9 ms·

Why Samsung is about to become the smartphone king

99 points by vetler 15y ago

flocial 15y ago
I wouldn't dismiss them as copycats since Samsung has good technology. They're also closer to the manufacturing side than Apple. However, they're also spread across all kinds of products. They'll eventually fall into the same trap as Japan. Korean demographics is in a good place right now too, right before low fertility rears its ugly head. They are trying to avoid Japanese mistakes but it's hard to outclass your inspiration or really invent something revolutionary. This is what makes smartphone exciting, the race to advance technology for high stakes.
iaskwhy 15y ago
Samsung has been learning a lot from Apple, not only on their smartphones but also on their laptops (with the release of the Macbook Air sort of clone, Samsung Series 9) and on their tablets (even though they have different sizes, they are all under the same name, Galaxy Tab). They are now focusing on having less choices but better ones. I really like this new approach.
- chopsueyar 15y ago
  I just checked out this Samsung Series 9 ($1618): http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004NF3Z82/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=littdidd-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399373&creativeASIN=B004NF3Z82 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004NF3Z82/ref=as_li_ss_tl?... This one has 13.3" LED display, 128GB SSD, sandy-bridge dual core 1.4 GHz i5, 4GB ram, WiMax 4G support, and a USB 3.0 port. It is 2.88 lbs and .62 inches thick. The MacBook Air 13" model has a 1.86Ghz processor, but a Core 2 Duo, and with 4GB ram and a 128GB SSD, it is $1399. http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_air?mco=MTM3NjY1OTU http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macboo... It weighs more at 2.9lbs and is .68 inches thick at the hinge area. The front is only .11 inches thick. Minus the ability to develop for iOS, the $200 difference seems pretty fair.
  - jrockway 15y ago
    It's $1499 if you get the one without WiMax: http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-NP900X3A-A03US-13-3-Inch-Laptop-Black/dp/B004NF5RU6/ref=pd_cp_pc_1 http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-NP900X3A-A03US-13-3-Inch-Lapto...
    - chopsueyar 15y ago
      Nice.
  - keeperofdakeys 15y ago
    I bought one of these in Australia, ridiculously overpriced ($2500), but I got it on sale for close to US RRP. although I'm mostly happy with it, I think I would have waited or bought something else if I had the chance. It has some strange quirks, like the system not registering holding down the power button during a kernel panic. The solution seems to be putting a paper clip in a pinhole on the bottom while it is unplugged (otherwise it stays on). Then it will turn off and refuse to boot until you plug it back into the power. In all other circumstances holding down the power button works perfectly. The fact that they put the pinhole there seems to infer it was intentional or that they knew about it long before the design work was finished. There has also been a lot of talk about how the broadcom wireless has bad performance, both in linux and windows. It is a half-size mini pcie card, and I have yet to find a good one to replace it.
    - chopsueyar 15y ago
      How did you learn about the pinhole?
      - keeperofdakeys 15y ago
        When I first realised that it wouldn't respond to the power button, I did what I would normally do on any other device - search for a pinhole. At first I didn't find one, but a later investigation found it. I don't know if it is a good or bad thing that consumer electronics have taught me the 'search for pinhole' behaviour. If it interests anyone, it is located on the button, near the right flip-out port.
- golfstrom 15y ago
  imo Samsung is the one (non-Apple) tech product company that gets it. The 9, GS2, and even new galaxy tab are just plain great, polished products. For too long, product development at all these non-Apple places was basically to mindlessly copy Apple. Samsung is there now, and I think Lenovo is also getting there slowly. And don't get me started on Sony.
  - jinushaun 15y ago
    Here here. The 9 is a sexy beast that even a die hard Apple fan must admit looks good. Glad to see someone non-Apple take up the design challenge. Sony seems to have dropped the ball over a decade ago. Dell and HP seem to be running a race to the bottom.
