powerful' and so on.
Take, for example, the success that Pebble demonstrated for the second time, raising about $ 20 million for the production of Pebble Time using Kickstarter. For Kickstarter, this is a record and at the moment Pebble Time is the most successfully funded project in the entire history of this service.
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In my opinion, the success of the project can be explained very simply. For many buyers, this is a kind of cry from the heart – 'Give us finally what we really need! No overheating processors or mega cool screens needed! Make just a good device for living people, with which it will be convenient for all of us to work! '
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However, there are exceptions among A-brands. So, LG G4 remains a black sheep in this world of excess characteristics. Anyway, according to rumors. Instead of the eight-core Snapdragon 810, it will receive a six-core Snapdragon 808 processor (four Cortex-A53 cores, two Cortex-A57 cores, Adreno 418 graphics accelerator). Will users notice the difference in performance? To be honest, I doubt it very much. But they would have noticed the heat from the hot body for sure.
The rest of the characteristics of the alleged flagship are as follows: a 5.5-inch screen with a resolution of 2560 × 1440, 3 GB of RAM and a 16 MP main camera.
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However, it may turn out that we are not talking about the flagship itself, but about its budget version. It will be possible to unambiguously say something only after the official presentation, which will take place on April 28 this year.
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Age of templates
Interestingly, smartphones LG are often referred to as faceless and lament that they lack a striking design. But it always seemed to me that it was not easy to confuse them with competitors' products. And although the appearance of the flagships LG is not amazing, the work of the designers is clearly visible in them.
Alas, this is not the case for most other smartphones. In recent years, many companies have come up with one simple rule – 'if you want a good design – copy iPhone'. Scrolling through the news feeds of profile resources and looking at the photos of the next “unusual Chinese device” you suddenly realize that there is simply no desire to even grasp its characteristics and find out the price. You don't expect anything good from a clone initially.
Just for the sake of experiment, I just opened w3bsit3-dns.com and without looking poked at the first page of the news feed that came across. The result was not long in coming – yet another phone with an 'aluminum body' and 'USB Type-C' port, this time called the JiaYu S4. I will give a photo below.
It seems that the two famous Samsung designers are multiplying by fission, and at least as fast as Agent Smith. And by now they have already filled everything.
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On the other hand, small companies are understandable. Take a step to the side – and right there you will be booed by the crowd, which knows better than any other designers how 'right' and how 'not right'.
Even the big A brands try to experiment with design very carefully. These elements in the style of the next iPhone can be added without even thinking, but something else – just weighing everything a hundred times, measuring two hundred times, and as a result, nothing from the hackneyed template and without cutting it off.
Over time, each company has its own set of stamps that they use to create a 'unique design' from an existing template for a particular country. For example, Japanese and Chinese versions of flagships can usually be distinguished at a glance. Buyers in every country will receive a design they are accustomed to, which they cannot swear at. But in other markets, such versions of smartphones do not often fall, which automatically saves the company from the claims of 'unprepared' users.
You don't have to go far for an example – just a few days ago a smartphone HTC One E9 + was presented in Asia, by which you can easily notice the very 'Chinese charm' that the designers have added to their standard layout. In this case, this is an unusual design of the camera, which will surely cause rejection among most of the buyers from the CIS countries. And in vain – in my opinion, the device looks interesting.
And here, for example, 'Japanese charm' performed by HTC – old man HTC J Butterfly. In our latitudes, this type of design is usually much more popular, although it would seem that the difference between these two smartphones will have to be looked for with a microscope. But again, we are rarely given to enjoy it. Although this particular smartphone even got to our market in the end, for which we should thank the local representative office HTC. But at such a time and at such a price that it was obviously not of particular interest to buyers.
However, this is all a matter of the past. If we go back to HTC One E9 +, it should be noted that it has a complete order with the technical characteristics. The smartphone is equipped with a 5.5-inch display with a resolution of 2K, support for 5.1 surround audio, Dolby Audi o and HTC BoomSound technology, 20 MP main camera and UltraPixel front camera, as well as a set of programs for image processing HTC Eye Experience.
