Is the age of the flagship over?

[Yakk]

I could use more power from my S7 when taking VR pictures. That extra time it takes to stitch the picture together needs to be improved.

Would also like to record 4K @ 60FPS with HDR.

 

[sweenish]

Or edit those same videos faster.

This whole topic is pointless. Any market has the low, mid, and high range products. All that happened here was OP was surprised that a mid-range phone suited THEIR needs. So, naturally they projecteded their use case and needs onto the population as a whole.

The concept itself is fallacious.

Here's my anecdote. I used a Moto G (2015) for a couple weeks while I waited for some parts to arrive. It was fine enough for the first couple days. But it was slower to do everything, and it eventually got infuriating. I already knew I couldn't install a lot of other apps that I typically keep on my phone. OnePlus is an interesting anomaly in the mid-range market. I still haven't seen any evidence that they have anything resembling decent customer service.

So, order your surprisingly cheap and powerful phone that takes decent pictures and hope you never have a hardware problem. Or bank on fixing it yourself. People who go on and on about not needing a high end thing and assuming that therefore no one needs it ever need to just stop.

 

[darkswordsman17]

I would say we're seeing flagships being more important than ever. Apple has been that way for years (and seems to be moving more towards that, compare the SE to the 5C, and of course the Plus, and I think we'll see an even higher end luxury version with the next one), Microsoft is basically moving to where they only really do flagships (only Windows Phone that will matter will be a pretty high end Surface phone), and even Android is moving to that (both themselves, and Samsung has already been moving in that direction as well, and you could argue most others too).

It really seems like the market is splitting into flagships (and pretty much all companies are moving to focusing on one or maybe two high end phones, which often share a lot) and then cheap phones.

The Chinese companies are eating the mid-ground, and while they might be high end enough for a lot of people, they are absolutely not flagships as they often have a host of software issues that holds back their hardware. That's not to say they're bad phones, but for various reasons (some of which are political, but plenty not and more about branding and marketing) I don't see them being allowed to really compete on the same level.

I also think we're going to see some disruption to Android, namely I think we could see Google make changes to how they manage it, where Pixel and a select few will get the latest features that Google wants to push (likely will be tied to certain hardware aspects too, much like Apple does), while the lower stuff will get developments (other than essential security stuff) on a delayed release similar to how Apple does it. I don't think we'll see drastic changes, but bit by bit we'll see Google focus more on flagship stuff, where they can get more money for Android development while offering more consumer friendly phones (compared to the Nexus line, which were half-baked for consumer level devices; this way both developers and consumers get nicer phones, and Google gets more money to help with Android development). Essentially I see Google moving to be more like Apple, but keep Android development more open.

On the lowend, I think we'll see Android and Windows Phone move to Chromebook esque software (that's more limited compared to the normal release and cloud/online based) too.

 

[rchunter]

I've got an s7 edge now. I'm probably going to update to s8 when it comes out but this time I will buy the flat screen. I'm not totally sold on having a curved screen. But no I don't really need a new phone this one is plenty fast for what I need.

 

[Anubis]

I've got an s7 edge now. I'm probably going to update to s8 when it comes out but this time I will buy the flat screen. I'm not totally sold on having a curved screen. But no I don't really need a new phone this one is plenty fast for what I need.

do we actually know if SS is gonna release a non curved one this year?

 

[rchunter]

do we actually know if SS is gonna release a non curved one this year?

I don't know for sure what they'll do but I'm betting they release 2 models s8 & s8 edge just like they did for s7.

 

[spacejamz]

After going the whole Note 7 thing blew over, I ended up with an Axon 7 which is an awesome phone except in the camera department and I take a lot of pictures so I miss the image quality my previous samsung phones had (Note 7, Edge 6+, Note 4...)

Probably going to get an S8 when they come out..