Let's assume that they knew this was a half baked product.
Not a "first edition" product like the first iPhone, but a rushed, half baked product, released without consideration of sales but just for being the first in the market for this niche.
Given this assumption, why would you give it to reviewers at all ? Remember "Vertu" ? They were the Ferrari of phones during the Blackberry era and were _shit_. I got my hands on them as a kid and was astonished how bad they were compared to my dad's cheap simple Blackberry. There's a reason why they were not reviewed widely, or positively by a large margin.
Why not just do the same thing? Don't be daft and give it to the hands of reviewers who have twitter on their fingertips and will tell everyone about every single flaw about your device, when you know your device has flaws.
Give it to the CEOs/Sports personalities, and let them flash it around for a few days/events, and cover up the flaws in the second edition. If it breaks on their hands, they certainly won't care to advertise that fact, they'll just get another phone.
If they actually thought they had finished this product, well... SSNLF is going to notice a strong presence of gravity for the next few days.
It's not only Ferrari. Across the car industry, reviewers are typically given the highest performing and best examples that come off the production line.
There is a surprising amount of variability between 'identical' cars.
Vertus were always intended as ostentatious, bling products, rather than fantastic phones. They were mid-range models covered in gold and diamonds etc.
A Ferrari is meant to be ostentatious _and_ a great car (not withstanding pratcicality or cost).
> A Ferrari is meant to be ostentatious _and_ a great car (not withstanding pratcicality or cost).
Absolutely not. Ferraris are renowned for being shop queens/needing absurdly frequent servicing, which probably needs to be done at an official dealership. Also, often you need to remove the motor to do basic service (the car is designed for this).
Maybe a better example would have been Leica or something, which at least are very nicely engineered cameras and can run for more than a few months without a dealer service.
I mean if you own a Ferrari and it doesn't need frequent servicing, I'd question why the hell you bought the thing if you didn't intend to drive it as it's designed to be driven.
Because most people aren’t car people and buy it to brag to their friends or so. It’s more important that they look cool.
Also, to be fair, it’s not a big deal to remove the engine and it makes a lot of work much easier.
In fact this was Lamborghini's comeback when Greenpeace had it out for them some years ago. "Sure our cars may have the worst CO2 emission per km, but they're among the best in CO2 emissions per year".
This is often reflected in the surprisingly low insurance premiums relative to the cost of a supercar. Although there are plenty of YouTube videos showing trust fund babies people wrecking them, most owners are middle-aged men who only drive them a few kilometers here and there, they are purchased as trophies, not as daily drivers or race cars.
> You can't find a sport sedan to be better than a Ferrari.
"Better" is a subjective term. A sport sedan is better than a Ferrari if what you need is a sport sedan. A different sportscar may be better than a Ferrari if what you want is something that requires less maintenance (or so I hear, I know nothing about sportscars.)
I doubt that anyone who can buy/wants a Ferrari is choosing between it and a sports sedan (M series, AMG series, RS series etc.). It is between Mclaren/Lamborghini/Ferrari and which one is the best depends on personal preference really (looks, are you going to track etc.).
> Vertus were always intended as ostentatious, bling products, rather than fantastic phones. They were mid-range models covered in gold and diamonds etc.
I never understood this. If you're going to make a ridiculously expensive phone by taking an existing model and covering it in gold and diamonds, then why not start out with a high-end model ? It's not going to have any significant impact on the price anyway.
Probably same reason Dell's high end XPS laptops use low end absolute crap stock parts on the inside (no name Wifi/SSD cards) - to maximize margins as much as possible?
A great car can be a car that simply puts a smile on your face due to sheer engagement and fun of driving it. It stirs your passions. And Ferrari here delivers. Practicality, costs etc. doesn't enter the equation at all.
That's an odd metric, as it would only apply to people who love cars rather than people who use cars for practical purposes.
I don't think I've ever driven or ridden in a car that actually put a smile on my face (and I've ridden in several very high-end cars, including Ferraris). But that's to be expected, as I'm not a car guy.
I got a rare pre-production version of the matrix nokia phone, to test our WAP sites. Our model would shoot the auto-slider cover on every time we pressed the release button. The cover would fly so well we ended up incorporating the phone into the nerf office wars.
