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Interesting. >>d) Samsung panics as it learns that the technology it built might be released by a competitor earlier than them and consumers might think of the

Interesting. >>d) Samsung panics as it learns that the technology it built might be released by a competitor earlier than them and consumers might think of them as less of an innovator. May sound silly but the Chinese companies have been getting a lot of traction recently e.g. P30 Pro. Doesn't sound silly at all. I have a Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S and it's an amazingly good phone for the price (replaced my Google Pixel 2, which I liked enough). I'll absolutely buy a Chinese phone to replace this phone when it's time in a few years, or at least look into it. Other people constantly ask about the phone (has a striking reflective ceramic back) and haven't heard of Chinese phones, but are considering alternatives in droves due to the insane prices of flagships by Apple and Samsung.

yarg 8y ago
You can save a decent amount of money buying phones from brands that don't pay for their own R&D.
- lostmsu 8y ago
  Why do they still sell on US soil? If they'd violated some patent, couldn't the original author get them banned?
  - ergo14 8y ago
    They could have just licensed the patents?
  - james_in_the_uk 8y ago
    Patent litigation is complex and expensive. Also, often a lot of innovations are still patent pending due to the time it takes to get them registered.
    - lostmsu 8y ago
      Can't you send some preliminary request based on pending patent? Also, Huawei and Xiaomu have been getting stronger in US market for years now. Expensive? We are talking about $1T company here. I can't imagine they are unable to afford litigation in their core business space. Basically, until somebody shows they violated some patent(s), these claimes about stolen tech are just a smere campaign. I don't understand why Huawei won't sue for it.
  - tooltalk 8y ago
    I guess that's why there aren't too many Chinese made phones sold in the US.
- NotPaidToPost 8y ago
  Huawei is one of the largest R&D spenders in the world. Perhaps time to stop regurgitating nonsense?
- icelancer 8y ago
  Lot of assumptions baked in here, but the major Chinese manufacturers are not the only ones doing that by a long shot, if that's your complaint. Additionally, the amount of cash Apple has on hand doesn't strike me as people plunging a major amount of their cash reserves into R&D. Much the opposite, actually.
  - simonh 8y ago
    The're expanding R&D very rapidly, quadrupling their spend on it over the last 6 years. For a mature company with an already well established product development operation that's pretty astounding. It's just that they became so immensely profitable so fast, their profits in absolute numbers still dwarf it.
- jdietrich 8y ago
  It doesn't take much R&D to assemble a Qualcomm chipset, an LG display panel, a Sony imaging sensor and some Samsung memory into a phone, nor does it require any kind of reverse-engineering or industrial espionage. The latest flagship phones might use semi-custom components, but midrange handsets are just commodity parts.
- solarkraft 8y ago
  And tons of annoying ads.
  - fernandotakai 8y ago
    not only that but... people trust chinese phones with a chinese OS? i mean, if they steal R&D, what are the chances they are also stealing your data?
    - icelancer 8y ago
      >> people trust chinese phones with a chinese OS? No, wiping and installing stock Android is not that difficult, which is what I've done. Also, you drastically overestimate how interested Chinese manufacturers are in additional data [0] of random Americans. [0]: Considering that all smartphone companies steal your data in some form, I doubt Xiaomi is stealing significantly more, really.
    - solarkraft 8y ago
      I meant the copiers generally spend less (probably much less than Samsung) on building a brand. Again more value for your money. I own a Pocophone F1, made by Xiaomi. It supposedly has one of the better UIs by default, but I found it pretty insufferable. Then again: The terrible software (with some ads) probably again subsidizes the device's price. No joke, the device with absolutely high-end specs cost me about 300€. The bootloader unlocking process is an insult (you have to have a Xiaomi account, verify your e-mail address, link it to your device, install their windows-only software, then wait 3 days [most of those steps took me multiple reboots to get figured out correctly]), but after that it is absolutely smooth to install the Android distribution of your choice - and there's a lot of it. I made sure not to do any banking on it before replacing the software, but afterwards it's probably more trustworthy than stock software of any non-chinese vendor. Of course if we're talking about stock chinese software ..... yeah, I wouldn't trust that, even on their 'global' versions, that aren't government guaranteed to spy on their users.
GordonS 8y ago
> Doesn't sound silly at all I have to agree. Here in the UK, Huawei regularly advertise on TV now (often just after a Samsung ad!), and the name "Xiaomi" is becoming more recognised. Aside from brand recognition, they make some great devices that are cheaper than those from Samsung and Apple. When it comes time to replace my S7, I'll certainly be looking seriously at Huawei and Xiaomi.
- sho_hn 8y ago
  https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.economist.com/briefing/2018/05/31/china-has-turned-xinjiang-into-a-police-state-like-no-other https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.economist.com/briefing/2018... Huawei makes a lot of the equipment for installations like this. How do you reconcile that?
  - cbzry 8y ago
    Not everybody disagrees with that, and even if they do they may not care enough not to buy Huawei equipment.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - jdietrich 8y ago
    Plenty of American companies facilitate surveillance and censorship. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/424584/new-evidence-that-cisco-enables-surveillance-and-control-of-chinas-citizens/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/424584/new-evidence-that-... https://www.cbsnews.com/news/surveillance-and-censorship-inside-syrias-internet/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/surveillance-and-censorship-ins...
    - sho_hn 8y ago
      Of course. There's also the famous case of IBM supplying the Nazi party. How does this address Huawei ...?
  - icelancer 8y ago

yarg 8y ago

You can save a decent amount of money buying phones from brands that don't pay for their own R&D.

