[Rohit_Quad]

I think the scenario applies applies to your specific usage pattern. Cause, cell phones have come a long way since S6. I think, the sweet spot is right now. The 2018 flagships are at the point of peaking, the next iterations will be more of face lifts.

[GTO]

Originally Posted by vb-san

iPhone also has the same issue – the face id recognition is brilliant but other than that it was not offering anything extraordinary compared to say an iPhone 7.

The iPhone is perhaps the best example of this ! 3 members of my immediate family are using older iPhones and they see absolutely no reason to upgrade to the latest. Another contributor is that iPhones don't get sluggish with time (unlike Samsungs). My Mom's 3 year old iPhone is still lag-free & seamless. In comparison, my S6 Edge was struggling like a fully-loaded Alto 800 climbing up a steep ghat. I had to perform a factory reset to make it usable.

[Nav-i-gator]

The innovations are a thing of past. We only get upgrades these days. Innovation died long back with Nokia (OK, Iphone was a smash innovation, so was Galaxy S2...but still).

Nokia was always a pioneer in innovating and bringing out exciting smartphones. Communicator, N-gage, N 97, E 7, 808 Pureview...each had a distinct charm.

These days, Only distinct (and innovative) smartphone I can think of is the Note series, with the usability and enhancements due to the excellent S-pen.

The next wave of innovations though, is coming in smart watches and foldable screen/phone tech.

[NPX]

Innovations in smartphone industry are not dying rather they are being delayed by the smartphone industry. If they give out all the innovations at once or in one phone then on what basis they will lure you into buying "the best smartphone of the year" every year.

Most of the manufacturers wait for apple to showcase something unprecedented (which is always a reworked version of some not so popular manufacturer ).
Like, MI had this phone with nearly 100% screen to body ratio screen in MI Mix but it failed to disrupt the smartphone industry, however when Apple launched the half baked full screen feature a.k.a. "Notch" in their iPhone X, it was a runaway hit. Every other manufacturer copied the "notch" & provided it in their latest phones and the sad part is that even Xiaomi had to give "notch" in its latest phone.

And the other reason why manufacturers are delaying innovations is that when phones are selling like hotcakes every year by giving only just a minor updrade over previous version or closest competition (example OnePlus 5 and 5T & every iPhone ) then why invest millions and billions to innovate, just sit back wait for Apple.

On the other hand there is still a lot to come in the smartphone industry in terms of innovation. Graphene ( dubbed as "material of the future" or "wonder material" in the science fraternity) will change the way we see smartphone today. Batteries are the least advanced thing in our smartphones today. Hope this is gonna change soon.

NOT posted from iPhone

[anupamjain2k]

My $0.02...

Its a matter of perspective on this one. While from conventional set of parameters (Display, Battery life, etc) smartphones seem to have peaked currently, there are upcoming changes, as well as for now, unknown of future developments, which would change the tech and speed of smartphones.

The next revolutions are very likely to have some/all of the following - Some kind of AI processing on the device, enhanced data connectivity hardware and software, better ram usage, DSLR-like camera sensors, while becoming slimmer, brighter displays, and lesser battery consuming.

For a motorhead kind of analogy, think of the current plateau-ing as similar to the one that the auto industry saw in 1990s with carburettor-ed powerplants. All that changed, when MPFI technology came in, and we saw a new wave of power possible from the same engines. The smartphones seem to be currently plateau-ing similarly.

[Turbo_Charger]

You are spot on, GTO. Unless you bought a phone with a processor which is 4 years old coupled with miniscule RAM, it's practically impossible to buy a phone which is s-l-o-w in today's age. The primary reason for this is that Processor/hardware advancements have exceeded the rate of software development. The processors' underlying architecture & design is same. The only difference being in fabrication of processor, GPU & other bits in SoC, model of the modem present, type of RAM etc. But slowly the processors, cameras, RAM & other hardware features have slowly trickled in the mid-range phones from the flagships. Kinda like features trickle down from S class to E class.

For daily usage even the mid-budget phones like the recently launched Asus Zenfone Max Pro M1 are more than enough. Costing 15k, it delivers 60% of the performance of a 60k flagship while costing only 25% of the amount. Just like a C-class sedan offers 90% of the performance & features of a D-class sedan at 70% of the price. For 99% people, if they are using a phone purchased in last 2 years, it should suffice till 5G becomes prevalent in India. Then they will have a genuine reason to upgrade.

[aniyo]

In the earlier years there was a significant difference in the OS, Android vs Apple.

