Samsung designer talking about the new GALAXY S6

[poofyhairguy]

what's left to differentiate Android from iOS.

An incredibly more capable OS without need for root/jailbreak? But you knew that.




Heck to me the S6 represents the first time that an Android person can get a normal sized smartphone where every aspect of the hardware is better than the Apple competition. Maybe Apple catches back up with the 6s, but that means they can't miss a beat- another year at 1GB of RAM, another 720p screen, or no OIS and the S6 is clearly the best non-phablet phone of the year period.

Samsung finally raises the bar on Apple on more than the SoC inside.

 

[lopri]

How much does it cost replacing a battery in a sealed phone on average? Say iPhone 5S or HTC One M8.

 

[Rakehellion]

How much does it cost replacing a battery in a sealed phone on average? Say iPhone 5S or HTC One M8.

$10

 

[DesiPower]

Since its not easily replaceable, there is a low demand, resulting in higher prices. A generic battery for S5 will cost like 7 or 6 bucks where as a HTC One M8 will be like $20+, iPhone 6 battery cost $35+

 

[Rakehellion]

An incredibly more capable OS without need for root/jailbreak? But you knew that.




Heck to me the S6 represents the first time that an Android person can get a normal sized smartphone where every aspect of the hardware is better than the Apple competition. Maybe Apple catches back up with the 6s, but that means they can't miss a beat- another year at 1GB of RAM, another 720p screen, or no OIS and the S6 is clearly the best non-phablet phone of the year period.

Samsung finally raises the bar on Apple on more than the SoC inside.

How is it better? Looks like more of the same to me.

 

[poofyhairguy]

How is it better? Looks like more of the same to me.

Exactly! The "looks" are the same, aka a thin metal design. That is where Samsung caught up.

Where Samsung/Android was already ahead was the actual guts of the phone- ie 3GB of RAM vs the pathetic 1GB in every iPhone, SAMOLED instead of LCD, Quad HD instead of freaking 720p, OIS camera at a normal size, etc.

Samsung had all these advantages, but the package their were sold in looked worse than what Apple was offering. Now that Samsung crossed the build-quality gap I expect them to have a ton of sales this year among all those normals that will judge the book by the cover.

I also hope it forces Apple to be more competitive going forward and we don't get another iPhone like the last gen in a while. The 5S packed in so much awesome, as if to make up for the small size. It was sad to see the 6 just mail it in because Apple knew people would buy whatever they put out as long as the screen was bigger. If the Note 4 and S6 forces Apple to react the 6+S might be the best phone of the year. Apple needs to get off its ass and make that happen though.

 

[touchstone]

An incredibly more capable OS without need for root/jailbreak? But you knew that.




Heck to me the S6 represents the first time that an Android person can get a normal sized smartphone where every aspect of the hardware is better than the Apple competition. Maybe Apple catches back up with the 6s, but that means they can't miss a beat- another year at 1GB of RAM, another 720p screen, or no OIS and the S6 is clearly the best non-phablet phone of the year period.

Samsung finally raises the bar on Apple on more than the SoC inside.

i think the s3 could be considered 'normal sized' and was pretty much superior to the 4s in every way, but otherwise yeah the s6 really does seem to kick the iphone 6's butt pretty bad.

i would bet apple comes up with something to make the 6s compelling, but i really doubt they will be able to leapfrog the performance of the 14nm 7430

 

[lopri]

I meant having the battery swapped by OEM with warranty intact. Not buying it off the shelf and doing it myself. That can't be $10~30, I think?

 

[poofyhairguy]

i think the s3 could be considered 'normal sized' and was pretty much superior to the 4s in every way

Good point, but only for the US S3 with the 2GB of RAM. That was the first "good enough" smartphone IMHO.

i would bet apple comes up with something to make the 6s compelling, but i really doubt they will be able to leapfrog the performance of the 14nm 7430

They don't need to, they just need to close the gap. Something at the A8X level in the 6+S would be a monster phone.

 

[mrochester]

An incredibly more capable OS without need for root/jailbreak? But you knew that.




