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I knew this would happen around the S21 series when they removed the last hardware item of consequence, the SD Card slot. After that, Samsung focused on being Android's iPhone, except they imitated all of Apple's shortcomings instead of playing to their core values that got them here in the first place: hardware supremacy. Now that the only discernable difference between Samsung and Apple is the OS (folding screens aside), people's choices became binary (iPhone or equally expensive iPhone clone) instead of multifaceted (headphone jacks, SD card slot, etc. vs iPhone). Actually, scratch that - Apple actually added more hardware features* (action button and USB-C) on their latest model, making Samsung look dumber for regressing.
On top of that, other OEMs, like Google, caught up with the only hardware that Samsung has been improving on - the cameras and folding screens - and soaked in customers that feel spurned by Samsung (myself included as of 2 weeks ago), for a lower price. If they don't reverse course and begin concentrating on hardware advantages, especially in an era where consumers are so starved for features that Nothing Phone made a living out of glowing back lights, this may be the beginning of the Korean giant's death knell since younger generations are choosing iPhones.
*Side note - I'm even more pissed about the removal of expandable storage on Android since Apple actually brought them back for the recent MacBooks! So people who claim it's an outdated technology can try and explain why it's making a return on $2K laptops, but not mobile devices other than for greed.
Here in the UK apple is actually cheaper. The S23 from Samsung.com is £849, while the iPhone 15 from apple.com is £799
That's crazy
I just checked where I live and the base s24 is about $55 cheaper than the base iPhone 15.
When you’re spending that much money on a phone, it’s not a huge difference. Of course Samsung will have sales and Apple will not. At least in the country where I live.
Your comment is how I found out the S24 is here haha. But I checked the pricing and it’s £799, same as the iPhone 15
Disagree entitely. Samsung was never #1 because of their S line at all,butt their A line, many of which still have those features. Lower end mattered much more than anything not "budget."
How do you think they got their lower budget models to be so successful? By using the R&D and marketing budget on their flagships. Do you think Samsung would still be selling as many lower end phones if they couldn't advertise and actually entice consumers? They would be competing for scraps along with Moto, Asus, and other niche brands. Hell, there might not even be an Android presence in the US if they only made $200 phones! Apple's domination would be complete.
Good analysis, thanks!
Which phone did you get, if I may ask? A Pixel?
Yup! I really wanted a Sony Xperia for the hardware, but the 2 years of updates were a deal breaker. So for the price of a base model 128GB (lol) S23U, I got a 1TB Pixel 8 Pro and a case with enough money leftover for dinner with the price difference. Their holiday sales were pretty generous!
Thanks! I'm still on the edge between S23 and Pixel 8, always good to hear feedback!
This is my first non-Samsung phone, and after a lot of tweaking and using Nova Launcher (yes, yes, they got bought out by Branch) for the first time in a while, I can say I absolutely love this phone! I won't say it's better than a Samsung, but I can say that it's more or less on par, which is enough for a phone that's a few hundred bucks cheaper. Let me know if you want a more detailed breakdown between Pixels and Samsung (at least as of Note 20 Ultra's specs)!
Sounds nice! From the feedback I read, Samsung S and Pixels are solid phones nowadays, at the end of the day it is up to personal preference
I've been on the Pixel bandwagon since the start. I haven't had every generation, but I've had more than half of them. The pure Android experience and the best cameras on the market have been the biggest draws for me.
I haven't had a Samsung since the Galaxy 5, but i hated the bloat they came with. To me, the biggest flaw to Android is that manufacturers can slap their own launchers/mail and browsers/assistants on them, totally changing the feel of the OS and still get to call the result "Android".
While I agree with you in general...
Quality. A phone is gonna see a lot more shock than the average laptop, so a card slot has to be very robust to prevent data loss. Across two LG, three Moto and one Blu, I've dealt with SD corruption on every one of them. The worst case was one of the Motos. It would corrupt the SD at the drop of a pin. The shock of dropping the phone less than a foot onto my bed was enough. The best one was my first Android phone, the LG Stylo, which had a removable battery with the SD card under that. It only corrupted the card a few times the whole time I had it, though do keep in mind that we're talking about how often total data loss is acceptable. It took me years to realize that I was paying more in my time and lost data than the cost of just getting a phone with more storage.
How? I've never heard of or experienced sd cards corrupting that often if at all in the years I've used them. I'm genuinely curious how often and how hard you drop your phones (aside from the motos)...
Right!? I've used over 8 SD Cards since I first got the Samsung Galaxy S2, starting from 64GB to a 1TB one. Never experienced a single issue! You know what I did see happen though? A buddy's Samsung S21 completely brick and he couldn't retrieve any of his data since everything was stored internally. Luckily for him, at least his photos were backed up on the cloud. Lost his entire music and emulation collection in the process though.