Whats the point of being secretive and ruining your reputation by pretending this is a daily driver? This is a status symbol phone. The price point makes that obvious. If it breaks all the time, all the better. It shows you don't care about a disposable $2k.
There are a few ways of looking at this. Most of the more engineery-types are pointing out the inevitability of failure, the challenges trying to find a good enough substrate to mount a touchscreen stack on, and trying to protect an exposed external hinge from impact, and all that material engineering science stuff that's really clever... But well besides the point.
I can't even rationalise why anybody wants a folding screen.
This seems like a gimmick searching for a market, not an answer to demand. And if this was the lowest hanging fruit for R&D to develop the next generation of phones, I think we're finally facing real stagnation in the phone market. Screen pixel density exceeds eyesight. Battery density limits are as far as known science can push them. Storage is beyond what we can reasonably use. 4G is fast enough. They've made every size of phone between a stamp and a tablet. There's nothing left to do. Phones are as dead as the PC.
I jest, but my best hope for a stagnant market is competition on merits that we really want, and less so for the whizz-bang features that attract attention without improving our lives.
I've got a used Nexus 6P with a dying battery. I don't know of any improvements in newer phones I need (except security updates!) but I'm torn whether I want to learn how to replace the battery and risk damage, or shell out some bucks for a local repair shop to do it.
Let new phones come out that are "as good as" the current phones, but reintroduce features we had to "give up" to get them this good. Batteries, useful I/O ports, comfortable shapes to fit our faces...
Save up for a replacement. My 6P just started the boot loop of death. I was using it for navigation, closed the screen and put it down for an hour, picked it back up and it was boot looping. I had that 6P for 2.5 years and even replaced the battery. I just spent a lot of money on a vacation so I wasn't really ready to drop a bunch of money on another flagship-type device. I ended up buying a Moto G7 Power. It's almost the same specs as the 6P which is fine for me, I don't do much intensive stuff on there anyway, but it does have a massive 5000mAh battery which I think I'm going to love above all else.
As for battery replacement, I had a university electronics lab at my disposal. I used a heatgun to heat the top and bottom panels on the back. It wasn't the easiest but the guides online are thorough. One thing I would recommend is letting the phone cool in a bag with some silica gel packets before sticking the back glass panel on. I had some moisture develop inside the camera lens which led to some water spots. It didn't ruin the camera but picture quality degraded a little bit.
Phone batteries are replaceable. Just not directly by end-users (well, not most end-users).
There are design tradeoffs to make the batteries user-replaceable. E.g., the batteries are going to need a casing and socket that make them OK for users to handle and replace.
The phone's going to need additional casing pieces, latches, and seals, etc. The phone's going to be a little bigger, heavier and more expensive. Maybe not a great tradeoff for something needed once every 2-3 years.
I just looked up and Apple is charging $50-$70 to replace your battery, depending on the model. So ~$25-$45 more expensive than a cheap DIY kit from amazon. Considering the various risks of DIY, that's really not that bad to do once every 2-3 years, IMO.
What you call "design tradeoffs" is what consumers call "basic features". I can't think of a single phone before the iPhone that had non-replaceable batteries. Samsung and LG had replacement slots on their flagships all the way up to 2014/15. You had someone a 2014 LG G3 today, and I doubt anyone would complain about the weight or the size, especially when the top-line iPhone has a 6.5 inch screen.
> Maybe not a great tradeoff for something needed once every 2-3 years.
The use case for a replaceable battery is for emergency situations, not just when the original stops holding a charge. I would much rather go back to that time when I could discreetly slip in a replacement than have to use a phone attached to a giant brick with a flimsy USB cable.
Consumers have "insisted" on that in the same way they've insisted on having more hormones, preservatives and color treatments in their food.
Companies have switched to non-replaceable batteries because it's good for their bottom line. It's definitely market forces that are in play, but not the ones in the textbooks where consumers hold all the cards.
> Maybe not a great tradeoff for something needed once every 2-3 years.
The case for user-replaceable batteries isn't just to be able to replace them when they wear out. It's also to be able to carry a spare or two for when you want to use the device for an extended period of time. (No, external power banks don't really address this use case).
> external power banks don't really address this use case
Can you elaborate on why not? For me they address it far better than swapping out the internal battery, since you don't have to interrupt that extended use by powering down the phone to make the switch. They're also way easier to recharge simultaneously, without needing a bank of dummy phones.
