[sgiitk]

I can understand the original version developing an obscure flaw. But the 'fix' also going haywire is a bit too much to digest. I have used Samsung and htc in the past, but now prefer Motorola for their 'near pure' Android implementation. Less garbage, and normally faster upgrades.

[AbhiJ]

Originally Posted by carmayogi

Recently, with the aim of reducing costs, Samsung began making parts in-house for their phones. It is this step that has resulted in the quality problems because they were not given enough time to reliably build products that they, perhaps, didn't know how to build as well as their former suppliers did.

My biggest query is how could they let this happen?

The Note 7 and S7 Edge have a similar size, battery, ip rating etc etc. They have been building and selling a product which is 99% the same thing for 6 months successfully. Now this issue. Add to that the fact that they could not fix it. There is more behind this story i feel.

[speedguy]

Originally Posted by AbhiJ

Agreed on the durability. Its a glass phone literally. For someone as clumsy as me Its unusable without a case.

Sir, I never pass comments without looking anything. I was referring to other flagship models from Samsung. I have never commented on S7.

Their new product introduction strategy is baffling, to say the least. If we compare automotive world with mobiles, Mercedes or BMW or Audi will never launch Tiago, i20 type cars. Although these are good cars,it is neither their focus nor their aspiration to become mass market handlers. Whereas Samsung is trying to compete with Nano (Basic Handests of Rs. 1500/-) & BMW 7 series (S7 against Apple 7). Volume wise Samsung may succeed, but that 'class' will be always missing.

About perception & class, what I meant was if you sit in Mercedes S class & compare it with BMW 7 series, best car is a matter of perception with respective individual. Still 90% people will agree that although in same class of S class, BMW 7 series lack that X factor.

[Nav-i-gator]

Originally Posted by speedguy

Sir, I never pass comments without looking anything. I was referring to other flagship models from Samsung. I have never commented on S7.

Their new product introduction strategy is baffling, to say the least. If we compare automotive world with mobiles, Mercedes or BMW or Audi will never launch Tiago, i20 type cars. Although these are good cars,it is neither their focus nor their aspiration to become mass market handlers. Whereas Samsung is trying to compete with Nano (Basic Handests of Rs. 1500/-) & BMW 7 series (S7 against Apple 7). Volume wise Samsung may succeed, but that 'class' will be always missing.

About perception & class, what I meant was if you sit in Mercedes S class & compare it with BMW 7 series, best car is a matter of perception with respective individual. Still 90% people will agree that although in same class of S class, BMW 7 series lack that X factor.

To obtain economies of scale, you need volumes. Not everyone can buy an Iphone or a S7, esp in emerging markets like India. Super premium segment in India is confined to big metros only. You need a basket of products, from feature phones right up to the premium segment to create a customer base and retain them when they upgrade. If you compare it with auto sector, consider how much trouble Maruti suzuki is having, to introduce premium range since they are known for mass market cars only, with no (or very less) aspirational brand value. What samsung is doing is commendable - being present across the range and being market leader in all segments.

Hence, I don't think presence across the segments is an issue, esp when you have the wide spread distribution and service network to serve customers. Mass customers can buy a much better looking and hardware configuration phones from Micromax, Lava, xiaomi et al, but once it get kaput, customers have horrible stories on service front.

India was the last market where Nokia was still relatively major player when it was sold to MS, for the same reasons. And nokia phones were notorious for getting hung occasionally, but worked fine for years.

Samsung have major issues in terms of company culture, but their market strategies are sound.

[AbhiJ]

Originally Posted by speedguy

Sir, I never pass comments without looking anything. I was referring to other flagship models from Samsung. I have never commented on S7.

There are no other "flagship" models from Samsung. Their so called premium series is S series and the explosive note series.

Comparing a 60k phone with a 20k phone is less logical than comparing a 60k phone with a 50k one.

Originally Posted by speedguy

About perception & class

Going OT here, but my 2 cents

I feel, that an important reason that premium cars sell is because that they are expensive and hence exclusive. When you use them, the people who see you know you have spent that amount of money.

Same story with Iphone. We buy them because we want to be exclusive, and we want people to know we have money and we have spent it.