Now the gap has reduced and all people are vying for are bragging right, Higher RAM, better camera and want to be seen part of the latest gen crowd. This surprisingly is one of the biggest reason to upgrade.
I personally know people who change phone every year or every 18 months and it is mandatory.

I had a Windows phone (Lumia 1520) for 3 long years and I enjoyed it completely. Had paid some 34K for it back then. Now have a OnePlus 5T since last december and don't see my self upgrading for at least another year.
The windows phone was nowhere slow or bad, just that few imp apps were missing Team BHP included..if not for apps that phone was just awesome.

Now people upgrade just because they feel the newer is better, Show-off, peer pressure to upgrade, i know people who buy Iphone every year and that too on EMI.. absolutely crazy

[nishsingh]

In my opinion, the camera is the only reason to upgrade. And I do upgrade whenever I feel the new crop of phones have a better camera.

A smartphone camera is a much better camera for most people - easier to shoot, easier to share, easier to backup.

Also, given that the photo quality on my Smartphone is almost as good as my RX100 (Sony's acclaimed pocket camera, not the legendary Yamaha! ), I don't see myself using a real camera anymore.

[Subroto Bhowmik]

I definitely agree phones are getting smarter and users are getting dumber! I had ability to remember telephone numbers till about 7 years back but now with compulsive usage of smart phones I have to dig into contacts to find out number.

As I cannot upgrade to Octavia VrS I upgraded to S9+ 256 gigs model, it was damn expensive at INR 72900 but then I like to use latest handset for the wow factor. I usually stick to Sammy mainly due to Samsung Pay which is very convenient payment gateway, no need to carry credit cards any more!!

Hearing that next iPhone may be dual sim handsets so one tick on my wishlist is about to be fulfilled. However I dont see myself shifting to Apple as my S9+ is still running super smooth despite only 50 gigs available out of its humongous storage!

Now waiting for some real innovative Samsung foldable handsets which will open up to become a Tablet so that I can ditch my Ipad for good.

Yeah foldable phones is something we all should eagerly look forward to.

[Rocketscience]

I have been as much of a car enthusiast as much as i have been into technology especially mobiles, coming to the last few years i used to own a Xperia Arc which was me entering the world of Android and at that time i installed custom roms, unlocked the bootloader and what not in the quest of maximising performance or adding some features but that was'nt really worth it.

Then came Galaxy s3 which ran fine for a while and with my then sensibilities it was a great phone when it was new, but that quickly diminished and it became sluggush within one year, so much needed to be done regularly to make it run smoothly, formatting the phone, killing background processes, disabling apps and a hell lot of things, sold it for iphone.

For the next 4 years i used 2 iphones (iphone 5 and 6) and believe me it was nothing special, none of those little gimmicks or flashy features, the phones themselves were more expensive than androids (not to mention the hate but they ran flawless in the entire period i've owned them.they get in the online communities and with some of my friends who believe it is just for showoff, which might be true for some but i have other reasons)
Regular updates and updates to the latest versions on the same day as rest of the phones with utmost certainity, android is not even in the competition when it comes to updates (talking of usual brands here Samsung and all), even google's own pixel promises updates for only 2 years, my mom's iphone 5s in comparison from 2013 will be getting ios 12 from 2018 and that updates even promises to make it faster!
The iphones themselves performed flawlessly, i'm a big sucker for good looks, build and beautiful UI in a phone and for this very reason i never considered Pixels or OnePLUS phones, i don't like how basic/stock android looks at all and it sharing the UI with ultra low end phones from Xiaomi does'nt help its cause either. (No offence to anyone).

Then come the apps, most of the apps and games are launched for ios first, are much better optimised for iphones (Apple paying the devolopers, the phones itself are dramatically less in number than android phones are the reasons), the UI is much more refined and proper in the iphones, many of the same apps in android feel just ports of their ios apps and generally inferior in look and performance.