The best solution to this I've found is the moto Z series of phones. Integrated battery and an external battery that attaches to the back with magnets.
I don't really use the other mods but there's a battery attached to the back of my phone all the time and a spare in my bag.
Replacing dead batteries is different than the UX of being able to swap empty batteries with fully charged ones so your phone is never left charging on a charger for hours, only one of multiple batteries are. Plus when travelling or away from the charger you could carry multiple with you in a bag.
I get what you're saying, but most modern chargers solve this problem.
I plug my phone into a usb-c charger for 10 minutes and I've got 2~3 hours of charge.
If I really need to be away for a long period, a portable battery pack works just fine (still only needs to be plugged in for a few minutes to get me hours of charge).
I don't really have problems with my battery dying during normal use. I DO have problems with gradually reduced battery life as the battery degrades.
1. There is an industry drive to make phones thinner, and one way to do that is to minimize the casing that a battery requires.
2. Waterproofing is a desirable feature, which is much harder to do when you have an accessible battery, especially in conjunction with 1.
3. Very few customers ever replace their battery.
4. Phones held together with adhesive and made from glass/metal feel and look better than plastic that snaps together. When marketing a premium product it has to look and feel premium.
Security updates and finite battery lives seem to have a convenient crossover. I'm fairly sure if we could keep a device alive indefinitely, people would use them much longer.
I don't think you can safely have replaceable batteries without first making sure the devices' software are user serviceable. Completely flip the development model to something much more like a Linux distribution and get the onus on updating away from the people plugging bits of electronic-Lego together.
I would like a folding screen for the same reason as everybody else. You can put it in your jeans pocket.
Want to watch a move on the train? Pull out your fold and you have a pretty decent size tv.
Same for everything else.
It's a tablet that fits in your pocket. Of course people want it.
However I remember comments like this one about the original iPad in the first place... because I was thinking the same thing at the time. So if you still don't get the appeal of tablets, then a folding phone also won't appeal to you.
>> They've made every size of phone between a stamp and a tablet. There's nothing left to do.
Really? My dream phone doesn't exist yet. I want a phone that is reliable, that lasts more than a few days on a single charge. I want one with two USB connections. I want one with a proper headphone jack, and a speaker that is loud enough to hear properly while driving (without a mount). For these features I am willing to trade size/weight. This phone doesn't exist yet. Until it does there remains room for improvement.
I'm sure you've realized your dream phone will never exist, it sounds more like an older ultrabook than a phone. What's the reason for a USB port, much less two of them? Every new vehicle the past few years has bluetooth, so why a loud speaker?
I have yet to see a bicycle with bluetooth. (electric bike is not the same thing). My car doesn't have bluetooth - it is only 13 years/250000 miles out so it has plenty of life left (most people replace their cars long before they are worn out, I drive mine into the ground). I haven't seen a leaf rake with bluetooth either, and most lawn mowers still don't have it either.
I'm well aware that the dream phone may never exist. That doesn't mean I don't want it.
You can get a Bluetooth speaker that'll clamp onto your bike for $20, or some earbuds. Expecting a phone to blast out high-decibel music that you can hear while mowing the lawn seems like an insane ask.
I fixed it by replacing the head unit with one that supports Bluetooth and CarPlay. An easy DIY project or you can pay a small fee to have it done for you by an installer.
Right, or I can just get a phone with a loud enough speakers in the first place. I've outlined a number of situations where I want loud noise from my phone. Having the phone solve the problem is more convenient than fixing it in each situation separately.
I don't know if it is possible for the phone to provide this, but it is on my want list.
Slightly off topic, but for power tool work / lawnmowers I can heartily recommend 3M Worktunes. It's like $50 bucks and you get decent bluetooth speakers with ear protection, and the battery lasts all day.
(I assumed they just meant two USB-C or micro-USB ports, not big desktop-style ones)
Two USB sockets is like two SIMs. It sounds crazy to most people who’ve never had them, but for a lot of other people they are / would be amazingly useful.
Bluetooth is not always an option. I often travel/work (military) where i must keep it in airplane mode. Wireless headphones also arent an option. 2 usb ports means when one snaps the phone isnt bricked.
Why do you need a loud enough speaker to hear it while driving? Can't you just tie your phone into your car's audio system? Bluetooth, Aux Cable, or otherwise??
