About fashion for 'flagships +', plans Asus, unexpected move LG, 'Wonder of the World' by Huawei, strange statements Microsoft and other news.
The world is constantly changing, but keeping track of these changes, being in the center of events, is very difficult. In hindsight, it is easy to speculate about which events influenced the development of the industry, and which turned out to be completely unimportant. But who a few years ago could have imagined that Apple would show the world an 'overgrown photo frame', which would be the beginning of the era of tablets? Would a device with a five-inch screen be considered a 'regular phone', and some will even complain that the screen is too small? But everything was happening before our eyes, and purely theoretically, anyone could figure out where the wind was blowing and predict what the world of mobile technology would be like in five years.
While analysts are trying to understand the causes and consequences of the events taking place, ordinary people are simply looking for patterns. The exit iPhone turned everything upside down, and then the exit iPad also had the effect of a bomb? That's it, the pattern has been found. So the next break in the template should also be expected from Apple. And you can ignore everything else, where there is everyone else before the famous company from Cupertino.
To me, this situation is somewhat reminiscent of a bearded anecdote:
A conversation between an elderly grandmother and a student:
– Tell me, son, are there miracles?
– No, they don't.
– Well, a man climbs the church, falls, and not a single scratch. Isn't it a miracle?
– Just luck.
– He climbs a second time, and again falls, and again nothing?
– It is an accident.
– For the third time …
– And this is already a habit.
They say that lightning does not strike the same place twice. In fact, it beats, and how. Especially in a tall oak, surrounded by only one young growth. But this same growth tends to grow. Slowly and almost imperceptibly, but inevitably. Some trees will dry up, some will be cut down for firewood, but sooner or later, competitors will appear at the oak burned by lightning. Lightning will have a serious reason to think about which of them to make happy with their presence this time, and the long-suffering oak will breathe a sigh of relief.
So a man who loves jumping from a window should think about how much more his luck will last. And it makes sense for you and me not to forget to look around, so as not to miss a new miracle, this time happened to someone else.
HTC
As you already know, the other day the company HTC officially announced the smartphone HTC One M9 Plus. At the moment we are talking only about sales in Asia, but I would not swear. The company has already had cases when exclusive models eventually hit the markets of other countries, and more than once. Взять тот же HTC Gratia, ранее известный как HTC Aria (эксклюзив AT&T). Or 'Japanese' HTC J Butterfly, which after a few months still appeared on the shelves of our stores.
I will not dwell on the smartphone itself in detail, because a separate material is devoted to this topic on MR. Much more interesting is the very fact of its existence. Especially if it does get to the world markets.
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HTC One M9 Plus. 'All the best to the Chinese' |
It seems that manufacturers have a nasty habit of releasing 'regular flagships' and 'improved flagships'. The instigator here was unwittingly Samsung, whose Galaxy Note was unexpectedly successful. In all respects, it should have been a niche model, interesting for avid geeks and rare artists, but in practice it turned out to be a real hit. And all would be fine, but only if Samsung's flagships differ from each other quite strongly, then other companies do not always succeed in such a trick.
Looking at the lineup of some companies, it gradually begins to seem that the 'early' flagships like the Galaxy S or HTC One are becoming a kind of standard available to everyone. And the really expensive and exclusive devices are the 'late' flagships, which are announced with a certain delay. And it all seems to be great … until you look at the price.
Earlier, many companies also announced a powerful smartphone at the beginning of the year at CES or MWC, but did not pass it off as a flagship. For example, you can take the same HTC Incredible S. At the beginning of the year it was the most powerful solution in the lineup HTC, but everyone understood that the real flagship would be announced a few months later, and HTC The Incredible S is just an 'above average' machine. Accordingly, its price was by no means 'flagship'. At that time, it cost 24,000 against the standard flagship price of 30,000. But now the situation is reversed. Nobody even thinks to drop the price of the 'affordable' flagships announced at the beginning of the year, instead the price of the 'advanced' models is growing.
I do not know, but in my opinion, when people buy a flagship device, they believe that this is the best that the company is capable of at the moment. In fact, this is exactly what they pay such a substantial amount for. And when it turns out that a month later a kind of 'flagship +' comes out, for which the company initially kept a number of 'goodies', then the owners of the newly purchased flagship are not very happy. Of course, if we are not talking about some kind of operator model for a particular country.
In conclusion, I cannot but share one funny picture on the topic of news. Although it is fair to say that the free space under the screen is an engineering necessity, and not at all a designer's idea.