    - msc 15y ago
      I'm gonna be that guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hear,_hear http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hear,_hear
christoph 15y ago
I must say, i'm fully converted from the iPhone club to my Galaxy S2. I can't imagine at the moment what else I could possibly want from a handset, other than slightly better battery life. I've yet to really find anything I can't do with the handset. It's a light, fast, open, beautiful piece of hardware. I'm already seeing a lot of other people converting over after they see the difference that openness can bring. Want to play a random video file? Just drop it onto the phone and hit play.
- wccrawford 15y ago
  While I love my Galaxy S, I wish things wouldn't change quite so fast. It seems like every time I get a gadget, the new version comes out 3 months later and tempts me to spend more money. Thankfully, my Galaxy S is still doing everything I want, so it's not -too- tempting.
  - bad_user 15y ago
    As soon as GS II came out, I bought a Galaxy S, the first version -- that's how I like my phones, kick-ass and cheap. I'll probably change it anyway in a year or two, so why bother paying more for the newer version. I also have an iPhone 3GS, and as long as the battery doesn't die on me and as long the latest iOS works, I won't upgrade.
  - suking 15y ago
    I have a Galaxy S and find Android to be very buggy and slow. This is my first touch screen phone so maybe I'm just not used to how they are, but my old blackberry rarely had these issues.
    - wccrawford 15y ago
      To be fair, I put custom firmware on it, so my experience is probably better than the stock one.
    - andybak 15y ago
      Are you still on Froyo? Gingerbread for the Galaxy made things a lot smoother. (even the first update to the original release firmware made a noticeable difference. See which version you've got.)
batiudrami 15y ago
I work for a telco, and have never seen interest in a prerealease phone like that for the Galaxy S 2, other than for the iPhone obviously. They made an excellent name with the original Galaxy S, and are following it up strongly.
forgottenpaswrd 15y ago
Yesterday my mother wanted to buy a LED TV, so I looked for the reviews at the consumers organization magazine and found the best ones in all categories to be Samsung. They also bought liquavista and have very good OLED screens for the future 5 years. Given that Nokia is years away from launching a phone and they have to start over from scratch, it is going to be hard from them to get market share.
- recoiledsnake 15y ago
  >Given that Nokia is years away from launching a phone and they have to start over from scratch, it is going to be hard from them to get market share. Aren't they releasing a new Windows Phone this year?
  - ttalola 15y ago
    Yes, but in the last years the shipping of many Nokia smartphones has been delayed by months. So it's questionable whether Windows Phones will be available by the end of this year.
- thomaslangston 15y ago
  Semi-related I've had mixed experiences with Samsung computer monitors. I long time ago I purchased a 17 inch desktop monitor. Picture and durability seem right up there, I still use it at home. What's wacky about it is the drivers, which gave me a fair bit of trouble. I got another monitor, this time a HD TV/Monitor combo model. New driver problems, I can't bump the resolution over X by 1080 on my desktop (although I can in games). I've been so happy with the quality otherwise, I'm loathe to swear off the brand. Unfortunately if the next monitor I buy doesn't work as expected I'm returning it and looking elsewhere.
jjm 15y ago
Well, competition is always very good. There are so many metrics to measure with concerning product standing (you've got raw volume measurement, usability, trend factor, and on and on). To me both Apple and Samsung have probably honed in on the few metrics that matter (to consumers) which surprise, give both companies a better bottom line! Oh yeah, and consumers benefit too by having good gear that works. My question is when will it become the data plans which start to limit this 'hand-held device revolution' and when will we do something about it?
neonscribe 15y ago