I am also guilty. For example: The S7 edge and S7 are basically the same phone, with a price difference of 15 -20% and the edge has a more impractical design and screen. I bought the edge. Why? Because I find the normal S7 looks very similar to the 15k Samsung phone. I wanted people to know I have spent money.

That brings me to the Pixel experiment which Google is doing. It has basically decided to price the phone head to head with the iphone. The pricing is suicidal. But it just might work in their favour. IF... and only IF, they can successfully create the expensive phone aura around the product.

[Abhi99]

Originally Posted by riteshritesh

We have been service providers to Samsung India ( not the Mobile division. Our relation ended in 2010) and the only thing the Intl. Logistics person knew was to reduce service costs,so that he could tighten his collar and show in his annual performance report. If this attitude is there across their divisions, I can understand why the product failed.

Any company that is not riding on innovation drives towards tightening the belt to the extent that the eyes of the employees pop out and that might be the case with the division that you are dealing with. Samsung is much much larger than the mobiles that we see and hence not sure if its fair to paint the entire company with the same brush.

As for the mobile, with everyone assembling handsets at China - we see a huge influx of brands which are increasingly getting better. The only differentiator these days is the design and small innovations in features. We havent seen Samsung's chief competitor bring out anything meaningful over the last 2-3 years on the other hand Samsung has made a huge improvement in terms of displays. Note 7 was an extremely potent product with loads on analysts putting their money on this being a game changer until the issues with battery surfaced.

I do hope that they learn some positive lessons from this entire episode ( it did cost them upwards of $17 B afterall), and we see much better devices in future.

[kbk_75]

Originally Posted by speedguy

Still 90% people will agree that although in same class of S class, BMW 7 series lack that X factor.

Well I must be the 10%, then!

Originally Posted by AbhiJ

Same story with Iphone. We buy them because we want to be exclusive, and we want people to know we have money and we have spent it.

To be honest, anyone who buys an iPhone to be exclusive doesn't know what the word means. When hundreds of thousands of the device are sold every month, there's nothing exclusive about it. Maybe some people buy iPhones to show off but, one thing is for sure, there is nothing exclusive about one of the highest selling smartphones in the world. The vast majority of iPhone buyers buy the phones because they realize how well the entire OS and app system just works. This is why people will pay 15k for a three year old iPhone rather than buy the 'latest' low-cost competitor device for around the same price.

The simple truth is that the vast majority of people who have never used an iPhone will complain about how over-priced the phones are, and they are, without doubt. However, once even long-time Android users get a chance to experience iOS a lot of them are quite impressed with how even older iPhones, with hopelessly lower specs perform. It's not about quad core this, or octa core that or so many megapixels or UHD or whatever buzzword the marketing departments will come up with. What matters most is just how well it all works and ties-in to helping you get what you need out of the device.

iPhones are certainly not perfect and they've had some fairly serious issues in the past, and there's no doubting that they cost more than they ought to. This is where the market is free to speak. If it costs more than you're willing to pay, don't buy it. If enough people opt not to buy, the prices should come down over time. If it's exclusivity you're after, however, then go look at something that sells only a few hundred or a few thousand pieces, not something that sells in the tens of millions.

[Nav-i-gator]

Originally Posted by kbk_75

Well I must be the 10%, then!



To be honest, anyone who buys an iPhone to be exclusive doesn't know what the word means. When hundreds of thousands of the device are sold every month, there's nothing exclusive about it. Maybe some people buy iPhones to show off but, one thing is for sure, there is nothing exclusive about one of the highest selling smartphones in the world. The vast majority of iPhone buyers buy the phones because they realize how well the entire OS and app system just works. This is why people will pay 15k for a three year old iPhone rather than buy the 'latest' low-cost competitor device for around the same price.

The simple truth is that the vast majority of people who have never used an iPhone will complain about how over-priced the phones are, and they are, without doubt. However, once even long-time Android users get a chance to experience iOS a lot of them are quite impressed with how even older iPhones, with hopelessly lower specs perform. It's not about quad core this, or octa core that or so many megapixels or UHD or whatever buzzword the marketing departments will come up with. What matters most is just how well it all works and ties-in to helping you get what you need out of the device.

iPhones are certainly not perfect and they've had some fairly serious issues in the past, and there's no doubting that they cost more than they ought to. This is where the market is free to speak. If it costs more than you're willing to pay, don't buy it. If enough people opt not to buy, the prices should come down over time. If it's exclusivity you're after, however, then go look at something that sells only a few hundred or a few thousand pieces, not something that sells in the tens of millions.

