Samsung sold 6.5M Galaxy S III smartphones in Q2 2012, analyst says - Page 5

The comments are the best.  A rip off is a rip off.  I guess if Apple didnt patent the store they are out of luck.

 

 

In what sort of a culture is a comment like this seen as witty or clever?

 

 

My understanding is that it is only one phone, the same for every customer.  

 

Compare that with the raft of different iPhone SKUs - different carriers, different cell bands, different colors, different models, different storage capacities, different price points?

 

Which of the dozens of different iPhones do you want to compare against the one lone Galaxy SIII?   Is it really fair to compare all of the multidunious iPhones against one little underdog?

 

/s

 

 

Because  it  allows the poster to employ an irrational shibboleth, usually with rousing agreement, and seldomly with any request for examination or justification.

 

For reason opaque to me, in certain subcultures, the desire to do such a thing is common.  

 

 

The fable The Emperor's New Clothes illustrates this phenomenon nicely.

 

 

I'm not convinced that the Apple fanbase is  all that large a proportion of iPhone customers.  My impression  is that while the proportion may be high among Mac buyers, the iPhone is sold primarily to average people.

 

 

Hey Hellacool - Please don't feed the trolls.

I enjoy dragging them out from under the bridge.

And your understanding is wrong (which is not surprising).

There are at least 3 distinct Samsung Galaxy SIII phones:
- International phone - currently 4 cores
- Domestic phone - currently 2 cores
- Domestic phone - future 4 cores

That doesn't get into the different storage capacities, colors, different carriers, etc - which is the same issue with all vendors. With Apple (and with most vendors), if you buy a x GB model z phone, you know its specs. That's not true with the SIII. There are different internals, all using the same name.

Where are you getting "domestic phone - future 4 cores"? A citation for these odd proclamations would help readers determine the veracity. Even if it were true, which I've never seen announced anywhere, that doesn't make it three distinct phones now.

Funny how the 'odd proclamations' seem to come from you.

See post #139:
"The International version uses quad-core processors. Unfortunately those processors are not yet compatible with the US's LTE networks. Compatible processors should be available later this year. To be able to take advantage of our 4G networks they had to use dual-core Snapdragon's here. "

That pretty strongly suggests that you think they'll switch to quad core here. It really doesn't matter - the fact is that two consumers could buy SIII phones and they would have very different specs. Not to mention all the other Android fragmentation problems.

 

... or it could be that one company was caught lying about the numbers they were reporting for one of their products and shortly thereafter that same company pulled specific numbers from their quarterly reports.

 

Wouldn't that make anyone question the reason why they pulled the numbers and wouldn't you be suspicious going forward about the numbers that company reports?

 

 

On the one hand I'm happy to see I'm now one of your trusted sources, but on the other you need to read all the posts.

Edited by Gatorguy - 7/13/12 at 2:45pm

Sorry, but I can't stand the boredom of reading all your posts.

It doesn't, however, surprise me that you contradict yourself so frequently that it's necessary to read everything you write.

Doubtful. Based on replies I think you follow me pretty closely. 

I wasn't aware that you need to have an iPhone to like Apple products. I like my Macs, I have no intention of getting an iPhone

 

Either that or some of them are being paid to do this, which is pretty rational.

 

You ever listened to music through headphones on both phones?

 

How about docking it?

 

Game over red rover.

 

One where the Mike Daisey fictional work was picked up by the media and presented as real news in order to crucify a highly successful company.

 

In Australia we call it "tall poppy syndrome".

 

Meanwhile Vietnamese factories churn out Galaxy S III's for Samsung, the workers continue, unknown and ignored.

 

Try to keep up, ok.

 

I've found 4 models of the SIII, not counting white plastic or blue plastic, 16 or 32GB models.

 

i9300, T999, I535, I747

 

Dual core or quad core?

 

Snapdragon or Exynos?

 

Smooth.

 

According to the article, the 2.5 million units may still be in production:

 

"and Samsung said that it was having trouble producing enough copies to keep up with growing demand and expected sales to reach 10 million by July."

 

I think Samsung is trying to play the Apple's short supply game as well.

 

Docking??? How last millenium of you! With new advances in things like bluetooth connectivity for stereos, you really consider docking to be a selling point?
 

If they're meant for the US they're Snapdragon. International they're Exynos. That means the one for T-Mobile's network (SGH-T999), the one for Verizon (SGH-535), and the one for ATT (I747), all have Snapdragon processors tho different baseband chips for those networks. Same thing that Apple does isn't it?

 

The fourth one, the I9300 International version uses the quad-core Exynos. Pretty simple to figure out. The only difference in the three US versions is whose network they're intended for and the exterior color. And that explains your "fragmented" Galaxy S3 claim.

Edited by Gatorguy - 7/13/12 at 5:56pm

 

When it charges the battery at the same time as producing a higher quality sound and video, why yes, yes I do.

 

Speaking of advances in Bluetooth I wonder why Samsung didn't put Bluetooth 4.0 in the SIII, to at least put it on par with the 4S.

 

Yep, they even tried the "production difficulties" causing a delay of the blue painted plastic version, strange thing is, they were available within a week of launch so allowing for shipping and distribution times Samsung must have had stock produced and ready to ship when they made the statement.

Not even close. All their same model phones use the same SoC and same bandband processor.

The only time this differed was with the Verizon iPhone which was released a half a year later which had a new baseband processor specifically for CDMA/CDMA2000. It also contained a redesigned antenna required for Verizon's network and used a Qualcomm Gobi chip that was designed to be a world mode device but there were no power amps and other HW to make that possible, it was just a testbed for what eventually came into full form with the iPhone 4S, but all that is irrelevant...