Heck to me the S6 represents the first time that an Android person can get a normal sized smartphone where every aspect of the hardware is better than the Apple competition. Maybe Apple catches back up with the 6s, but that means they can't miss a beat- another year at 1GB of RAM, another 720p screen, or no OIS and the S6 is clearly the best non-phablet phone of the year period.

Samsung finally raises the bar on Apple on more than the SoC inside.

Personally I find iOS still the more compelling operating system. It already does everything I need a smartphone to do and I find it just works and 'feels' better than Android.

It is great that Google and Samsung are improving their products though to be more competitive with the iPhone. The much better design and materials of the S6 and Google starting to take the Play Store more seriously in terms of weeding out the cruft are good moves by both.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Personally I find iOS still the more compelling operating system. It already does everything I need a smartphone to do

I think for a lot of people that is the case. Heck I think not only is iOS enough of a smartphone OS for most people, but it is enough of a COMPUTER OS for most consumers.

With that said, my experience with the my iPad Air 2 has been eye opening. I was giving iOS a functionality benefit of the doubt for years that was false. Android now is almost as functional as OSX is for me, while iOS still feels like a console OS. Tasks I take for granted that I do on my phone regularly- such as downloading drivers/programs to a pen drive out in the field- are almost undoable in iOS without jailbreak. I have no problems saying it is a fine OS that is enough for most people, as long as no one argues the blatant truth that functionality-wise on the general purpose computer scale Android is miles ahead.

Different strokes and all.

 

[Rakehellion]

Exactly! The "looks" are the same, aka a thin metal design. That is where Samsung caught up.

Where Samsung/Android was already ahead was the actual guts of the phone- ie 3GB of RAM vs the pathetic 1GB in every iPhone, SAMOLED instead of LCD, Quad HD instead of freaking 720p, OIS camera at a normal size, etc.

Samsung had all these advantages, but the package their were sold in looked worse than what Apple was offering. Now that Samsung crossed the build-quality gap I expect them to have a ton of sales this year among all those normals that will judge the book by the cover.

I also hope it forces Apple to be more competitive going forward and we don't get another iPhone like the last gen in a while. The 5S packed in so much awesome, as if to make up for the small size. It was sad to see the 6 just mail it in because Apple knew people would buy whatever they put out as long as the screen was bigger. If the Note 4 and S6 forces Apple to react the 6+S might be the best phone of the year. Apple needs to get off its ass and make that happen though.

OLED is crap, the 6 Plus has OIS, and why would I need that many pixels on a phone?

3GB or RAM is an improvement, but why should anyone care?

 

[mrochester]

I think for a lot of people that is the case. Heck I think not only is iOS enough of a smartphone OS for most people, but it is enough of a COMPUTER OS for most consumers.

With that said, my experience with the my iPad Air 2 has been eye opening. I was giving iOS a functionality benefit of the doubt for years that was false. Android now is almost as functional as OSX is for me, while iOS still feels like a console OS. Tasks I take for granted that I do on my phone regularly- such as downloading drivers/programs to a pen drive out in the field- are almost undoable in iOS without jailbreak. I have no problems saying it is a fine OS that is enough for most people, as long as no one argues the blatant truth that functionality-wise on the general purpose computer scale Android is miles ahead.

Different strokes and all.

Absolutely, but I personally don't buy a smartphone to be a computer, I buy a smartphone to be a smartphone. My desktop and laptop are my computers. My tablet and smartphone are completely different, and there's no need for their functionality to merge for me.

 

[poofyhairguy]

OLED is crap,

They have gotten better. The one in the Note 4 is better than comparable LCDs in almost every metric. I expect the same from the S6.

the 6 Plus has OIS,

Agreed, but that competes with the Note 4. It is the 6 that competes with the S6. The 6 lacks OIS.

and why would I need that many pixels on a phone?

I personally don't see a need for Quad HD, but 720p at five inches is WAY behind the standard. I can easily see the edges on text on my friends' 6es every time. Seriously it is pathetic. The 6+'s resolution is fine, the issue with that phone is the power-per-pixel.