I've got a recent Corolla and the Bluetooth integration is buggy, frustrating, the microphone's bad enough people struggle to hear me, and it doesn't much like deciding between multiple phones in the same car.
I was spoiled by a Droid Turbo. Now I can't buy anything with less than 3500mAh of battery, which severely limits my options. Too bad Motorola phones never get software updates and are super locked down
Not to mention the latest offerings by Motorola have been lackluster.
I, too, loved my Droid Turbo. When I first got it, I remember driving from San Diego to the north edge of the Los Angeles metro area over about four hours using Waze. 4 hours of screen and GPS time and it only used about 40% of the battery. But after 3 years, 1 hour of Waze would consume 25% of the battery. The battery would barely last me a day, and if I was somewhere where I wanted to take a decent number of pictures, it wouldn't last more than a couple hours. I bought a replacement battery, but even though the battery was new, it was built years ago and was still slightly degraded.
I ended up buying a Pixel 3. The battery is only 3,000 mAh IIRC, but it's quite efficient. I usually finish my day with about 30-50% of the battery left depending on my usage. Of course, it'll be a different story in 2-3 years.
My Droid Turbo didn't lose much battery capacity, but it was four years old, and everyday apps barely functioned, and random things killed the battery in the background.
I went for the Pixel 2XL, for the battery and for the software updates. Can plug in my phone for an hour here and there at random times, and no longer leave it plugged in at night. I can go out or visit family with battery at 50% and not worry about my phone dying.
Google's fast charging also seems to be more variable and "smart" than motorola's, and doesn't seem to overheat my phone as much
i only charge my iPhone XR every 2-2.5 days. but i don't commute, and i sit at my desk 4-5 hours/day. when i charge (wirelessly), the phone's right in front of me.
And for all of those things, external battery packs exist that you can carry with you.
To anyone who complains that they won't be happy until the perfect device exists that meets all their needs and nothing they don't and doesn't need adapters or dongles to do it: I still use serial cables at least once a month. Do you hear me complaining that I can't find a laptop that includes a serial port? No. Because I recognize that my need is niche and adapters exist to fulfill that need. It doesn't need to be baked into a mass-market device. I'm an adult and can solve my own problems with readily-available tools.
> To anyone who complains that they won't be happy until the perfect device exists that meets all their needs and nothing they don't and doesn't need adapters or dongles to do it
I think the point of frustration is that phones used to address most or all of these needs, and now they don't. So it can clearly be done.
Yes, phones used to satisfy the multi-day battery life needs. Smartphones never did, at least not mass-market smartphones. There were some smartphones that offered massive battery life but they didn't sell well enough to make it profitable to keep making them.
Same with two USB connections. Maybe one existed, but it wasn't a big seller so it was discontinued. Headphone jacks still exist, but phones without them aren't really selling worse so who knows what the future holds.
You know what sells? Mass market phones that meet everyone's needs and accessories that meet everyone's desires. Want longer battery life? Get any off-the-shelf mass market phone and pair it with a portable battery pack. Done. Want louder speakers? Get any off-the-shelf mass market phone and pair it with a Bluetooth speaker. Want a serial port? Buy any mass-market off-the-shelf laptop and a serial port adapter.
Because the next stop after "I demand a phone with loud speakers, multi-day battery life, and a headphone jack" is "no, that one is too expensive" or "no that one is running the wrong OS" or "no that one doesn't have a big enough screen" or "no that one charges with the wrong cable". The next stop is the millions of reasons to not buy exactly what you asked for. People here demand every product be exactly perfectly tailored to their own desires and no one else's and get offended when a device fits their needs but misses one or two of their desires, but also get offended when a product is released that fits someone else's needs and desires because it doesn't perfectly fit their own needs and desires.
"It can clearly be done" so why aren't you using a Moto G7 Power with its massive battery? Because this reason and that reason and the other reason because there is no way to make a device that satisfies every one of your desires. So why are you pretending that there aren't accessories available to satisfy every one of your desires... unless one of your desires is to just endlessly complain about modern technology?
> You know what sells? Mass market phones that meet everyone's needs
Yes, but as of late, those don't exist. At least, none that meet many of my needs.
> why aren't you using a Moto G7 Power with its massive battery?
The battery is an important issue, but not the most important to me. I could compromise on battery life for devices that met my other needs.