Having said all that last year i made my switch to Galaxy s8 and the reason was the infinity display, it was the first phone to have a near bezel less display and looked absolutely stunning, Samsung's UI to me looks the best/has looked the best of all android phones and if not iphone for me the only other option is the Galaxy series from Samsung.
Now my major problems with Samsung and Android are they still don't feel nearly as optimised and flawless as the iphone, mind you i paid 58k for my phone so anything but the best is totally unacceptable but from day 1 the Facebook app for example stutters, yes in Samsung's flagship and one of the best android phones the facebook app can't work smoothly, till date i have to make do with the website version of facebook, not to mention all the new features and UI changes come to android the last, my sister's iphone 6s had a much better looking and totally lag free facebook app, hell even my dad is using dark mode in youtube app (on iphone 6) for a couple months now and it has still not being launched for android.
Asphalt 9, the latest car racing game from Gameloft with demanding graphics looks noticeably superior on iphone X and 8/8 plus with much higher frame rates (smoothness) than my galaxy s8.
Now again, i have disabled all of the useless apps, have most of them always sleeping, and have manually turned off background activity for all the apps, and have removed all the useless apps from my phone and to its defence it runs reasonably smooth but not near as much as a latest iphone (it is just an year old flagship afterall)
My friend who bought s8 with me on the same day has done none of this and his phone runs just like any samsung from the history is supposed to, its all over the place and like GTO said like a fully loaded Alto 800 climbing uphill with AC on. My father's iphone 6 in comparison (almost 4 year old mind you) runs pretty much flawless to this day.
Point being no one is supposed to do all the stuff i'm doing to make my phone run smooth and just an year old flagship works like shit, no matter what everyone says iphones are indeed much superior than android phones hands down*
Looking at the designs from many android phones, they have all lifted iphone X's design including one plus 6 so yeah other than cost i don't see any reason for going for these phones.

The hardware issues with s8 are the build is not good as iphones, my display had burn in issues and Samsung just replaced the display under warranty and not the entire phone, there is a visible gap above the display now (minor but its there), they returned the phone with scaratches in the back panel and left a very bitter taste in the entire episode. I'm not even sure if the phone is still water resistant, i highly doubt it but i won't be testing it

My sister's iphone co-incidently just last week had a similar issue with the screen, it had a dark spot on one corner, took it to apple, got a new phone as a replacement 5 days later, case closed! (The warranty had only 10 days left)

Now coming to the camera, since i'm into photography too anything inferior is just not acceptable, i blame the software here but my s8's camera takes horrible pictures out of the box, now it looks fine to many people but there is just way too much noise reduction and over sharpening that the pictures look cheap, it is fine for a phone costing 10k but not for flagships, front camera is much inferior and has by default some sort of beauty filters applied and it looks like i've applied make up, it again is fine for people who use beauty apps and post on instagram but the processing is totally unacceptable for me, so much so i have'nt taken any selfies in the past 1 year.
Now don't get me wrong but Samsung and android phones in general lack that finesse Apple has, many of these things (the camera for exampme) are acceptable to regular janta, but not an enthusiast like me. It is like Mahindra made a S class rival with all the bells and whistles, i'd still go with the Mercedes for that extra bit of Quality. (This example is true for camera and these things, the difference in performance is more like Jetta and Corolla D imho, maybe not from Day 1 but eventually)

* -: Now android is perfectly fine for lower end devices and phones like mi A1 at 15,000 are just fantastic value for money, all the complaints vanish at this price point and like XUV it makes a lot of sense, but when you demand 60k for an Android device it just has to be as good as Apple if not better.

Now coming to the topic that have the smartphones peaked in perfomance and tech, well no.
The graphics are getting better by the day and that day is not far that these tiny little devices in our pockets would be capable to play games with graphics as good as play station 4, so this is improving every year.

Cameras are the other thing that are improving every year, what phones lack today is the dyanamic range (because of small sensors), and high noise, both these factors are improving every year and if you look back say 5 years, the difference is significant.

The powerful processors are helping phones in addressing the problems with camera with state of the art features like multi frame processing, which greatly helps in removing noise in real time (without compromising the detail ofcourse) , AI is another thing which should go big in the following years.
For general public the biggest reason for buying a new phone today are perhaps the bezel less screens, this was the reason i bought my s8 over the overused design of iphone (6,6s,7,8 basically look the same).

P.s Sorry for the ultra long post, i might not have read such a post too so won't hold this against anyone.

[sunilch]

Hehe, nice thread. I am yet to upgrade from my Nexus 5 (purchased at launch in Dec 2013) and the only reason that I am planning the upgrade is that I now need a dual SIMM phone. Still satisfied with the speed and the size of the device, no issues noticed except for the heat when I create a hotspot but that is expected form any similar phone.

Hence the point is true to a limited extent. Smartphone advancements have slowed down recently and are now limited to just hardware improvements - RAM, Processor speed and Camera. I guess this is a similar situation to what it was just before the first iPhone came out (iPhone 2G - had one of those ). Phones were coming out with better hardware and software was limited in options - Symbian, Nokia OS, Sony's own OS for very expensive phones and that was pretty much.