3GB or RAM is an improvement, but why should anyone care?

In the short term they should care because more than 1GB greatly improves the browsing experience. 14% of smartphone use is the browser.

In the long term they should care because when that iOS update hits two or three years out that makes the current phones feel slower the thing that will be lacking then that makes them feel slower is the RAM. Well for the 6, the 6+ has a RAM problem and a power-per-pixel problem.

I mean hell, the iPhone 6 and 6+ has less effective RAM when using 64 bit Apple apps than the freaking 2012 iPhone 5! That is just pathetic no matter how you put it, and because of that I expect the iPhone 6+ to be the iPad 3 (aka the device that runs slow WAY before it should) of the iPhone line.

 

[poofyhairguy]

My desktop and laptop are my computers.

Yeah, but you probably don't always have those on you. I always have my phone on me, and that means I always have the power of a full sized computer on me.

As I said though, different strokes.

 

[touchstone]

i gotta agree that oled is crap, that is the one thing that i dont like about the samsung s6 and i really wish they had gone lcd like htc has done with its phones. i guess it is to be expected given how big samsung is into oled displays, but i just have no use for infinite contrast yet much use for zero burn in and longer display life and especially brightness. oleds are still a compromise on many levels and that is why apple still wont use them


the iphone 6 and 6 plus are kinda crappy even for iphones design-wise. 1gb ram is just a cop out in 2015 and they basically gave the 5s a bigger display and made it thinner and called it a day. apple phones are never all that impressive to me though, i guess they just seem so iterative and predictable. it definitely allows apple to be very polished though, i guess that is what htc was shooting for with the m9

 

[Rakehellion]

They have gotten better. The one in the Note 4 is better than comparable LCDs in almost every metric. I expect the same from the S6.



Agreed, but that competes with the Note 4. It is the 6 that competes with the S6. The 6 lacks OIS.



I personally don't see a need for Quad HD, but 720p at five inches is WAY behind the standard. I can easily see the edges on text on my friends' 6es every time. Seriously it is pathetic. The 6+'s resolution is fine, the issue with that phone is the power-per-pixel.



In the short term they should care because more than 1GB greatly improves the browsing experience. 14% of smartphone use is the browser.

In the long term they should care because when that iOS update hits two or three years out that makes the current phones feel slower the thing that will be lacking then that makes them feel slower is the RAM. Well for the 6, the 6+ has a RAM problem and a power-per-pixel problem.

I mean hell, the iPhone 6 and 6+ has less effective RAM when using 64 bit Apple apps than the freaking 2012 iPhone 5! That is just pathetic no matter how you put it, and because of that I expect the iPhone 6+ to be the iPad 3 (aka the device that runs slow WAY before it should) of the iPhone line.

The Note 4 is oversaturated.

And really, all the things you mentioned are marginal improvements. What I'm asking is why should anyone care who wasn't going to buy the phone anyway? Also, the phone doesn't even exist.

 

[mrochester]

Yeah, but you probably don't always have those on you. I always have my phone on me, and that means I always have the power of a full sized computer on me.

As I said though, different strokes.

I definitely don't have my desktop or laptop on me all the time, but then when I'm away from home I don't need the power of my desktop or laptop. When I'm away from home and need the power of a laptop (such as going on holiday), then I take my laptop.

 

[mrochester]

They have gotten better. The one in the Note 4 is better than comparable LCDs in almost every metric. I expect the same from the S6.



Agreed, but that competes with the Note 4. It is the 6 that competes with the S6. The 6 lacks OIS.



I personally don't see a need for Quad HD, but 720p at five inches is WAY behind the standard. I can easily see the edges on text on my friends' 6es every time. Seriously it is pathetic. The 6+'s resolution is fine, the issue with that phone is the power-per-pixel.



In the short term they should care because more than 1GB greatly improves the browsing experience. 14% of smartphone use is the browser.