The GT-I9308 variant of the Galaxy S III looks like it uses a Spreadstrum SC8803G baseband processor in the Snapdragon S4 SoC but I can't verify that. I also can't verify what other basebands processors are used between devices. However, that 's mostly irrelevant as 3rd-party devs are likely to deal directly with that thus making that aspect a non-issue.

That still leaves plenty of other issues that devs need to consider... Excluding capacity (as that's virtually a non-issue) there are differences in the amount of RAM (1GB v. 2GB), the CPU (ARM Cortex A9 v. Qualcomm Krait) and GPU Mali-400 v. Adreno 225)used in these devices. It's not all cut and dry either and it all makes it much harder for a developer to idealize an app for a platform when there is so much variance in the core design.

Excluding the models that are only different due to network differences there are 3 distinct models of the S III that would need to be tested for if was a good developer. They could get away with only two models if they only wanted to test for 1GB of RAM instead of 2GB. To put this another way, that basically means a developer building for the latest Android OS or iPhone OS would need to test the same number of models between 3 years of iPhone releases and these 3 brand new phones that are sold as the same branded model.


PS: For the sake of covering all my bases the new iPad 2 uses a new SoC. However, it's still the same processor, at the same speed, with the same GPU, at the same speed. etc. The only difference is in the lithography. There are changes Apple had to make to the OS but it will not affect developers at all. It's just a testbed to getting 32/28nm up to speed and it results in several more hours to the usage of the new iPad 2's.

The blue polycarbonate version was delayed for International sales which launched in May, several weeks prior to the US. By the time they arrived in the US in late June they obviously had stock built up. I think blue may be available international now instead of just the white version that was originally available. Have you seen the blue polycarb ones yet at your store?

I don't believe it's as varied as you imply Soli. To the best of my knowledge all the US versions, which account for 3 of the 4 model numbers, use the same Adreno 224 GNU chip, the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 8960 CPU, and offer the same 2GB RAM. Same features, same size, same battery, same sensors, same display, same camera, same connectivity and expansion capabilities.

 

The differences are the TMobile version won't support LTE, the Verizon version won't work with GSM, and the ATT won't work with CDMA, thus three differnt model numbers. Otherwise the available colors are the only difference that I can see. 

 

The only other model is the international version and every one of those has the same 1GB RAM, same Cortex A9 CPU, same Exynos Quad chipset, same Mali 400 GPU. Same features, same size, same battery, same sensors, same display, same camera, same connectivity and expansion capabilities as far as I can see. Two hardware builds in other words, one for the US and one for everywhere else.

 

EDIT: By the way, thank you so much for reminding me about the baseband chips. I had a nagging feeling I was a little confused when I made the original post. That's one of the good things about AI members. They don't mind taking the time to correct me if I'm mistaken.

Edited by Gatorguy - 7/13/12 at 8:05pm

They do support Bluetooth 4.0 according to Galaxy 3 specs posted by ATT, Verizon, etc. What makes you think they don't?

 

EDIT: Yup, definitely supports Bluetooth 4.0

http://www.bluetooth.com/Pages/Bluetooth-Smart-Devices.aspx

As I tried to express I'm not drawing a line between a different baseband or network configuration. I'm only drawing a line between the devices with different CPUs, GPUs, and RAM. That leaves three distinct models of the same phone that 3rd-party developers would need to test for: International, South Korean, and the 6 models for various JP, CA and US carriers. Note that I also stated that is a developers app could be tested fine with just 1GB, the International S III, then it wouldn't need to be tested on the 2GB version of the same CPU and GPU, the South Korean S III.

I don't see an obvious hardware difference between the 2 quad-core versions, International and S, Korean other than S. Korea getting 2GB RAM. As you said, whether it's 1 or 2 GB RAM shouldn't mean anything to a developer. You'll have to point anything else I'm missing.

 

So it still looks like just two hardware builds, one based on the Exynos quadcore with both S.Korea and International having the same GPU, CPU, camera etc,, and the US/Japan/Canadian with the same Snapdragon processor, same GPU, CPU, RAM, camera etc.

Yes.

 

They arrived a week after launch, a long time before the US had them.

 

It's metallic blue paint.

Yes, it does matter. If you design an app around a device with twice the resources and then need to account for your app running on the lower resource device or limit the resources the app uses to appeal to the lowest common factor. This is basic logic here. And considering that 7 of 8, current, models of the S III and by far the highest sellers of the device running 2GB devs are probably going to only design around two base versions of the device based on the CPU and GPU, as I stated, thus causing potential problems for unsuspecting users with the International version.

Or do you want to argue some more that RAM doesn't affect how apps run?

If you say it does then it does. I don't see an issue myself but you do. I don't think the 2GB of RAM in the US versions with dual-core Snapdragon will cause problems for "unsuspecting" international buyers with a quadcore processor but only 1GB or RAM. Then again I'm not a developer.

... over polycarb. I think Apple might have used polycarbonate casings themselves. They just didn't refer to them as plastic.

 

The 10 month delay with Apple was due to white glass.

 

Got confused with the Galaxy Nexus.

 

Too many Galaxy's, constellations of them.

I'm not referring to polycarb on an iPhone. I'm pretty sure polycarbonate (you never would have called it plastic) was/is used for the casing on some Apple products

 

1. You can easily charge your phone while streaming music over a bluetooth connection if needed, so I have no idea what you are talking about? Sounds like you could benefit from a bigger battery if it is an issue for you. Strike one! 
2. Regarding higher sound quality, the bandwidth from a 2.4 GHZ bluetooth connection is more than adequate for streaming a 256kbps MP3. Strike two! 
3. For video, many phones provide HDMI output ( the industry standard) without the need for docking. Strike three!

 

Congratulations! You just struck out in a single sentence :)

 

HDMI over Bluetooth, tell me more, I'm interested to know.