If it's not an iphone....well, its not an iphone - that's how the tagline went for Iphone6. It is marketing positioning attuned towards exclusivity and show off. Agreed, iphones are well put together in terms of hardware and software ecosystem. But it is nothing extraordinary. If that was to be the selling story, windows phones were even more smoothly running ones, with even lower specs.

Can't say about their biggest market - US, but here in India, it is exclusivity or show off that is the reason people buy Iphones.

I can probably afford an iphone (with EMI options, nothing is un-affordable now) but talking about ease, Iphone just dont make a cut. no SD card support, no USB OTG, no file sharing through bluetooth and wi-fi.. well, no thanks.

[kbk_75]

Marketing is marketing. If you buy into it, that's your problem. Windows phones were by FAR the worst smart phones I ever used, at least the Sony Ericsson ones I bought, were. They lagged, the UI wasn't very phone friendly, they didn't have apps that were tailored to the phone's screen resolution, just a total mess. They were also fairly pricey. Admittedly this was several years ago, maybe things have improved, I don't know because I never looked back once I went iOS in 2007.

Also, as someone who's used an iPhone for many years, I have NEVER felt the need to have an SD card in my phone or to use the phone as a pen drive. You can absolutely file share through Bluetooth, so...yup!

The one big downside to iPhones is that they are terribly priced. This is what it all boils down to with practically all Apple's products, not just the iPhone.

So it tends to be people who can't, or don't want to, spend that sort of money, which is absolutely 100% fine, each to their own, that will sound-off the loudest about how lousy the products are. Maybe that is why there is this perception that people buy the iphone to show-off, I don't know. Again, it's probably subjective, there will always be people who equate their own and others' worth by the value of their possessions, but that really isn't the primary motive to buying an iPhone, especially once you've used one for many years.

[speedguy]

Originally Posted by Nav-i-gator

If it's not an iphone....well, its not an iphone - that's how the tagline went for Iphone6. It is marketing positioning attuned towards exclusivity and show off. Agreed, iphones are well put together in terms of hardware and software ecosystem. But it is nothing extraordinary. If that was to be the selling story, windows phones were even more smoothly running ones, with even lower specs.

Can't say about their biggest market - US, but here in India, it is exclusivity or show off that is the reason people buy Iphones.

I can probably afford an iphone (with EMI options, nothing is un-affordable now) but talking about ease, Iphone just dont make a cut. no SD card support, no USB OTG, no file sharing through bluetooth and wi-fi.. well, no thanks.

I am an iPhone user from last 5 years. I sold my iPhone 4S at whopping 18000 to a mobile shop & purchased iPhone 5S. I sold it merely because I was in love with touch id of 5S. Other than that there was no reason to sell that 4S. I am using 5S from last 4 years now & let me tell you no one believes that its a 4 year old phone. It works so smoothly, so hassle free that sometimes you just forget there is something called a glitch!

My point is, let alone specs & SD card & bluetooth & all those things. The phone must be easy to use. When I say easy to use, believe me it is so easy. Android users might find it difficult initially, but within 10 days they start to see the difference. Rock solid & reliable OS, no hanging, no abrupt closure of apps, no sudden battery drains, & the best one is you can receive call when someone is calling you! I have seen so many Samsung phones which just refuses to slide to answer the call

I rest my case here with tagline from iPhone advertise. If it's not an iPhone, well it's not an iPhone.

[Nav-i-gator]

We are going off topic here, but just to clarify:

I am not against Iphone, nor I am a fanboy of samsung/android. Infact, in my opinion, Iphone 6 onwards, all iphones are smash looking. Probably one of the best looking phones out there (esp the space grey ones). But the fact remains, they are way too high priced than "what they offer" over other similar phones.


http://time.com/3426087/apple-iphone-6-cost/

[kbk_75]

Hey, it's always good to have a healthy discussion about things, even when you have differing opinions, so Also, it is actually related to the topic in a round-about sort of way.

From all accounts Samsung, sensing an opportunity to really one-up Apple, rushed the Note 7 to market in the hope that by launching before the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, they could badly hit Apple's sales on the new phones. Not a bad idea and, if they had pulled it off successfully, they might have really been on a roll.

