About the main events of the past week – announcements Meizu and HTC, as well as about love for products Apple, touch keyboards for laptops, Samsung Galaxy S7 problems and more …
Smartphones HTC have always put more pressure on emotions than bare logic. Even in the best years for the company, its smartphones could not boast of uncompromising hardware and precise technical specifications. Questions were raised by the quality of the cameras, the battery life, the implementation of multitasking, or something else. Smartphones HTC have always been very uneven, but this did not hinder their popularity. And there really was something to love about them, just remember the same HTC Sense with many useful innovations, which were not even close to 'clean' Android. Or constant experimentation with form factors, design and case materials.
It's just that from some point on, the company got too involved in innovation and originality. HTC stubbornly went their own way, not paying attention to the fact that it takes them further and further away from the real needs and wishes of users. Perhaps the climax was HTC One m8, which almost entirely consisted of controversial decisions. And not even to say that frankly bad – just strange and incomprehensible. We were told for a long time about the importance of a high-quality camera in a modern smartphone, and then they demonstrated another 4 MP module with UltraPixel. We happily talked about ergonomics, but for some reason they took out the power button to the very top end, and placed a useless strip with the corporate logo under the screen. We tried to convince of the convenience HTC Sense, but at the same time they diligently littered the shell with a bunch of unnecessary pre-installed applications and firmly glued the screen HTC BlinkFeed to the desktop. Smartphones HTC continued to delight the fans, but these very fans became less and less every year. It would seem that it is already clear that this path leads nowhere – but the company stubbornly continued the race on last year's rake.
Many associate these decisions with Peter Chow, for whom it was already a matter of honor to prove the success of HTC One. To some extent, he himself tied his fate with the success of this line, announcing that if the flagships HTC One do not regain the people's love, he will give way to the executive director of his colleagues. And it is quite possible that he really tried to prove to everyone that he was right, even when it became obvious that the company was on the wrong course. In any case, the announced resignation was much delayed.
According to the Wall Street Journal, for the first time, Peter Chou announced his readiness to leave the CEO's post back in 2013, before the announcement of HTC One M7. This smartphone HTC did not help to regain its former popularity, the idea of an 'innovative' 4MP camera caused only bewilderment among buyers, and many analysts seriously believed that by the end of the year the Taiwanese company would have a new director. In practice, nothing of the kind happened. Moreover, a year later history repeated itself almost one to one – another HTC One, another 'revolutionary' 4MP camera, another slogan about a bright future … and again the absence of any loud success.
A year later HTC One (by that time already with the M9 index) still received a normal camera, albeit on the third try. As if justifying the controversial decisions with UltraPixel, HTC decided to use a module with as much as 20 MP. In the same year, Peter Chou still leaves the post of CEO.
The current flagship HTC promises to be serious bug fixes. On the one hand, it is a full-fledged successor to the HTC One series. On the other hand, blind copying of old solutions in an attempt to prove something to someone is out of the question. This is a kind of rethinking of the familiar concept, which is also emphasized by the name of the flagship, from which the word 'One' disappeared.
The changes affected almost everything: design, shell, hardware. The set of control elements has changed, the hated strip with the logo HTC has disappeared, Sense has got rid of some of the unnecessary garbage, and the smartphone looks prettier. The stereo speakers have undergone changes, in the new smartphone one of them is 'sharpened' for reproducing low frequencies and is something like a portable subwoofer.
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And most importantly, the camera has become better … at least, according to preliminary information.
The only pity is that deleting three letters from the name is much easier than coping with human memory. And HTC is now in the same position as the shepherd boy from the famous story, who loved to shout in vain 'Wolves, wolves!'. Artem writes that at first glance, in terms of photos HTC 10 is in no way inferior to eminent competitors like Samsung. And intellectually, I understand perfectly well that he is most likely right. Moreover, DXOMark experts came to the same conclusions, who rated the quality of the camera at 88 points out of 100. Let me remind you that this is exactly how much the SGS7 camera received.