I want to know more about the "smartphone" market in 1996. If I recall correctly, the smartest thing a phone had in 1996 was a contact list. Perhaps they mean mobile telephones?
- bstx 15y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_9000_Communicator http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_9000_Communicator
krschultz 15y ago
<rant> I'd love to help them with that, if only they could ship a Verizon version of the Galaxy S 2 sometime soon </rant>
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
regularfry 15y ago
I got turned off Samsung a few years ago because of one of their low-end phones: felt cheap, was slow, and the UI sucked. The GS2 has me rethinking that in ways I didn't think it could.
spaghetti 15y ago
What's the development experience like on the Samsung phones? I've been doing iOS since 2008 but have been considering getting into Android for a few months. The only thing that deters me is the few rants I've come across saying how much better the iOS development experience is.
doublerebel 15y ago
Samsung is combining the true openness of Android with Apple-grade hardware, and keeping it affordable. No one else can compete currently at this level. The Software Advantage: Samsung sent a Galaxy S II and sources to the CyanogenMod developers. They are learning very fast -- the home mod community made very significant improvements to the original Galaxy S, and in direct contrast to Apple (and Apple's hate-and-steal technique of 'innovation': denying feature importance and then stealing said feature from jailbreak devs), Samsung is involving those talented devs directly, at practically no cost to Samsung. With this move they have cemented sales among several thousand android devs/enthusiasts -- a small percentage of total sales, but more importantly Samsung is gaining invaluable software improvements and beta testers at the cost of a device or two. It also means they're avoiding the bad press that many Android handset manufacturers (HTC, Motorola in particular) have gotten in the past for staying locked-down and not releasing sources. The Hardware Advantage There is a very important detail the article skims over: "We’ll bring the chips, thank you. Unlike Nokia, Samsung designs its own smartphone processors, just as Apple began to do with the A4 chip it brought to the iPhone 3GS." Samsung manufactures that A4 iPhone core chip and the Galaxy's Cortex-A8 is its brother. If anything, the A4 is a stripped-down version of Samsung's S5 [1]. Samsung again gets to learn and implement tech improvements (this time from Apple) at little or no cost. The Galaxy Tab shares tech with the iPad, and the Series 9 (Macbook Air competitor) mentioned in another comment here [2] is the next example. Also not mentioned is the breadth of Samsung's display advantages. Now that the screen is the most obvious selling (or dick-measuring) point for smartphones, imho their AMOLED is the one to beat. They have such a long advantage in this field [3] it is almost impossible for competitors to compete on price for display tech. They have solid worldwide distribution and can basically sell the same handset in every market. My hope right now is this continues as long as possible! I'm already lamenting the sale of Samsung's HDD division to Seagate. [1] http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4200451/Apple-s-A4-dissected-discussed--and-tantalizing?pageNumber=1 http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4200451/Apple-s-A4-d... [2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2656958 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2656958 [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_light-emitting_diode#Samsung_applications http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_light-emitting_diode#Sa...
- Steko 15y ago
mahmud 15y ago
My Galaxy Tab replaced my laptop at home. It's a ten inch ipad killer, open as your mother's arms, and makes phone calls. It's both wifi AND 3G. Costs sub-$300 in Australia. Fits snuggly in my jacket pocket and plays flash (when i absolutely need it)
- Steko 15y ago
  "ten inch ipad killer" Too bad it's competing against the iPad 2, which destroys it in btty, benchmarks, media and app ecosystem. "Costs sub-$300" With a 1 year contract at $39 a month. $729 off contract.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
GregBuchholz 15y ago
