Vodafone launched its "iPhone killer", the Qbowl (what a sh*tty name!) on the same day as the iPhone in Germany. The press coverage of that event was massive (sarcasm).
So, today while messing around downtown Stuttgart I went to a Vodafone shop to check out the Qbowl, aka Samsung F700. Since I'm (still) a Vodafone customer I was very interested to see one up close and personal. I went through all of it's features, made mental notes of the response time of the touch screen and the usefulness of the slide-out keyboard, camera, music player, and web browsing. With all that in mind, I went to the T-Com shop a few meters away to check out the iPhone, and made the same tests.
My conclusion: How anyone can say with a straight face that the Samsung F700 is a supposed "iPhone killer" is beyond me. Really. All of the supposed advantages the F700 has over the iPhone on paper (sliding keyboard, 3G, MMS, 5 MP camera, not T-Mobile) are made moot in real world usage. It's bigger than the iPhone (but weighs less), the picture quality is the same as the iPhone despite the higher megapixel count, the web browser (mobile version of Opera) is OK, but extremely slow - slower than Safari on the iPhone in EDGE mode, which is pretty sad, since the Qbowl / F700 is a 3G phone - and the media player SUCKS.
The 3 biggest disappointments are the general UI experience (it's MUCH slower than the iPhone, (the touch screen is nowhere near as responsive as that of the iPhone), the extremely crappy battery life (no doubt due to 3G) and NO WI-FI (In a country where there are more Wi-Fi hotspots as UMTS / 3G antennas, that's a very big deal). This for a phone that costs the same as the iPhone.
If this is an example of what the competition will be for the iPhone, I personally don't see the iPhone being "killed" anytime soon.
Apple's position in the mobile phone market will play out the same as in the MP3 player market; the only phone that will kill the iPhone is a newer iPhone.
This is a public forum, and I hope you get banned from this site for your sexist comments. Next time you want to stroke yourself, do it in private!
It's nice to know that so many of you out there ignored Ste's comments and even kept the tread going with sexist comments of your own.
Hi Golden Gala,
Welcome to AI. Hope you won't let a rocky start drive you away. It's true we have relatively few female posters, and the boys club atmosphere obviously gets a little thick at times. Tech nerds and teh internet, you know how it goes.
Still, hope you stick around and keep giving as good as you get-- we could use a little consciousness raising.
Maybe I should shine the Crazy Chester signal on Gotham's skyline (Chester is one of our long time, beloved ladies of AI, alas an infrequent poster these days).
Welcome to AI. Hope you won't let a rocky start drive you away. It's true we have relatively few female posters, and the boys club atmosphere obviously gets a little thick at times. Tech nerds and teh internet, you know how it goes.
Still, hope you stick around and keep giving as good as you get-- we could use a little consciousness raising.
Maybe I should shine the Crazy Chester signal on Gotham's skyline (Chester is one of our long time, beloved ladies of AI, alas an infrequent poster these days).
Thanks for the welcome. I do visit the site daily, don't post much but I read everything. I'm a huge Apple fan as well as investor and I'm very interested in all things Apple. So, if more of us could be a little more civil towards one another it would go a long way.
Comments
So, today while messing around downtown Stuttgart I went to a Vodafone shop to check out the Qbowl, aka Samsung F700. Since I'm (still) a Vodafone customer I was very interested to see one up close and personal. I went through all of it's features, made mental notes of the response time of the touch screen and the usefulness of the slide-out keyboard, camera, music player, and web browsing. With all that in mind, I went to the T-Com shop a few meters away to check out the iPhone, and made the same tests.
My conclusion: How anyone can say with a straight face that the Samsung F700 is a supposed "iPhone killer" is beyond me. Really. All of the supposed advantages the F700 has over the iPhone on paper (sliding keyboard, 3G, MMS, 5 MP camera, not T-Mobile) are made moot in real world usage. It's bigger than the iPhone (but weighs less), the picture quality is the same as the iPhone despite the higher megapixel count, the web browser (mobile version of Opera) is OK, but extremely slow - slower than Safari on the iPhone in EDGE mode, which is pretty sad, since the Qbowl / F700 is a 3G phone - and the media player SUCKS.
The 3 biggest disappointments are the general UI experience (it's MUCH slower than the iPhone, (the touch screen is nowhere near as responsive as that of the iPhone), the extremely crappy battery life (no doubt due to 3G) and NO WI-FI (In a country where there are more Wi-Fi hotspots as UMTS / 3G antennas, that's a very big deal). This for a phone that costs the same as the iPhone.
If this is an example of what the competition will be for the iPhone, I personally don't see the iPhone being "killed" anytime soon.
Apple's position in the mobile phone market will play out the same as in the MP3 player market; the only phone that will kill the iPhone is a newer iPhone.
This is a public forum, and I hope you get banned from this site for your sexist comments. Next time you want to stroke yourself, do it in private!
It's nice to know that so many of you out there ignored Ste's comments and even kept the tread going with sexist comments of your own.
Hi Golden Gala,
Welcome to AI. Hope you won't let a rocky start drive you away. It's true we have relatively few female posters, and the boys club atmosphere obviously gets a little thick at times. Tech nerds and teh internet, you know how it goes.
Still, hope you stick around and keep giving as good as you get-- we could use a little consciousness raising.
Maybe I should shine the Crazy Chester signal on Gotham's skyline (Chester is one of our long time, beloved ladies of AI, alas an infrequent poster these days).
Hi Golden Gala,
Welcome to AI. Hope you won't let a rocky start drive you away. It's true we have relatively few female posters, and the boys club atmosphere obviously gets a little thick at times. Tech nerds and teh internet, you know how it goes.
Still, hope you stick around and keep giving as good as you get-- we could use a little consciousness raising.
Maybe I should shine the Crazy Chester signal on Gotham's skyline (Chester is one of our long time, beloved ladies of AI, alas an infrequent poster these days).
Thanks for the welcome. I do visit the site daily, don't post much but I read everything. I'm a huge Apple fan as well as investor and I'm very interested in all things Apple. So, if more of us could be a little more civil towards one another it would go a long way.
You never know who's watching.