Have you already heard? Bad phones are gone.
Original material
This change has happened slowly, almost imperceptibly over the past few years, but the cycle is complete. How did this happen? The catalyst for the industry was replacing components with obvious weaknesses – thermally inefficient processors, bad cameras, boring displays – with analogues without similar problems. I believe that the proliferation of good and cheap phones is the best thing that has ever happened to the Internet. We talk for a long time about the expensive and the beautiful, but what about the practical? Reliable? Good?
The problem is that the good does not generate interest, does not generate the conversions that are needed to support the media business. There is nothing indecent in good devices, just as there is nothing revolutionary in practical ones. But this is just the tip of the iceberg of hundreds of millions and billions Android – smartphones that will be sold in the coming years, most of them will be better and cheaper than we think, for example, in the range from $ 50 to $ 500, which is now denotes the middle price segment. You can cling to the quality of the camera and the performance of the apps, but the reality is that they will be fine as long as they run on the latest version Android with a set of Qualcomm components installed or MediaTek ( or Samsung, or Rockchip, or any company that makes ARM-based processors).
Chances are, if you are reading this text on your phone, then it is not your primary device. But millions of people around the world have not yet gained access to the mobile Internet, and with a high degree of probability their first smartphone will be a device on Android. We take for granted the tasks that have eliminated or made phones easier, from simply browsing the web to transferring money and keeping in touch with people. The desired result is achieved precisely when the experience of such routine tasks becomes as simple as possible. Software does its job, content is consumed or created according to the vision of the author. As phones become more capable of replacing other tools for the daily tasks in our lives, it becomes more difficult to justify the high costs of the most popular and expensive phones. Those who do this often refer to themselves as 'power users'.
The main thesis of the material implies that there are expensive and large devices with an emphasis on a certain group of users who can do what other smartphones cannot. For example, ZTE Axon M can be expanded into two displays, Razor Phone is able to fill a room with sound, LG V30 in video mode can zoom and capture a specific person in focus. These are cool 'tricks', but they are not a new paradigm, but only an extension of the existing one. While it can be argued that the 120Hz screen in the Razer Phone is revolutionary in itself.
This topic reminded me of a post I read by analyst and investor Ben Evans about what we do with our phones.
In terms of what is done on 'phones', or rather these little computers with touch screens that everyone carries around with them. We write – people write more on phones than on PCs since the days of SMS – and we share, shoot, create videos, play games, and chat with friends. So we're doing most of what 90% of PCs were meant to do, but we're also doing what we can with a touchscreen and an internet-connected image sensor, GPS, and everything else that a PC doesn't have. Add to that everything that can be done with the billions of downloadable applications.
Every Android smartphone with access to the Play directory, by and large, has the same access to a billion apps. Some may not work on comparatively older hardware, and some games may not work at all, but the real mobile revolution is that many people today can perform important tasks through the phone, be it consumption or creation. There will always be a subset of users who will need something more powerful, larger, or specialized, but fewer and fewer people will need computers to handle the tasks. By analogy, fewer and fewer people will need powerful, expensive phones.
Blackberry Motion also comes to my mind, which costs about $ 400. This smartphone cannot do anything better than the rest. It's just a good phone that represents a modern take on what makes a good Android smartphone: decent hardware and a drive to 'patch holes' in software. Android is now in a stage where people will be quite happy with the experience for several years, even without major updates. Coupled with hardware powerful enough to keep the phone up-to-date and security concerns, the flourishing of good, affordable Android -based smartphones is the best thing that has happened to the mobile industry in years.
Written by Daniel Bader
The “arms race” in mobile electronics is gradually reaching a stage when the level of development of seemingly non-flagship models already allows them to use them calmly, without limiting themselves in anything. Yes, the premium segment has its own 'chips' that are inaccessible to the rest, relatively cheaper devices, but the response to the cost may be the abandonment of the flagships in favor of more practical devices in every sense. Of course, the flagships will not disappear anywhere like that, but their owners will no longer be able to call themselves advanced users in the full sense of the word. Nevertheless, most of the scenarios are already available for the middle, and often even for the budget segment.
Will flagships remain the lot of status things? Who knows, but the upward trend in the cost of this class of devices is alarming. It is unclear if manufacturers will be able to hone the differentiation of their top-end solutions so that they can maintain their position and not give up under the onslaught of devices from other price segments. There are many good offers, hold on, flagships.