Here's my Samsung story, some of the details might not be 100% accurate, on account of how long ago it happened. One summer, I was working at a computer repair shop as a technician. I was in college, so this was about 1995. A customer brought a Samsung laptop in, and it was suffering symptoms of bad CMOS battery (RTC was resetting or somesuch). Anyway, I was having trouble trying to figure out how to locate the battery to order a replacement. As a last resort I decided to call the support hot-line printed on the bottom of the laptop. I was dreading this step, because I had become very accustomed to having to wait upwards of an hour whenever I called a tech support number. I was absolutely blown away when the phone range like twice, and a guy answered the phone (i.e. no 10 level deep phone tree; no please-press-1-for-sales...). Anyway, I start to tell my story, hoping that this receptionist will point me to someone who knows something, instead of just shunting me off onto hold, waiting for me to give up and hang up. We'll lo and behold, this wasn't a receptionist, it was a technician, who appeared to know something. I gave him the model number of the laptop, and he knew what to do, without even having to look anything up in the computer. He directed me to the place where I had to stick a paper clip to pop off the keyboard, and I was done within 60 seconds, They were shipping me a replacement battery next day. That has been the best example of customer service that I have ever experienced. I remember it 16 years later, and I have been a happy Samsung owner with many different appliances since. And I've never had to call tech-support for any of the hardware I've owned over the years.
SwellJoe 15y ago
So, Samsung "Bada" devices have outsold Windows Phone 7 devices. I'd never even heard of Bada before reading this article. Windows Phone 7 is even worse off than I'd realized (and I already thought it was a market failure).
- te_chris 15y ago
  You would think so, but I guess MS are trying to play a long game. I was talking to some friends who work in corp./enterprise IT the other day; they were saying that the sysadmins and CIO's that they talk to are all very excited to be able to roll out WP7 within companies that are already using MS infrastructure as an iPhone/BB replacement. MS may be late to the consumer party, but they could still take the board room - or if the execs won't give up their iPhones, the rest of the company.
  - boyter 15y ago
    I think this is what everyone is forgetting. MS can attack the cooperate market. Its not sexy but there is a truckload of cash there. I always thought it would be a good move for Oracle to buy RIM. They could then offer an end to end solution for businesses, from hardware (sun), OS (solaris), database (oracle), language (java), all the middle ware software through to the phone. I could see a lot of big companies jumping on that platform in a heartbeat.
    - SwellJoe 15y ago
      I haven't forgotten it. I've actually mentioned it several times in HN threads on the subject, suggesting that the only sane way forward for Microsoft in the mobile market is to hit the enterprise market extremely hard and take the place of Blackberry (which has only just recently lost the crown in the business world). Apple has never known how to provide for the enterprise effectively. Hell, it was several months before iPhones could be locked, for crying out loud, which is one of the big reasons adoption was extremely slow in the enterprise...at least at the companies I know who allowed employees to choose their own phone, but disallowed iPhone (Google among them). And, Google and the Android makers haven't really tried to tackle the enterprise market in any notable way, though the openness of the platform allows bigger businesses to do what they need to do, regardless of vendor support...which is pretty powerful, too. If IT guys are choosing, I'd be surprised if they don't choose Open Source stuff more often than something from MS. But, I have biases from my own days as an IT guy.
davidmathers 15y ago
Samsung also makes cars: http://www.autoblog.com/2011/06/14/renault-samsung-previews-new-sm7-w-video/ http://www.autoblog.com/2011/06/14/renault-samsung-previews-...
sliverstorm 15y ago
Samsung designs its own smartphone processors Sure, the same way that an iPhone app developer designs his own iPhones.