In the long term they should care because when that iOS update hits two or three years out that makes the current phones feel slower the thing that will be lacking then that makes them feel slower is the RAM. Well for the 6, the 6+ has a RAM problem and a power-per-pixel problem.

I mean hell, the iPhone 6 and 6+ has less effective RAM when using 64 bit Apple apps than the freaking 2012 iPhone 5! That is just pathetic no matter how you put it, and because of that I expect the iPhone 6+ to be the iPad 3 (aka the device that runs slow WAY before it should) of the iPhone line.

The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus might only have 1Gb of ram in comparison to 3GB on flagship Android devices, but I know which id bet on being supported the longest... The iPhone 4S is from 2011 and still gets updated. There are certainly not many Android phones you can say that about. It's meaningless having massive specs if the device isn't supported for very long. The Galaxy S2 is Samsung's 2011 flagship and that stopped being updated at 4.1 which was from 2012.

 

[poofyhairguy]

The Note 4 is oversaturated. .

Sure. Its not perfect.

And really, all the things you mentioned are marginal improvements. What I'm asking is why should anyone care who wasn't going to buy the phone anyway?

Sure, normals don't know about RAM differences. For them it becomes about the form factor or what a friend recommends.

With that said, it is the recommending friend that often drives decisions. People like us are called market mavens because we create the initial positive or negative momentum for a product through online reviews, word of mouth and social media. When the reviews come in and the S6 is the clear best Android phone then the normals will have a real choice other than the iPhone.

Samsung is going to make a lot of money.

 

[poofyhairguy]

The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus might only have 1Gb of ram in comparison to 3GB on flagship Android devices, but I know which id bet on being supported the longest... The iPhone 4S is from 2011 and still gets updated. There are certainly not many Android phones you can say that about. It's meaningless having massive specs if the device isn't supported for very long.

It is also pretty meaningless to call a device "supported" when the experience running that OS is poor. Apple is bad about updating a device to a version of iOS that runs sub-optimally and then you are stuck because you can't downgrade. Then your device might as well not be supported, at least the old OS worked well. This is without taking into account the fact that Android OS updates are partially unbundled from the OS, which also mitigates the issue considerably.

For example, the iPad 3 is still technically supported but in my opinion the "support" stopped when iOS7 hit and the stutterfest began. Even normal people know about this situation of updates slowing things down. They often see it as nefarious- aka a way to force them to give up perfectly good devices to buy new Apple devices. We know its not, that is just the march of progress, but no matter the reason it happens.

Also not every iOS device is equal, people foolishly buy Apple devices expecting them to all just be as good and get burned. Some generations have a better mix of the technology available at that point. Getting a "deal" in the iOS world isn't like with Android (where the deal is a coupon or something), it is knowing enough to jump in at the right time.

The iPhone 4S had a very powerful GPU, and therefore had a lot of power-per-pixel. It was clear when that SoC came out in the iPad that it would have a long time, I bought an iPad 2 expecting just that. You are cherry picking an example, just like I always cherry pick the iPad 3 as my example of an iOS device that had a short effective life. It is usually obvious when an iOS device is a good buy- it is all about power-per-pixel. This year the device to own on that metric was the iPad Air 2, so I bought one.

Not all iOS devices are that way, and I think it is folly to argue that point as if it applies universally. Not every iOS device has a long effective life.

In fact I think it is hilarious that you would even considering arguing that the current iPhones will have a long life. My iPad Air 2 will have a long useful life, but that is due to a monster GPU and 2GB of RAM. The 720p screen of the iPhone 6 will save it, but I fully expect iOS 10 is going to run slower on the iPhone 6+ than iOS 8 does today. The 6+ has the wrong SoC and is a clear step back in power-per-pixel from the 5S or the 6. Just like the last device to do that (the iPad 3) I expect the 6+ to be a step back in usability around the same timeline your average Samsung device will be supported. Eventually my cherry pick example will be the 6+ instead of the poor old iPad 3, it nor the 6 are anything remotely close to what the 4S was at the time.