I've also decided to bail on commercial smartphones entirely and build my own. I could no longer find a commercial smartphone that was an acceptable compromise for me, and I'm also very much looking forward to no longer having to deal with the Android OS.
<satire>
I still use PDAs when I need a portable computer. Do you hear me complaining about that? No. Because I recognize that my need is niche and PDAs exist to fulfill my need. It doesn't need to be baked into a mass market device. I'm an adult that can bring both a phone and a PDA.
</satire>
I would love a phone that I didn't have to charge every day. My life is too full of stuff that I have to remember to charge frequently as it is. Less of that would be great.
My OnePlus 6 lasts about four days, with each charging cycle containing a few hours of speaking, checking random stuff on the web, and using instant messaging and occasional photo shooting. I really, really don't miss the era of early smartphones that barely made it through the day and when their charge went low they died pretty quickly.
I've gone to bed several times with less than 10% battery left, woke up with 2-3% left in the morning, realised the battery is dying and put it charging during breakfast. Back to at least 80-90% when I'm leaving and thus good for another three days.
The killer feature of the iPhone SE (and its predecessors) is that it can be comfortably operated with just one hand and fits in every pocket. That‘s why many people will continue to use it until it breaks, or Apple decides to release smaller phones again (unlikely at this point).
> I can't even rationalise why anybody wants a folding screen
Look atbhow thick it is when folded. At that size, a normal screen, with a huge battery and a sliding hardware keyboard would much better. For me, it would be an instant buy.
I want a folding screen because it will make every part of using phones a nicer experience. There's a reason tablets exist: tablets provide a superior user experience. The foldable form factor lets you put a tablet in your pocket. Nobody understood the need for the iPad when it came out either.
I dispute that tablets are a superior user experience. They’re great for some things, but in general phones are better. Phones crush tablets in both sales and usage, and most people have a big phone rather than a small phone and a big tablet.
I would say phones crush tablets in sales because you can't put a tablet in your pocket. The folding phone changes this, and that's why its so interesting.
but it seems like tablet use is dwarfed by both desktop and mobile (not sure where laptops fit into the scheme of things) by a factor of 10.
But now it's 2019 and the line between tablets and laptops is blurred. However, I still don't want or need one. It's too big to fit in any pocket and too small to use as your main productivity screen. And only marginally better for watching movies than a flagship phone (which in itself is not a high bar, compared to watching a movie on a big screen TV)
My toilet is dramatically different, better ceramic and less of it, lighter. It's a close-coupled cistern doing away with some piping. It's dual flush, uses much less water; it even has a redesigned ball-cock (float shut-off valve). It has a soft-close removeable seat/lid.
It's actually surprising the amount of new tech in a regular toilet - even compared to 20 years ago. And that's not a complex automated toilet, just a standard UK crapper.
I've never weighed a toilet ?! So I cant comment on that.
Close coupled cisterns have been around for over a century.
The ball cock redesign is a result of the dual flush arrangement (I thought?). But yes that is a change.
Having never come across a soft close lid on a toilet I can't agree they're anything close to standard, I'm sure they exist though. (I'm British also btw, so our experience should somewhat match)
So that's one change mandated by law?
You raise a good point about Japanese toilets though.
>Close coupled cisterns have been around for over a century //
That's interesting, high cisterns (with a chain!) were still common, when I was younger (80s) these were replaced by low cisterns with a pipe between. In the last 2 decades in the UK these have been replaced by close-coupled systems IME.
Re weight, firing is costly, you can improve the shape to reduce the mass of clay which reduces firing costs considerably. I've taken out 50 yr old toilets and fitted new ones.
All the recent commercial fittings (ie in businesses, or in domestic settings done by plumbers) I've seen have been soft close & removeable. There's still a bug IMO, they need some sort of arrangement to make them lift quickly but lower slowly, or soft close only at the extremes of travel (soft close drawers have it, so I guess it'll come; probably a price issue).
The toilet cistern ball cock has changed twice AFAIK, once to accommodate the dual flush (central column), and again to alter the hinging to improve the pressure applied at the valve and reduce leaks.
Samsung's DeX software on the Galaxy S10 and Tab S4 lets you run an Ubuntu ARM installation when the phone is connected to an external monitor. I could definitely see the use for a phone that unfolds into a tablet for work stuff, without requiring the extra peripherals.