99 points by vetler 15y ago

I wouldn't dismiss them as copycats since Samsung has good technology. They're also closer to the manufacturing side than Apple. However, they're also spread across all kinds of products. They'll eventually fall into the same trap as Japan. Korean demographics is in a good place right now too, right before low fertility rears its ugly head. They are trying to avoid Japanese mistakes but it's hard to outclass your inspiration or really invent something revolutionary. This is what makes smartphone exciting, the race to advance technology for high stakes.

iaskwhy 15y ago

Samsung has been learning a lot from Apple, not only on their smartphones but also on their laptops (with the release of the Macbook Air sort of clone, Samsung Series 9) and on their tablets (even though they have different sizes, they are all under the same name, Galaxy Tab). They are now focusing on having less choices but better ones. I really like this new approach.

chopsueyar 15y ago
I just checked out this Samsung Series 9 ($1618): http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004NF3Z82/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=littdidd-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399373&creativeASIN=B004NF3Z82 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004NF3Z82/ref=as_li_ss_tl?... This one has 13.3" LED display, 128GB SSD, sandy-bridge dual core 1.4 GHz i5, 4GB ram, WiMax 4G support, and a USB 3.0 port. It is 2.88 lbs and .62 inches thick. The MacBook Air 13" model has a 1.86Ghz processor, but a Core 2 Duo, and with 4GB ram and a 128GB SSD, it is $1399. http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_air?mco=MTM3NjY1OTU http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macboo... It weighs more at 2.9lbs and is .68 inches thick at the hinge area. The front is only .11 inches thick. Minus the ability to develop for iOS, the $200 difference seems pretty fair.
- jrockway 15y ago
  It's $1499 if you get the one without WiMax: http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-NP900X3A-A03US-13-3-Inch-Laptop-Black/dp/B004NF5RU6/ref=pd_cp_pc_1 http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-NP900X3A-A03US-13-3-Inch-Lapto...
  - chopsueyar 15y ago
    Nice.
- keeperofdakeys 15y ago
  I bought one of these in Australia, ridiculously overpriced ($2500), but I got it on sale for close to US RRP. although I'm mostly happy with it, I think I would have waited or bought something else if I had the chance. It has some strange quirks, like the system not registering holding down the power button during a kernel panic. The solution seems to be putting a paper clip in a pinhole on the bottom while it is unplugged (otherwise it stays on). Then it will turn off and refuse to boot until you plug it back into the power. In all other circumstances holding down the power button works perfectly. The fact that they put the pinhole there seems to infer it was intentional or that they knew about it long before the design work was finished. There has also been a lot of talk about how the broadcom wireless has bad performance, both in linux and windows. It is a half-size mini pcie card, and I have yet to find a good one to replace it.
  - chopsueyar 15y ago
    How did you learn about the pinhole?
    - keeperofdakeys 15y ago
      When I first realised that it wouldn't respond to the power button, I did what I would normally do on any other device - search for a pinhole. At first I didn't find one, but a later investigation found it. I don't know if it is a good or bad thing that consumer electronics have taught me the 'search for pinhole' behaviour. If it interests anyone, it is located on the button, near the right flip-out port.
golfstrom 15y ago
imo Samsung is the one (non-Apple) tech product company that gets it. The 9, GS2, and even new galaxy tab are just plain great, polished products. For too long, product development at all these non-Apple places was basically to mindlessly copy Apple. Samsung is there now, and I think Lenovo is also getting there slowly. And don't get me started on Sony.
- jinushaun 15y ago
  Here here. The 9 is a sexy beast that even a die hard Apple fan must admit looks good. Glad to see someone non-Apple take up the design challenge. Sony seems to have dropped the ball over a decade ago. Dell and HP seem to be running a race to the bottom.
  - msc 15y ago
    I'm gonna be that guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hear,_hear http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hear,_hear

christoph 15y ago

I must say, i'm fully converted from the iPhone club to my Galaxy S2. I can't imagine at the moment what else I could possibly want from a handset, other than slightly better battery life. I've yet to really find anything I can't do with the handset. It's a light, fast, open, beautiful piece of hardware. I'm already seeing a lot of other people converting over after they see the difference that openness can bring. Want to play a random video file? Just drop it onto the phone and hit play.

wccrawford 15y ago
While I love my Galaxy S, I wish things wouldn't change quite so fast. It seems like every time I get a gadget, the new version comes out 3 months later and tempts me to spend more money. Thankfully, my Galaxy S is still doing everything I want, so it's not -too- tempting.
- bad_user 15y ago
  As soon as GS II came out, I bought a Galaxy S, the first version -- that's how I like my phones, kick-ass and cheap. I'll probably change it anyway in a year or two, so why bother paying more for the newer version. I also have an iPhone 3GS, and as long as the battery doesn't die on me and as long the latest iOS works, I won't upgrade.
- suking 15y ago
  I have a Galaxy S and find Android to be very buggy and slow. This is my first touch screen phone so maybe I'm just not used to how they are, but my old blackberry rarely had these issues.
  - wccrawford 15y ago
    To be fair, I put custom firmware on it, so my experience is probably better than the stock one.
  - andybak 15y ago
    Are you still on Froyo? Gingerbread for the Galaxy made things a lot smoother. (even the first update to the original release firmware made a noticeable difference. See which version you've got.)

batiudrami 15y ago

I work for a telco, and have never seen interest in a prerealease phone like that for the Galaxy S 2, other than for the iPhone obviously. They made an excellent name with the original Galaxy S, and are following it up strongly.