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Here are just before my eyes stubborn footage from presentations over the past couple of years, where smartphones HTC One time and again tear iPhone, like Tuzik a heating pad. Or staged photos from MWC three years ago, which really caused fierce delight. And after that, the next stories about the most advanced mobile camera in history HTC begin to sound like a mockery. In recent years, there have been too many beautiful words and too little action.
In order to regain the attention and trust of users, the company needs not just a good smartphone, but something really amazing. Time will tell how much HTC 10 is drawn to this role.
HTC 10. First Look
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If we talk about cameras in smartphones, then even the market leaders have enough problems. Fortunately, most of them are related to software, which can later be updated.
One example is the camera in the Samsung Galaxy S7, which, despite all its advantages, had a number of serious shortcomings. The biggest one was distortion (image distortion), which was corrected in the latest update.
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Another bright event of the past week – the announcement of Meizu Pro 6. Personally Meizu reminds me in many ways HTC at the time of its heyday – the company's smartphones always stand out due to a number of unusual solutions and the original branded shell, and although they do not pull the title of a mythical ideal, they usually leave a pleasant impression after themselves.
Speaking specifically about Meizu Pro 6, it turned out to be the subject of fierce controversy even before the official announcement. First, when his photos leaked to the network and many commentators began to praise the design of the device, deciding that in front of them iPhone 7. And then – when the vice president Meizu personally published the image Meizu Pro 6, after which the commentators immediately reclassified the design of the device as secondary and uninteresting.
In this respect, the presentation did not bring any surprises, the appearance of the smartphone turned out to be exactly as expected. Otherwise, there were no surprises, there are a couple of interesting moments in the smartphone (for example, the screen is able to recognize the force of pressing, and the flash consists of 10 LEDs), but even the most loyal fans will hardly consider it a breakthrough of the year.
On the other hand, when it comes from 'holivars' on the Internet to a real purchase of a device, it is not abstract innovations that start to interest, but much more mundane things. For example – the price of a smartphone, battery life, shell optimization, ergonomics, and so on. Meizu The Pro 6 will clearly be positioned not so much as an uncompromising flagship with an ultra-high screen resolution and super-fast processor, but as a modern and well-balanced device, in which common sense is not sacrificed for beautiful numbers.
It's too early to judge how successful the smartphone actually turned out to be. Painfully many questions remain: how the ten-core Helio X25 will show itself, how long the battery life will be provided by the 2560 mAh battery, how stable the new version of Flyme will be. And most importantly, how much a smartphone will cost us. With no unpleasant surprises, the Meizu Pro 6 has every chance of becoming a successful model.
Meizu Pro 6. First Look
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No sooner had we passed the presentations HTC and Meizu, when analysts began to wonder what awaited us next. Basically, the debate is about what exactly will be shown at WWDC 2016. And although the date of the event is still unknown, this does not prevent them from making predictions.
The main question is whether Apple the watch will show Apple Watch 2 or not. Fluent analysts believe that they will unambiguously show, and they also give predictions about their popularity in advance. Someone will say that it is simply stupid to talk about the prospects of an unknown device, but products Apple have their own specifics. So, according to preliminary data, 60% of owners of the first generation Apple Watch will order themselves Apple Watch 2 anyway, even if there are almost no differences between these two versions.
I don’t know where Fluent got these numbers, but they don’t look fantastic; the decision to buy an apple technology is often made without regard to specific technical characteristics. Especially when it comes to watches.
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I wonder how much this loyalty extends to laptops. It is difficult to say exactly what Apple plans to change in the upcoming MacBooks, but the company's recent patents are more than bold. For example, the one in which we are talking about the new touch keyboard for laptops, which is one large touchpad.
I really want to believe that both main lines of MacBook Air and MacBook Pro will pass this bowl, and experiments will be carried out on the new 12-inch MacBook. Better yet, they simply shelve the patent and forget about it forever.
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