I'd much rather carry a single device that can do it all, but a 7.3 inch screen isn't going to get me there. I'm more interested in the Huawei Mate X, that has an 8-inch screen when unfolded.
I still use my 7" tablet for watching and reading stuff and my 5" phone for phone stuff. The thought of having 1 device instead of 2 is pretty nice. We don't appear to be at that point yet, but if it worked I would use it.
anti-phone peripherals. Now that phones are the ubiquitous computers everyone has, we need a next tier down for persisting contact with less addiction!
I'm really excited to see where foldable phones go.
I know it's the first version, but looking at unbox therapy and their review. I kept on seeing the fold. [0]
If you look at reviews of the Huawei Mate X like this one [1]. Sure it's a preview version and a bit shiny, but looks much better than what Samsung has released.
IMHO Huawei has built a better foldable phone. Seems samsung has rushed this out to be the first vendor to release this type of phone, a shame really.
Samsung might have the more impressive technology (well, we thought that before this), but Huawei seems to have thought about the concept a bit more (even though the technology is easier).
It just makes so much more sense to fold to the outside.
The Mate X concept seems much cleaner, with a larger true tablet mode and no redundant screens. It remains to be seen whether the screens can survive normal without getting scuffed up or scratched. I had the same skepticism when the iPhone first came out, but glass screens have proven to be more durable than I thought they could be. Maybe these folding screens will surprise me too?
”It just makes so much more sense to fold to the outside.”
It may make less sense if the bended part of the screen isn’t as strong as conventional flat screens.
There’s a bit of a catch-22 there: you either fold the screen to the inside to give it some more protection, or you fold it to the outside to have a screen on the outside and increase the bending radius.
I don’t know enough of the technology to say what’s the better choice, but it seems it isn’t a trivial decision to make. If it were, the two companies would have made the same choice.
Folding it out lets you use half of the screen and treat it as a normal (almost hand sized) phone for regular day to day stuff, and only unfold it when you really need those extra pixels.
Protecting the screen from damage is an exercise left up to the reader.
In addition to being able to reuse the same screen and cameras for folded mode, you're folding the device flat, which means pressure will be distributed over a larger area, requiring a less sturdy hinge (and less space).
I only speculate, but I think since it's just vapor deposited material, OLED screens with solid backings are quite robust.
The Mate X looks like a premium product when folded and unfolded. Galaxy Fold looks good unfolded, but when you fold it, the front looks like a Raspberry Pi homebrew project.
I think Huawei's offering is a lot further along, purely on the basis that they let random Youtube bloggers play with the phone uninterrupted and post videos about it, with really close looks at the "seamlessness" of the screen at the bend point.
Samsung on the other hand limited their YT exposure to demos where Samsung staff handled the phone.
Noteworthy: 2 of the 3 reviewers I read about broke the screens by taking off the "screen protector" the phone shipped with. It wasn't a screen protector, it was part of the screen.
If it is part of the screen it should not look like a removable screen protector. Everyone is used to pulling a plastic layer off their phone's screen when they take it out of the packaging. This thing looks exactly like one of those.
I once had a friend that was complaining about their decade old microwave and how the keypad was really looking bad, like it was going to fail at any moment. I took a slightly closer look at it, scratched it with my fingernail, and peeled off the protective cover, leaving a brand-spanking-new looking keypad.
We definitely have people trained that electronics come with a protective film over them. I mean, we clearly don't have everyone trained, but... :-)
Reminds me of several people that peeled off the covering on the Pocket Chip, thinking it was a sort of protector. You can see the bubbling in this picture which could lead someone to believe they should remove it.
I cannot ascertain from your comment if you have an opinion on this, but my opinion is that this is a major design flaw (even if it didn't result in immediately broken screens).
Most cases seem to be due to users mistakenly removing the permanent screen protection layer. The company claims that the foldable screen has been tested for 200,000 folds -- i.e. about 5 years of rigorous use.
Most cases seem to be due to users mistakenly removing the permanent screen protection layer.
Let's not push blame on to the user. If the screen protection is so vital that the screen will fail within a day without it, then the problem is that the screen protection is removable and to easy to remove.
The screen protector is an integral part of the screen. It's not that if fails later on without it, trying to remove it destroys the screen. It's like pulling the contacts out of a port and complaining that the phone won't charge.