As someone who has enjoyed many iPhones over the years, I will admit the S7 Edge really caught my eye when it launched. I really liked the high res screen in a larger size and yet the slimmer chassis made it at least somewhat one-hand usable. Spec-wise Samsung has outdone Apple in many ways and yet, the overall effect is today, broadly-comparable. In some respects the S7/Edge are better phones than the iPhone 7/Plus which, in other ways, are still better than Samsung's latest offerings.

Eventually it's a damn good thing Samsung has pushed the boundaries over the past few years because Apple has introduced ever smaller incremental updates with each new iPhone the past few years. It's all well and good to charge a premium price when your product is clearly better than the competition, but when the competition has caught-up and, in some ways, surpassed you, it comes across as being pretty arrogant to keep charging those premium prices.

From all accounts, the 10th Anniversary iPhone next year should be a real belter. Samsung will desperately want to bring their very best game to overcome the whole Note 7 debacle and, with Google joining the fray directly, along with ever improving offerings from HTC and the like, 2017 promises to be the best year in a long time for smart phone buyers, whichever way your preferences lie!

[Nav-i-gator]

Samsung has some handicaps (relevant only for the premium/super premium segments). It does not have its own OS, and android is ubiquitous. So, in order to differentiate, it has limited options in hardware, form factor and OS tweaks. Substantially tweaking the OS means you are building bloat inside the phone memory, which hampers the performance. Packing the most advanced hardware is costly and hampers your margins. And there is not much scope left in experimenting with form factor in the world of touchscreens.

Hence they are investing in technologies which are multi-use like AMOLED, microchips, foldable/flexible screens. Expect them to launch foldable screen devices within next 2-3 years, and then the game would be on. Till the time, they will always be playing a catching up.

BTW, one of the phones I own, is an "Iphone killer" (oneplus )

[akhil994]

Originally Posted by speedguy

I am an iPhone user from last 5 years. I sold my iPhone 4S at whopping 18000 to a mobile shopee & purchased iPhone 5S. I sold it merely because i was in love with touch id of 5S. Other than that there was no reason to sell that 4S. I am using 5S from last 4 years now & let me tell you no one believes that its a 4 year old phone. It works so smoothly, so hassle free that sometimes you just forget there is something called a glitch!

Well, the iPhone 5s hasn't even turned 3 here in India. It was launched in November 2013, so it's a 3 year old phone.

I purchased the iPhone 5 in February 2013 and sold it off in November again because of the fingerprint sensor. I bought my phone for ₹42800 and sold it for ₹35,000 8 months later.

So the 5s is still going strong for me today, but for the 16GB memory, I would use it for another year.
But getting a 7 plus 128 GB today most probably.

I think if we also consider the top end of the premium smartphones, the pricing of Apple and Samsung and other companies is nearly at par, with maybe Apple having couple of variants over the price range.

So I don't understand how people call them overpriced! Yes they are expensive, but then all the premium smartphones are.

But in the end it does come down to individual choice of ecosystem. To each his own.

Originally Posted by Nav-i-gator

We are going off topic here, but just to clarify:

I am not against Iphone, nor I am a fanboy of samsung/android. Infact, in my opinion, Iphone 6 onwards, all iphones are smash looking. Probably one of the best looking phones out there (esp the space grey ones). But the fact remains, they are way too high priced than "what they offer" over other similar phones.


http://time.com/3426087/apple-iphone-6-cost/

Well, again the what they offer part is subjective. People who want iPhone, get it for its strong points of solid hardware and software which just lasts and also the ease of use.
If someone does not like what they offer, then they are free to choose another device that does offer what they want.

[Nav-i-gator]

Originally Posted by akhil994

Well, again the what they offer part is subjective. People who want iPhone, get it for its strong points of solid hardware and software which just lasts and also the ease of use.
If someone does not like what they offer, then they are free to choose another device that does offer what they want.

I said "What they offer for the price, over similar phones". Seems you get offended, trust me, that's not my intent. On a lighter note, what's the point of having an expensive phone which "lasts" when there is so much temptation to buy the latest one every year I still have my Nokia 6600, works as good as new (obsolete now, and of no use. but kept it for sentimental reasons I lost the "patli pin wala charger" too)