Other specifications HTC One E9 +:
- Support of communication standards: (SIM1) GSM GPRS / EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz; 3G WCDMA / HSPA 850/900/1900/2100 MHz, TD-SCDMA 1900/2000 MHz; 4G LTE FDD 850/900/1800/2100/2600 MHz, TD-LTE 1900/2300/2600 MHz; (SIM2) GSM GPRS / EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz; two slots for SIM cards
- Dimensions: 156.5 x 76.5 x 7.49mm
- Weight: 150g
- Processor: 2 GHz, octa-core, MT6795M with support for 64-bit instructions
- Platform: Android c HTC Sense
- Display: 5.5-inch, 2560 × 1440 pixels
- Camera: 20 MP
- Front camera: UltraPixel
- Memory: 2 GB of RAM, 16 GB of built-in, slot for microSD memory cards (up to 128 GB)
- Communications: Wi-Fi 802.11 a / b / g / n / ac, Bluetooth v4.1, NFC, USB, GPS
- Battery: 2800 mAh
- Other: Accelerometer, Light and proximity sensors, Gyroscope, Electronic compass, Magnetometer
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Another interesting piece of news is the dismissal of the lead designer HTC. According to rumors – due to too heated disputes with the sales department. I wonder if he was in favor of a brighter design of the devices or, on the contrary, was he against?
Great times RT @scroyle: blast from the past. @JonahABecker good luck on your next step. @Claudibus good luck @htc pic.twitter.com/WHFneanMRb
– Jonah Becker (@JonahABecker) March 27, 2015
Either way, the company's leadership team is changing very quickly and it will be interesting to see if this somehow affects the new flagship that we will see next year. The company will not endlessly exploit the design HTC One M8?
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Among those who finally despaired of seeing original design in modern mobile devices, there were people who decided not to give up. Among them there are enough journalists of well-known resources.
For example, how do you look at turning a smart watch into a pocket watch? The editors of Android Central liked this idea and decided to try it. All they needed was a chain from a real pocket watch and a 3D printed part.
In my opinion, it turned out very impressive. What do you think?
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While some users are finishing with a file (sometimes in a figurative, and sometimes in a literal sense of the word) design of mobile devices, designers of large companies are doing something of their own. For example, they are developing a revolutionary packaging design.
Take, for example, the company's latest patent Apple. The company is clearly concerned that their packaging is not simple enough, functional and intuitive. Therefore, the new version of the box will have a transparent top cover, which will immediately allow you to appreciate the beauty of the new iPhone or iPad. And at the same time, set it up without leaving the checkout. You just need to bring your past Apple device to the package, press a special button, and hop – all your contacts, photos and other personal data are already inside.
I only wonder what the point is. Using your tablet without getting it out of the box? Or transfer your contacts to the phone on the store counter? Well, the designers Apple know better.
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(Un) healthy competition
Competition and rivalry are two more things that are only good in certain doses. When you start thinking about someone else's success even more than about your own, or you try to lick off all the achievements of a competitor without looking, this is already a bell. Moreover, it is very disturbing.
But for the market this is already the norm – copy first, then figure it out. Or do not understand at all, but just copy. After all, since people buy it, it means someone needs it.
One such strange piece of news is the plans Microsoft to release a competitor for Google's Chromebooks. It seems to me that you could just as well compete with Firefox OS, Ubuntu Phone, smartphones on Tizen and other semi-mythical characters. At the moment, they pose about the same threat to the company.
On the other hand, the appearance of cheap laptops on Windows 10, the price of which will be only about $ 150, will not make anyone worse. In any case, if they show a more or less sane level of performance, and do not step on the rake of the gradually dying out family of netbooks.
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The second piece of news is even stranger and frankly resembles a 'duck'. On the other hand, you never know what to expect from Microsoft … and most often in a negative sense of the word. If a company has two options: sensible and completely ridiculous, then rest assured, it will honestly try to go second.
According to the Neowin resource, Microsoft are actively working on a way to launch Android applications on Windows smartphones. Moreover, allegedly, this information came from several independent sources at once.
It sounds like complete savagery, which will finally put an end to the OS from Microsoft, demonstrate to the whole world the company's 'successes' in this field and the secondary nature of mobile solutions at Windows. On the other hand, the infamous Nokia X phone, which was positioned as a 'smartphone for launching Android applications', was developed by Nokia, and at a time when, in fact, the actions of the Finnish company were almost completely controlled by the 'older brother' .
Maybe this is the fate prepared for the current version of the mobile Windows? Become an 'OS to run Android applications'? And in the meantime, will the company itself try to start everything from scratch again and in a couple of years will release some kind of 'Spartan OS'?
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Buyers love to compare their choices with those of others. And this also brings its own note of madness to the overall picture. Be sure that any new flagship of any well-known company will be immediately measured from all sides, compared with the parameters of competitors and a couple of hundred of various tests will be carried out. Most of the time, none of these tests say anything at all, but people love it. It is generally accepted that this is the very objective information that speaks about the convenience of working with this or that apparatus.
For example, here is a speed test iPhone 6 and SGS6 Edge.
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What conclusion can be drawn after watching the video? That Samsung designers should stop squinting to the side Apple. When it comes to performance, all these explorer games don't mean anything. Although for the pride of owners of devices of the corresponding brand, of course, very pleasant.
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