The point still stands. If the screen protector is so vital, it shouldn't be removable, shouldn't look removable, shouldn't be an option to try to remove it, and instructions should be clear to not attempt to remove it.
> It's like pulling the contacts out of a port and complaining that the phone won't charge.
No, it's like taking the plastic covering off the screen when you remove your new phone from the packaging. Everyone is used to doing that with new phones. If this is not one of those temporary plastic covers then it should not look like one.
Does you phone make it seem like your battery is an insignificant part of the product? Are you likely to play with the battery repeatedly until it comes off?
If the protection layer is all that is "protecting" the screen, why make it removable. Or why not put a big warning label on it (or in the manual) when you unbox the phone. Just saying :)
> You can rewatch my unboxing and @UnboxTherapy’s unboxing. Definitely not in our boxes - or any other review units for that matter. Nobody has verified where Des found this
While not directly comparable, the flexible flat cables in flip phones took years to be 'good' enough to last the phone's lifetime and those moved as much as this thing is going to. This might just be a cause of early production models and early adopter problems and might work out later.
Note: the flex cables are not bad per se as they are also used in cubesats for instance.
There is currently a widely reported issue with display backlight failures in MacBook Pros, apparently caused by a failure-prone flex cable which can’t be replaced:
I mean we could argue that a different material would solve the problem too, although yeah just making it longer also solves the problem and makes more sense.
> the flexible flat cables in flip phones took years to be 'good' enough to last the phone's lifetime
Early flip phones used high spec slip rings instead of flex cables. It's a shame that the industry making those high spec micro slip rings went away with flip phone era.
Only when phones reached the point of being a disposable commodity, they switched to less reliable direct cabling.
Also flex cables are generally have .. i don't know what they are called 'slide sockets' on both ends, and cost pennies. Therefore designed to be repaired. Not much you can do when you flex your screen in half except replace one of the most expensive parts of your phone.
Flex cable used for the mainboard-to-screen connection in Nintendo's DS was a major failure point. It was very tricky to replace (for me); but that did make for many cheap devices that just needed a small repair.
This is the direct result of rushing to offer something that can be called innovation after years of a draught. But foldable phones are as much a gimmick as 3D cameras.
Phone innovation is indeed dead -for the customer, that's ok, but for the vendors it's a nightmare.
After Royole came with the first bendable screens there has been a tremendous pressure among the big players like Samsung and LG to display their technological superiority with bendable stuff. Problem is they are simply not as far as Royole at the moment.
Are you saying that Royole's foldable is more mature? My understanding is that both Royole and Huawei announced their foldable without any release date slightly ahead of Samsung, just so that they could steal Samsung's spotlight.
I don't know much about Royole, but Huawei's foldable comes from BOE and BOE is many years behind Samsung both in mobile OLED and foldable. BOE is accused of copying/stealing Samsung display tech.
This is obviously an early adopter edition of fairly interesting, futuristic product -- Samsung is likewise releasing it in limited quantity by reservation only. It's only gimmicky as phablets that many had denounced years ago.
I just bought a Samsung Galaxy S10e and so far I'm quite pleased with it. It could stand to be smaller, but it does fit in my annoyingly small women's jeans pocket.
I'm writing this on a Sony one. Xperia X Compact. It's true that not enough people bought them. I know only another person who has it. You can count all the iPhone SEs because they are even more compact.
This is definitely not a "gimmick as 3D cameras". I can't wait to replace my phone, tablet and laptop with a single device and a Bluetooth keyboard for whenever I need one. A lot of people I know feel the same and honestly I think people who don't see the potential are being shortsighted.
It's either going to be a massive phone, or a tiny laptop. It's going to be wrapped in a case so it can prop itself up as a "laptop" with the device, keyboard, and case all separate.
It's going to be a phone with a huge, heavy battery, or a weak laptop with very short battery life. Running a limited phone OS or a heavy laptop OS. You'll have to open your phone to use it, and close your laptop to take a phonecall unless you also have a headset and are close.
This is as gimmicky as anything, possibly pending the arrival of magical graphene technology.
What you want is one thing, the software is not there yet, especially for notebook replacement. Unless all you do is edit text files or browse web of course.
It is a gimmick, albeit a more useful one - have tablet and phone in 1 device. The thing is, tablets for most folks are not that great thing that everybody though they would be.