forgottenpaswrd 15y ago

Yesterday my mother wanted to buy a LED TV, so I looked for the reviews at the consumers organization magazine and found the best ones in all categories to be Samsung. They also bought liquavista and have very good OLED screens for the future 5 years. Given that Nokia is years away from launching a phone and they have to start over from scratch, it is going to be hard from them to get market share.

recoiledsnake 15y ago
>Given that Nokia is years away from launching a phone and they have to start over from scratch, it is going to be hard from them to get market share. Aren't they releasing a new Windows Phone this year?
- ttalola 15y ago
  Yes, but in the last years the shipping of many Nokia smartphones has been delayed by months. So it's questionable whether Windows Phones will be available by the end of this year.
thomaslangston 15y ago
Semi-related I've had mixed experiences with Samsung computer monitors. I long time ago I purchased a 17 inch desktop monitor. Picture and durability seem right up there, I still use it at home. What's wacky about it is the drivers, which gave me a fair bit of trouble. I got another monitor, this time a HD TV/Monitor combo model. New driver problems, I can't bump the resolution over X by 1080 on my desktop (although I can in games). I've been so happy with the quality otherwise, I'm loathe to swear off the brand. Unfortunately if the next monitor I buy doesn't work as expected I'm returning it and looking elsewhere.

jjm 15y ago

Well, competition is always very good. There are so many metrics to measure with concerning product standing (you've got raw volume measurement, usability, trend factor, and on and on). To me both Apple and Samsung have probably honed in on the few metrics that matter (to consumers) which surprise, give both companies a better bottom line! Oh yeah, and consumers benefit too by having good gear that works. My question is when will it become the data plans which start to limit this 'hand-held device revolution' and when will we do something about it?

neonscribe 15y ago

I want to know more about the "smartphone" market in 1996. If I recall correctly, the smartest thing a phone had in 1996 was a contact list. Perhaps they mean mobile telephones?

bstx 15y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_9000_Communicator http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_9000_Communicator

krschultz 15y ago

<rant> I'd love to help them with that, if only they could ship a Verizon version of the Galaxy S 2 sometime soon </rant>

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

regularfry 15y ago

I got turned off Samsung a few years ago because of one of their low-end phones: felt cheap, was slow, and the UI sucked. The GS2 has me rethinking that in ways I didn't think it could.

spaghetti 15y ago

What's the development experience like on the Samsung phones? I've been doing iOS since 2008 but have been considering getting into Android for a few months. The only thing that deters me is the few rants I've come across saying how much better the iOS development experience is.

doublerebel 15y ago

Samsung is combining the true openness of Android with Apple-grade hardware, and keeping it affordable. No one else can compete currently at this level. The Software Advantage: Samsung sent a Galaxy S II and sources to the CyanogenMod developers. They are learning very fast -- the home mod community made very significant improvements to the original Galaxy S, and in direct contrast to Apple (and Apple's hate-and-steal technique of 'innovation': denying feature importance and then stealing said feature from jailbreak devs), Samsung is involving those talented devs directly, at practically no cost to Samsung. With this move they have cemented sales among several thousand android devs/enthusiasts -- a small percentage of total sales, but more importantly Samsung is gaining invaluable software improvements and beta testers at the cost of a device or two. It also means they're avoiding the bad press that many Android handset manufacturers (HTC, Motorola in particular) have gotten in the past for staying locked-down and not releasing sources. The Hardware Advantage There is a very important detail the article skims over: "We’ll bring the chips, thank you. Unlike Nokia, Samsung designs its own smartphone processors, just as Apple began to do with the A4 chip it brought to the iPhone 3GS." Samsung manufactures that A4 iPhone core chip and the Galaxy's Cortex-A8 is its brother. If anything, the A4 is a stripped-down version of Samsung's S5 [1]. Samsung again gets to learn and implement tech improvements (this time from Apple) at little or no cost. The Galaxy Tab shares tech with the iPad, and the Series 9 (Macbook Air competitor) mentioned in another comment here [2] is the next example. Also not mentioned is the breadth of Samsung's display advantages. Now that the screen is the most obvious selling (or dick-measuring) point for smartphones, imho their AMOLED is the one to beat. They have such a long advantage in this field [3] it is almost impossible for competitors to compete on price for display tech. They have solid worldwide distribution and can basically sell the same handset in every market. My hope right now is this continues as long as possible! I'm already lamenting the sale of Samsung's HDD division to Seagate. [1] http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4200451/Apple-s-A4-dissected-discussed--and-tantalizing?pageNumber=1 http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4200451/Apple-s-A4-d... [2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2656958 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2656958 [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_light-emitting_diode#Samsung_applications http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_light-emitting_diode#Sa...