The current iPhones are 5Ses with larger screens to milk the money out of the pockets of the masses who had a huge pent-up demand for a larger iPhone. They are made with planned obsolescence in mind, otherwise there is no reason for 1GB of RAM. In fact I think Apple sees the same writing on the wall that I do- after the next generation they can't do that anymore. Once the A8X-level SoC is in an iPhone that is all anyone will need in that form factor for what we currently use phones for. The 6s and 6+s will be four year phones, so they needed to milk the market one more time before their sales growth leveled off. That way they guarantee iPhone 7 sales when iOS 10 makes all these current phones slow down.

I definitely don't have my desktop or laptop on me all the time, but then when I'm away from home I don't need the power of my desktop or laptop. When I'm away from home and need the power of a laptop (such as going on holiday), then I take my laptop.

Sure, if you can think to bring your laptop. Life doesn't always give me that much warning, and often I engage in what I call "guerilla tech" that is unplanned.

The most common example I can think of is I go to visit family for dinner or some kids thing, and as part of it I get a laptop shoved in my hands that has been hosed by malware. I mean one of those really bad ones where it hijacks the DNS so every web browser search engine points you away from any sort of app that would clean off the machine. Often that is their only computer, and so there is no obvious machine that will let you download the app. And of course my laptop is at home because I didn't expect (or didn't want to expect) my dinner to include a malware clean.

Rather than trying to fight whatever is on the machine, I grab my OTG cable out of my car (I stash them everywhere) and I hook some random pen drive up to my phone. Then I quickly download the apps I need on LTE, unmount the drive, and proceed to clean off the family machine. I have done the same trick to download a needed driver or update to a remote non-networked machine, or heck I have used that same cable with an ethernet dongle to diagnose an office network where the wifi wasn't working. All of this I can't do without the power of Android.

I get only a fraction of Android users know how to do that, and of those only a fraction want to, but for those of us that do it is nice to have an option. I used to have a laptop and a netbook, with the netbook living in my car (hoping to not get stolen) for random tech jobs. My Android phone killed that netbook and took an entire device out of my rotation. It really improved my tech life.

Different strokes.

 

[lxskllr]

They often see it as nefarious- aka a way to force them to give up perfectly good devices to buy new Apple devices. We know its not, that is just the march of progress, but no matter the reason it happens.

Really? Why no downgrade option? Downgrade would make their customers happy with their old hardware. Apple surely wants their customers to be happy, right?

 

[mrochester]

It is also pretty meaningless to call a device "supported" when the experience running that OS is poor. Apple is bad about updating a device to a version of iOS that runs sub-optimally and then you are stuck because you can't downgrade. Then your device might as well not be supported, at least the old OS worked well. This is without taking into account the fact that Android OS updates are partially unbundled from the OS, which also mitigates the issue considerably.

For example, the iPad 3 is still technically supported but in my opinion the "support" stopped when iOS7 hit and the stutterfest began. Even normal people know about this situation of updates slowing things down. They often see it as nefarious- aka a way to force them to give up perfectly good devices to buy new Apple devices. We know its not, that is just the march of progress, but no matter the reason it happens.

Also not every iOS device is equal, people foolishly buy Apple devices expecting them to all just be as good and get burned. Some generations have a better mix of the technology available at that point. Getting a "deal" in the iOS world isn't like with Android (where the deal is a coupon or something), it is knowing enough to jump in at the right time.

The iPhone 4S had a very powerful GPU, and therefore had a lot of power-per-pixel. It was clear when that SoC came out in the iPad that it would have a long time, I bought an iPad 2 expecting just that. You are cherry picking an example, just like I always cherry pick the iPad 3 as my example of an iOS device that had a short effective life. It is usually obvious when an iOS device is a good buy- it is all about power-per-pixel. This year the device to own on that metric was the iPad Air 2, so I bought one.

Not all iOS devices are that way, and I think it is folly to argue that point as if it applies universally. Not every iOS device has a long effective life.