ASUS
For a long time, ASUS stubbornly did not associate with smartphones among the mass buyer. Laptops or, say, motherboards are another matter. But now the situation is changing, and, in my opinion, rather quickly.
Most of my friends are more or less versed in mobile technology. There are not many inveterate geeks among them, but they try to follow the novelties on the smartphone market. A couple of years ago, a real epidemic swept among them HTC, HTC Desire S or HTC Incredible S was almost every second. Now something similar is happening with Asus, it is not difficult to see a person with Zenfone. Of course, this is too small a sample, and I will not dare to draw any conclusions based on it. But things in this price segment Asus are clearly doing well.
This is evidenced by the company's plans to sell 30 million smartphones this year. True, China is still a priority area, which should account for a third of all supplies.
Link to news
I like the mobile devices of this company very much. And the point is not only in almost 'clean' Android with switchable branded 'chips' or a good price. Unlike many other devices, they have their own face. Their design can not be called catchy, but they cannot be confused with competitors' products. Something similar was demonstrated at one time HTC, and also in the middle price segment.
By the way, the same Zenfone 2 has already won the iF Design Award 2015 for an excellent combination of design, ergonomics and functionality.
Let me remind you that the characteristics of the smartphone are as follows:
- Support for communication standards: 4G FDD LTE / TDD LTE (150/50 Mbs); 3G WCDMA / HSPA + (42 / 5.76 Mbit / s) 850/900/1900/2100 MHz, TD-SCDMA 1900/2100 MHz; GSM GPRS / EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz; two slots for SIM cards
- Dimensions: 152.5 x 77.2 x 10.9-3.9mm
- Weight: 170 g
- Processor: 1.8 / 2.3 GHz, Quad Core, Intel Atom Z3560 / Z3580 64-bit instructions
- Platform: Android 5.0 Lollipop, ASUS ZenUI
- Display: 5.5-inch, IPS, 1920 x 1080 pixels, Corning Gorilla Glass 3
- Camera: 13 MP with autofocus and dual bi-color LED backlight; support Full HD video recording with image stabilization
- Front camera: 5 MP
- Memory: 2/4 GB RAM (LPDDR3), 16/32/64 GB built-in, slot for microSD memory cards (up to 64 GB)
- Communications: Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, GPS / A-GPS / GLONASS, 3.5 mm audio jack
- Battery: Li-Pol, 3000 mAh
- Other: accelerometer, proximity and lighting sensors, gyroscope, digital compass, Hall sensor
Link to news
Sony
Competition is great and I sincerely wish Asus continued success. The more interesting devices there are in the middle price segment, the better for everyone. Maybe it will give some thought to some A-brands that don't pay too much attention to it. It's just a pity that sometimes the world of mobile technology begins to behave in full accordance with Newton's laws. If one of the market players confidently moves forward, then someone else at the same time loses his position at the same speed.
At the moment, this is Sony, which cannot decide what to do with its mobile division. Not so long ago, the president of Sony, Kazuo Hirai, announced that he did not rule out its sale, and now marketing director Katrin Cherry says that there is no reason to doubt the bright future of the mobile division.
I would like to think that Mrs. Catherine Cherry is right. But practice shows that the loud statements of marketers can not always be trusted.
Link to news
LG
However, marketing is also different. And sometimes it takes on very unusual forms. Take, for example, the company LG, which promises to distribute 4,000 G4 smartphones LG to its fans almost a month before the official announcement. True, smartphones are only given for 30 days, but that's not bad either. The lucky ones will be selected at random from all users who left comments on the website LG and in the official groups on social networks. This Wednesday, the action will start in Korea, and a little later 15 more countries will join it. However, the CIS countries are not included in the list, so all fans reading this digest LG can breathe out.
To be honest, it's not entirely clear how the company is going to deal with leaks. NDA agreements are great, but among the thousands of users, there are clearly those who decide to ignore such trifles. It is for journalists who are constantly working in this area, in case of violation of the NDA, there can be big problems. And ordinary people who miraculously received a smartphone for a test will be tempted to spit on everything for the sake of momentary glory.
Maybe this is the basis of the calculation? Cases when companies themselves orchestrated the leaks they need are by no means rare. And a fan who gets his hands on the long-awaited flagship a month before its announcement, in any case, will be in seventh heaven and will almost certainly begin to fiercely praise him. But the presentation will then turn out to be deliberately boring and completely uninteresting, by definition it will not work to surprise the journalists with something. In any case, it is definitely not worth counting on some kind of 'wow effect' after that.
