When's the right time to release a phone? In between iPhone launches. The hype of the current one has died down and the hype of the next one hasn't started. Motorola should have rode the wave of the first Droid but subsequent models were lackluster. HTC kept releasing different models on different carriers. Samsung was able to come in and stabilize a confusing market, and release their devices at the right time on all carriers and market them like crazy.
As I said, in the US, S4s have been discounted from carriers since coming out. I was seeing ads for S4s being free with 2 year contract and even some with buy one get one sales. The S4 isn't even 6 months old and its already being given away!
Really? Now where have you seen these - I mean besides in your dreams?
As far as HTC is concerned, they used to make the best smartphones out there. But they gradually just lost it. The earlier phones has a superb digital trackball. The HTC EVO has a kickstand. It was a small thing, but enormously useful. Then they started locking the bootloaders (thankfully don't do that anymore), stopped updating the OS, worse got a little hostile to the open source community. XDA was founded on HTC's XDA phone. They gave up their wink-wink-nudge-nudge customization blind eye. Last year I wanted to buy the HTC One X. It had easily the best display of any smartphone I had seen. But they sealed the battery, dropped the SD card and gimped the multi-tasking because the 1GB RAM would not keep the apps and the bloated Sense and multiple apps running concurrently. If I wanted an iPhone I would have bought one. So I bought the S3 - quite easily the best smartphone I have ever used. This year with Samsung dropping the ball with the S4, they could have made hay. Instead they continued with the sealed battery and lack of SD card, messed up the buttons on the phone. Every year they manage to screw up something. Maybe next year they will get it right.
Really? Now where have you seen these - I mean besides in your dreams?
Go to Sprint page on Galaxy S4:
"And now the Next Big Thing gets even better. For a limited time, when you buy a Galaxy S 4 at $199.99 after mail-in rebate, you get a second one FREE when you add a line of service."
Actually, Samsung's high end sales didn't take off until they stopped copying the iPhone's looks, and instead advertised their products as alternatives with more advanced features, bigger screens, etc.
But that's precisely where they (and Android) got traction. "Galaxy" was the buzz word that accompanied their initial iPhone clones, and as a marketing term it's been spammed hard ever since.
Bigger screens granted but are they better screens? All I see is pentile displays, loss of one handed operability, poor battery life and a very small amount of software optimised to take advantage of the surface area.
Advanced features? Pffft. If by advanced you mean gimmickly stuff no-one acually uses then sure. If you mean genuinely useful things like effort free device security and effort free backup to iCloud then... not so much.
"And now the Next Big Thing gets even better. For a limited time, when you buy a Galaxy S 4 at $199.99 after mail-in rebate, you get a second one FREE when you add a line of service."
Definitely BOGO free.
I stand corrected. You are right. Not that I ever sign contracts. The $100 or $200 that you save is totally insignificant when compared to the $2500 - $3000 you spend over the 2 year contract period.
Comments
Sad. HTC produces much better phones than Samsung. They actually gives a shit about design and build quality.
Hmm. Some of you who brought up HTC having too many models, have a point. Not with the number of models themselves, but with their different names.
I think that Samsung looked at what Apple was doing right, and one way was keeping a single name ("iPhone") for marketing and public awareness.
So Samsung made everything a "Galaxy" and advertised like crazy. Now, I think even my 86 year old mother has heard of the name.
I think HTC kind of started on that path with the "One", but they need to give it a lot more time and advertising.
Quote:
Originally Posted by blackbook
As I said, in the US, S4s have been discounted from carriers since coming out. I was seeing ads for S4s being free with 2 year contract and even some with buy one get one sales. The S4 isn't even 6 months old and its already being given away!
Really? Now where have you seen these - I mean besides in your dreams?
As far as HTC is concerned, they used to make the best smartphones out there. But they gradually just lost it. The earlier phones has a superb digital trackball. The HTC EVO has a kickstand. It was a small thing, but enormously useful. Then they started locking the bootloaders (thankfully don't do that anymore), stopped updating the OS, worse got a little hostile to the open source community. XDA was founded on HTC's XDA phone. They gave up their wink-wink-nudge-nudge customization blind eye. Last year I wanted to buy the HTC One X. It had easily the best display of any smartphone I had seen. But they sealed the battery, dropped the SD card and gimped the multi-tasking because the 1GB RAM would not keep the apps and the bloated Sense and multiple apps running concurrently. If I wanted an iPhone I would have bought one. So I bought the S3 - quite easily the best smartphone I have ever used. This year with Samsung dropping the ball with the S4, they could have made hay. Instead they continued with the sealed battery and lack of SD card, messed up the buttons on the phone. Every year they manage to screw up something. Maybe next year they will get it right.
Go to Sprint page on Galaxy S4:
"And now the Next Big Thing gets even better. For a limited time, when you buy a Galaxy S 4 at $199.99 after mail-in rebate, you get a second one FREE when you add a line of service."
Definitely BOGO free.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KDarling
Actually, Samsung's high end sales didn't take off until they stopped copying the iPhone's looks, and instead advertised their products as alternatives with more advanced features, bigger screens, etc.
But that's precisely where they (and Android) got traction. "Galaxy" was the buzz word that accompanied their initial iPhone clones, and as a marketing term it's been spammed hard ever since.
Bigger screens granted but are they better screens? All I see is pentile displays, loss of one handed operability, poor battery life and a very small amount of software optimised to take advantage of the surface area.
Advanced features? Pffft. If by advanced you mean gimmickly stuff no-one acually uses then sure. If you mean genuinely useful things like effort free device security and effort free backup to iCloud then... not so much.
Quote:
Originally Posted by baeder
Go to Sprint page on Galaxy S4:
"And now the Next Big Thing gets even better. For a limited time, when you buy a Galaxy S 4 at $199.99 after mail-in rebate, you get a second one FREE when you add a line of service."
Definitely BOGO free.
I stand corrected. You are right. Not that I ever sign contracts. The $100 or $200 that you save is totally insignificant when compared to the $2500 - $3000 you spend over the 2 year contract period.