In fact I think it is hilarious that you would even considering arguing that the current iPhones will have a long life. My iPad Air 2 will have a long useful life, but that is due to a monster GPU and 2GB of RAM. The 720p screen of the iPhone 6 will save it, but I fully expect iOS 10 is going to run slower on the iPhone 6+ than iOS 8 does today. The 6+ has the wrong SoC and is a clear step back in power-per-pixel from the 5S or the 6. Just like the last device to do that (the iPad 3) I expect the 6+ to be a step back in usability around the same timeline your average Samsung device will be supported. Eventually my cherry pick example will be the 6+ instead of the poor old iPad 3, it nor the 6 are anything remotely close to what the 4S was at the time.

The current iPhones are 5Ses with larger screens to milk the money out of the pockets of the masses who had a huge pent-up demand for a larger iPhone. They are made with planned obsolescence in mind, otherwise there is no reason for 1GB of RAM. In fact I think Apple sees the same writing on the wall that I do- after the next generation they can't do that anymore. Once the A8X-level SoC is in an iPhone that is all anyone will need in that form factor for what we currently use phones for. The 6s and 6+s will be four year phones, so they needed to milk the market one more time before their sales growth leveled off. That way they guarantee iPhone 7 sales when iOS 10 makes all these current phones slow down.



Sure, if you can think to bring your laptop. Life doesn't always give me that much warning, and often I engage in what I call "guerilla tech" that is unplanned.

The most common example I can think of is I go to visit family for dinner or some kids thing, and as part of it I get a laptop shoved in my hands that has been hosed by malware. I mean one of those really bad ones where it hijacks the DNS so every web browser search engine points you away from any sort of app that would clean off the machine. Often that is their only computer, and so there is no obvious machine that will let you download the app. And of course my laptop is at home because I didn't expect (or didn't want to expect) my dinner to include a malware clean.

Rather than trying to fight whatever is on the machine, I grab my OTG cable out of my car (I stash them everywhere) and I hook some random pen drive up to my phone. Then I quickly download the apps I need on LTE, unmount the drive, and proceed to clean off the family machine. I have done the same trick to download a needed driver or update to a remote non-networked machine, or heck I have used that same cable with an ethernet dongle to diagnose an office network where the wifi wasn't working. All of this I can't do without the power of Android.

I get only a fraction of Android users know how to do that, and of those only a fraction want to, but for those of us that do it is nice to have an option. I used to have a laptop and a netbook, with the netbook living in my car (hoping to not get stolen) for random tech jobs. My Android phone killed that netbook and took an entire device out of my rotation. It really improved my tech life.

Different strokes.

My mum has just got an iPhone 4S and it actually runs suprisingly well. You can't argue that it's a benefit that Android devices have better specs than iPhones unless there is some tangible benefit to you as the user, such as a much longer useful life, or lengthier support from the manufacturer. I've seen no evidence to suggest that either of those two cases are actually true, and in fact it's typically the opposite that is the case; it's the 'lowly' iPhones that last and are supported the longest. My sister still uses the original iPad to this day.

All devices are made with planned obsolescence in mind, as you said, technology and software marches on. And there's no reason to believe the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus won't be supported for as long as any other iPhone, and I'd hazard a guess far longer than any Android phone released in the same time period, regardless of how much RAM that Android device has.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Really? Why no downgrade option? Downgrade would make their customers happy with their old hardware. Apple surely wants their customers to be happy, right?

I am not saying Apple doesn't make decisions to force customers to upgrade. Quite the opposite, I think 1GB of RAM in 2014 phones is one of the most blatantly examples of planned obsolescence ever seen in the mobile industry. I am just saying that unlike what normals think the point of new OSes are not to make old phones run slow. The point is new design/features that make the phones runs slower because of a higher demand on the hardware.

 

[Commodus]

Really? Why no downgrade option? Downgrade would make their customers happy with their old hardware. Apple surely wants their customers to be happy, right?

Allowing downgrades to earlier versions would also create any number of security and support headaches. I'd say Apple is better off being more strategic with upgrades (i.e. deciding when to stop support or optimizing software) than letting you revert to previous releases.