I believe this trend will continue until there is a major disruption in the way we communicate

[Hayek]

Just got an S9 from my company as a replacement for my old blackberry. Yes, it is managed by our IT guys and hence has one hand tied behind its back - but it does not feel as good as my IPhone 7. Have always bought a one year old phone model and kept it for 2 years - so my next phone barring screen damage will be this year’s iPhone purchased in Dec 2019. Makes the most sense in my view rather than buying the latest and greatest.

[IshaanIan]

If you have a friends s6 lying around somewhere, just do an internet speed test on both the s6 and your s9. Your new phone will be faster both on Wi-Fi and cellular 4G. The capability of the newer processors and graphics units are much higher try playing PUBG at high graphics settings in ultra HD on an s6 and then do the same on your S9. If your requirements from the phone are basic like just calling and texting, then obviously you won't see much of a difference or feel like it was much of an upgrade. It's kinda like buying a VRS and not driving it enthusiastically from time to time

[Waspune]

I guess the smartphones had reached their peak couple of years back. The only part where users are actually getting an upgrade is the camera which again turns out to be a gimmick where manufacturers are providing multiple rear and front end cameras and then we have Pixel which is able to shame all of them with just a single rear camera.

The upgraded RAM doesn't really provide the user any added benefit to the users as 4 GB RAM is more than enough for any smartphone until the software really really sucks! So extra RAM is also more of a gimmick.

The upgraded processors also don't provide any substantial upgrade to majority of smartphone users who use it mainly for texting, taking snaps etc. So until you are into gaming or video editing (which again is better enjoyed in the laptops) one might not be able to experience the increased speed and performance.

The ROM on the other hand is increasing with the time which actually benefits the users just because all the manufacturers have nowadays copied Iphones and stopped giving external memory cards.

[headbanger]

Originally Posted by GTO

Been using it and I really love the phone, but am wondering if the phone is actually "3 years ahead"? Has cellphone development peaked for the time being?

Read it again and notice the parallels with the new generations of a considerable number of cars.

Originally Posted by GTO

- It's as fast as my 2015 S6 Edge was after a clean format. Okay, the S9 is a little quicker, but the difference is hardly a deal maker or breaker.

How many of consumers know the technical competence of the machine - car or mobile or for that matter any electronic / mechanical gadget? Even if one has a nuanced understanding, how many actually put that enhanced power to use? How many have gone closer to insane speed limits with all the buzzed gadgetry or more important felt that gadgetry in their driving experience on the famed big cars?

Originally Posted by GTO

- Wondering why we are paying more for heavier + bigger phones (it's the other way around with laptops).

Isn't it the cycle of evolution? Car, Big Car, Bigger Car, Big than Bigger Car, A little lesser than the Big car, Not so Big Car, Optimized car size. In this evolution, curiosity, desirability and experience are the factors which take over the primary size of the car. Seek which option ticked you for S9?
Phones did start with bigger screens (phablets), but have already toned down on size front.

Originally Posted by GTO

- Looks wise, I still prefer my sleek & slim S6 Edge.

My S6 also had the same Android version. So, in a nutshell, this upgrade feels more like a 'facelift' with new headlamps & some extra gizmos, than an entirely "new generation".

The first instinct was ditto for Gen-3 and Gen-4 Honda City. Again, see the parallels!!!

Originally Posted by GTO

I recently read on Bloomberg (and agree with the same) that the difference between mid-range phones & expensive ones is slimming, the main being looks + camera quality + some gizmos which you probably won't use on a daily basis.

Difference between C and D segment is also decreasing by the day with the similar lines of reasoning.

Originally Posted by GTO

I feel like the guy who sold a 5 year old Jetta 2.0 TDI and bought a new Octavia. It feels fresher & newer and has some more kit, but isn't much of an upgrade IMHO. I thought I'm getting an Octavia vRS, but hey, this one turned out to be the good old 2.0 TDI only.

Excellent analogy!!! vRS has the surprise quotient in performance and hence the noticeable drift in experience. My businessman brother in law is hooked to Oppo Find X just because of the way it is unlocked. Just check it out if you haven't already!!!

Originally Posted by GTO

I don't regret it because I paid 37k (cashbacks, discounts, exchange etc.), but there is no way I'd pay 60+k for an S9.

Many of us will be/ are in similar boat when purchasing a car itself. Ultimately, it all boils down to identifying the sentiment in the target population's preferences. If looks and desirability are the factors, chances are high that the pricing will be in obscene category. I am quite sure there must be some term for it in MBA courses.

Till the time the next wave of disruption comes, marketing and optimizing the ecosystem with a few nifty new/reworked features should be the key ingredients of future models of cars and mobiles alike.