I don't see many people these days using tablets, most folks went back to phones which can do exactly the same stuff. For reading books kindle et al are much better (and cheap) product. People upgrade phones more often, and who wants to use sluggish oldish tablet compared to blazing fast phone that is always in the pocket.
I'm with you, I think phones like these that replace multiple devices are the future for mobile computing because it's pocketable and will be there when you need it and least expect to need it, unlike a laptop.
I don’t get why all the phone makers are set on making bendable folding phones. We have the tech to make OLEDs with near zero bezels, so it seems like the most practical way to do this would just be to use two separate display elements, and make the gap between them as small as possible.
I have an iPhone 7 and the Phone app periodically freezes requiring a reboot. Let that sink in: the primary function of the phone does not work. And I switched to Apple after too many Android issues turned me off completely.
You think we're going to nail folding screens any time soon?
Gotta carry the grievance. What you hold in your head is not a phone, it's a pocket computer platform. Phone is mostly a vestigial tail at that point.
I'm on the Android side and their phone app is deliciously garbage, nothing is right, nothing. And nobody cares. I miss my motorola v50 every time I have to make a call.
Sounds like you might have bad hardware or a corrupt install. Phone app freezes should be exceedingly rare, to the point of nonexistence for most users. I assume you have not jailbroken your phone?
I frequently hit bugs in the Phone app in iOS too (eg can’t answer incoming call). When I used Android it was even worse. I just assumed that was a common experience but nobody cares.
I think it's simple science, no multi-layer material can withstand that stress, but the current technological optimism made too many people believe nothing human can't do. Like this one trader dude I tried to reason with, he was basically "I've got money."
See also: Internet responses to the AirPower cancellation. It mostly sums up to "how dare a big company with a lot of money not be able to defy physical laws." People seem to think they'll magically solve wireless charging over distance as well...
>The device the BBC handled, incidentally, was taken away by Samsung shortly after filming was finished, so our team hasn’t had a chance to see these issues for ourselves.
This seems a red flag, when devices involving mechanical innovation the reviewers should insist on long term review & shouldn't term anything less as a review.
There can be many reasons they took the devices with them after filming. The explanation can be as simple as Samsung UK not having enough samples for all the journalists in London.
or I speculate Samsung didn't want to expose their folding implementation to competitors, who would rush to release "me-too" copies, just before Samsung's release.
Samsung did the same thing at MWC after the unveiling. Most of the demo vids I saw on YT had Samsung employees handling the device.
Huawei on the other hand gave the Mate X to YT'ers for them to shoot 5-10 minute videos examining the phone and fold mechanism from every conceivable angle.
My guess: that “film that went over the screen” is there because Samsung discovered that, in one’s pocket, pressure on the outside of the device decreases the radius of the device below its bend radius (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bend_radius).
The units reviewers have may be early versions with that extra film. That would explain why Mark Gurman wrote ”It appeared removable in the left corner“.
TBH is anybody surprised? Bendable plastics/cables that should work after maybe 50,000 folds (few years of usage) are hard, and first iteration of actual display? Without losing at least some pixels, backlight, contrast etc in the area of the fold, or display actually cracking? Highly expected.
Now if they actually managed to get all things right in the first iteration, now that would be a huge engineering achievement. They will get there, but give them 2-3 generations
Over the years Apple was famous for pantenting some pretty crazy ideas. I’m on the record saying I would never want a folding screen for many reasons, fragility being one. As for Jobs playing a joke?
Not a "first edition" product like the first iPhone, but a rushed, half baked product, released without consideration of sales but just for being the first in the market for this niche.
Given this assumption, why would you give it to reviewers at all ? Remember "Vertu" ? They were the Ferrari of phones during the Blackberry era and were _shit_. I got my hands on them as a kid and was astonished how bad they were compared to my dad's cheap simple Blackberry. There's a reason why they were not reviewed widely, or positively by a large margin.
Why not just do the same thing? Don't be daft and give it to the hands of reviewers who have twitter on their fingertips and will tell everyone about every single flaw about your device, when you know your device has flaws.
Give it to the CEOs/Sports personalities, and let them flash it around for a few days/events, and cover up the flaws in the second edition. If it breaks on their hands, they certainly won't care to advertise that fact, they'll just get another phone.
If they actually thought they had finished this product, well... SSNLF is going to notice a strong presence of gravity for the next few days.