Link to news
Chinese companies
The “premium Chinese” are also not idle, and thanks to them, spring promises to be quite interesting. For example, Huawei is preparing to present us with some kind of 'wonder of light'. And here the concept of “shine” is clearly meant, and not a synonym for the word “peace”. Presumably we are talking about the flagship Huawei P8, but there is no official confirmation of this information.
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The presentation will take place in London on the 15th of this month, while you can watch a beautiful and rather unusual teaser. Surely there is some sense in all this, but this is a mystery to me. Maybe you have some ideas?
Link to news
Apparently, the new items from Xiaomi are not long to wait either. However, this time we are talking about a tablet – the second generation M iPad. Rumors about him have been circulating on the network for a long time, and then the company has just reduced the price of the first generation of the tablet. However, there is no reliable information about the characteristics of M iPad 2.
On the other hand, iron in this case is far from the most important thing. I did not manage to turn M iPad in my hands, but judging by the reviews, the problem there was just in the software, not the hardware. The tablet version MIUI was too raw, which noticeably spoiled the impression of the device. I don't know how things are with this now, but I really hope that the company has drawn conclusions from past mistakes. Sometimes from a dizzying takeoff to an equally dizzying fall is one step. And competitors have been sharpening their teeth for a long time and are waiting for Akela to finally miss.
Link to news
There is also no information about the date of the announcement of the Oppo Find 9. But judging by the latest teasers, it's just around the corner.
First of all, very interesting body color options are striking. Most likely, we are talking about replaceable panels or about some Chinese analogue of the Moto Maker service. Also worth noting is the fingerprint sensor on the back of the smartphone, as well as the 'dual' main camera reminiscent of the HTC Dual Camera in HTC One (M9) and HTC One M9 Plus.
The smartphone is rumored to be based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 and get 4GB of RAM. The diagonal size of the display will be 5.5 inches.
And for those who doubt the quality of Chinese products, the company has prepared a short video demonstrating one of the stages of the smartphone test. Strength test with a 25 kg press, falling from a height of 1.25 meters, etc. However, Find 9 is clearly not presented in the video.
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Link to news
A little offtopic
On April 4, the company Microsoft celebrated its fortieth anniversary. Like many young players in today's market, 40 years ago, no one took this company seriously at that time. But over time, she became a real giant in the world of software, which changed it once and for all.
However, the famous OS itself Windows appeared much later, exactly ten years after the company was founded. And even then she did not gain any special popularity. The real revolution was made only by Windows 95, which appeared ten years later. Funny pattern, isn't it?
Ten years later, the company was planning another revolution, this time in the tablet market. In 2004, its representatives said that the development of a new version of the OS for tablets is in full swing, and that by 2005 we will see the first results. And it is in this year that the capabilities of tablets and laptops can finally unite. But alas, this time the ten-year cycle failed, and no revolution happened.
And now I am very interested in what awaits us this year. Maybe the promise made ten years ago will finally come true?
However, so far there is not much hope for this. In any case, in the video leaked to the network, which shows the work of a smartphone with Windows 10, there is nothing particularly remarkable. In any case, at first glance, you shouldn't seriously judge something from a short video.
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Link to news
But innovations Windows 10 are far from the only thing that the company can surprise us with. One of the leaders Microsoft recently announced that one day Windows may well turn into an open source OS. In theory, anyway.
Well, this event would really be worthy of both the company's fortieth anniversary and a ten-year cycle of significant events. But I would rather believe that the company's employees have learned to fly or walk through walls. It's not that there is necessarily something wrong with open source. It's just that for Microsoft this step is as wild as for Apple trying to go to Android.
On the other hand, this company loves loud slogans and beautiful words. For example, at the peak of Firefox's popularity in Microsoft, they wanted to create a community of Internet Explorer users that could influence the development of their browser to the same extent. Nobody seemed to think about how this is possible. It is quite possible that some pieces of code in the company will actually be opened, but the open OS itself Windows will not become from this.
Link to news
The last 'offtopic' topic concerns the rental system iPad, which has recently been practiced by a library in Philadelphia.
Special machines issue iPad to all students and visitors of the library for up to four hours. A set of programs is pre-installed on the tablets, which, according to the organizers of this project, will be enough for most children and adults.
I honestly can't imagine why I would rent a tablet for four hours. In electronics stores, such an idea would have come into place, the opportunity to evaluate a smartphone, tablet or laptop before buying is expensive. But why it is needed in the library is a mystery to me. Moreover, if you consider that there is a similar service for the rental of full-fledged laptops. Would you take advantage of such an offer?
Link to news