lostmsu 8y ago
Why do they still sell on US soil? If they'd violated some patent, couldn't the original author get them banned?
- ergo14 8y ago
  They could have just licensed the patents?
- james_in_the_uk 8y ago
  Patent litigation is complex and expensive. Also, often a lot of innovations are still patent pending due to the time it takes to get them registered.
  - lostmsu 8y ago
    Can't you send some preliminary request based on pending patent? Also, Huawei and Xiaomu have been getting stronger in US market for years now. Expensive? We are talking about $1T company here. I can't imagine they are unable to afford litigation in their core business space. Basically, until somebody shows they violated some patent(s), these claimes about stolen tech are just a smere campaign. I don't understand why Huawei won't sue for it.
- tooltalk 8y ago
  I guess that's why there aren't too many Chinese made phones sold in the US.
NotPaidToPost 8y ago
Huawei is one of the largest R&D spenders in the world. Perhaps time to stop regurgitating nonsense?
icelancer 8y ago
Lot of assumptions baked in here, but the major Chinese manufacturers are not the only ones doing that by a long shot, if that's your complaint. Additionally, the amount of cash Apple has on hand doesn't strike me as people plunging a major amount of their cash reserves into R&D. Much the opposite, actually.
- simonh 8y ago
  The're expanding R&D very rapidly, quadrupling their spend on it over the last 6 years. For a mature company with an already well established product development operation that's pretty astounding. It's just that they became so immensely profitable so fast, their profits in absolute numbers still dwarf it.
jdietrich 8y ago
It doesn't take much R&D to assemble a Qualcomm chipset, an LG display panel, a Sony imaging sensor and some Samsung memory into a phone, nor does it require any kind of reverse-engineering or industrial espionage. The latest flagship phones might use semi-custom components, but midrange handsets are just commodity parts.
solarkraft 8y ago
And tons of annoying ads.
- fernandotakai 8y ago
  not only that but... people trust chinese phones with a chinese OS? i mean, if they steal R&D, what are the chances they are also stealing your data?
  - icelancer 8y ago
    >> people trust chinese phones with a chinese OS? No, wiping and installing stock Android is not that difficult, which is what I've done. Also, you drastically overestimate how interested Chinese manufacturers are in additional data [0] of random Americans. [0]: Considering that all smartphone companies steal your data in some form, I doubt Xiaomi is stealing significantly more, really.
  - solarkraft 8y ago
    I meant the copiers generally spend less (probably much less than Samsung) on building a brand. Again more value for your money. I own a Pocophone F1, made by Xiaomi. It supposedly has one of the better UIs by default, but I found it pretty insufferable. Then again: The terrible software (with some ads) probably again subsidizes the device's price. No joke, the device with absolutely high-end specs cost me about 300€. The bootloader unlocking process is an insult (you have to have a Xiaomi account, verify your e-mail address, link it to your device, install their windows-only software, then wait 3 days [most of those steps took me multiple reboots to get figured out correctly]), but after that it is absolutely smooth to install the Android distribution of your choice - and there's a lot of it. I made sure not to do any banking on it before replacing the software, but afterwards it's probably more trustworthy than stock software of any non-chinese vendor. Of course if we're talking about stock chinese software ..... yeah, I wouldn't trust that, even on their 'global' versions, that aren't government guaranteed to spy on their users.

GordonS 8y ago

> Doesn't sound silly at all I have to agree. Here in the UK, Huawei regularly advertise on TV now (often just after a Samsung ad!), and the name "Xiaomi" is becoming more recognised. Aside from brand recognition, they make some great devices that are cheaper than those from Samsung and Apple. When it comes time to replace my S7, I'll certainly be looking seriously at Huawei and Xiaomi.

sho_hn 8y ago
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.economist.com/briefing/2018/05/31/china-has-turned-xinjiang-into-a-police-state-like-no-other https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.economist.com/briefing/2018... Huawei makes a lot of the equipment for installations like this. How do you reconcile that?
- cbzry 8y ago
  Not everybody disagrees with that, and even if they do they may not care enough not to buy Huawei equipment.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- jdietrich 8y ago
  Plenty of American companies facilitate surveillance and censorship. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/424584/new-evidence-that-cisco-enables-surveillance-and-control-of-chinas-citizens/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/424584/new-evidence-that-... https://www.cbsnews.com/news/surveillance-and-censorship-inside-syrias-internet/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/surveillance-and-censorship-ins...
  - sho_hn 8y ago
    Of course. There's also the famous case of IBM supplying the Nazi party. How does this address Huawei ...?
- icelancer 8y ago