Steko 15y ago

mahmud 15y ago

My Galaxy Tab replaced my laptop at home. It's a ten inch ipad killer, open as your mother's arms, and makes phone calls. It's both wifi AND 3G. Costs sub-$300 in Australia. Fits snuggly in my jacket pocket and plays flash (when i absolutely need it)

Steko 15y ago
"ten inch ipad killer" Too bad it's competing against the iPad 2, which destroys it in btty, benchmarks, media and app ecosystem. "Costs sub-$300" With a 1 year contract at $39 a month. $729 off contract.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]

GregBuchholz 15y ago

Here's my Samsung story, some of the details might not be 100% accurate, on account of how long ago it happened. One summer, I was working at a computer repair shop as a technician. I was in college, so this was about 1995. A customer brought a Samsung laptop in, and it was suffering symptoms of bad CMOS battery (RTC was resetting or somesuch). Anyway, I was having trouble trying to figure out how to locate the battery to order a replacement. As a last resort I decided to call the support hot-line printed on the bottom of the laptop. I was dreading this step, because I had become very accustomed to having to wait upwards of an hour whenever I called a tech support number. I was absolutely blown away when the phone range like twice, and a guy answered the phone (i.e. no 10 level deep phone tree; no please-press-1-for-sales...). Anyway, I start to tell my story, hoping that this receptionist will point me to someone who knows something, instead of just shunting me off onto hold, waiting for me to give up and hang up. We'll lo and behold, this wasn't a receptionist, it was a technician, who appeared to know something. I gave him the model number of the laptop, and he knew what to do, without even having to look anything up in the computer. He directed me to the place where I had to stick a paper clip to pop off the keyboard, and I was done within 60 seconds, They were shipping me a replacement battery next day. That has been the best example of customer service that I have ever experienced. I remember it 16 years later, and I have been a happy Samsung owner with many different appliances since. And I've never had to call tech-support for any of the hardware I've owned over the years.

SwellJoe 15y ago

So, Samsung "Bada" devices have outsold Windows Phone 7 devices. I'd never even heard of Bada before reading this article. Windows Phone 7 is even worse off than I'd realized (and I already thought it was a market failure).

te_chris 15y ago
You would think so, but I guess MS are trying to play a long game. I was talking to some friends who work in corp./enterprise IT the other day; they were saying that the sysadmins and CIO's that they talk to are all very excited to be able to roll out WP7 within companies that are already using MS infrastructure as an iPhone/BB replacement. MS may be late to the consumer party, but they could still take the board room - or if the execs won't give up their iPhones, the rest of the company.
- boyter 15y ago
  I think this is what everyone is forgetting. MS can attack the cooperate market. Its not sexy but there is a truckload of cash there. I always thought it would be a good move for Oracle to buy RIM. They could then offer an end to end solution for businesses, from hardware (sun), OS (solaris), database (oracle), language (java), all the middle ware software through to the phone. I could see a lot of big companies jumping on that platform in a heartbeat.
  - SwellJoe 15y ago
    I haven't forgotten it. I've actually mentioned it several times in HN threads on the subject, suggesting that the only sane way forward for Microsoft in the mobile market is to hit the enterprise market extremely hard and take the place of Blackberry (which has only just recently lost the crown in the business world). Apple has never known how to provide for the enterprise effectively. Hell, it was several months before iPhones could be locked, for crying out loud, which is one of the big reasons adoption was extremely slow in the enterprise...at least at the companies I know who allowed employees to choose their own phone, but disallowed iPhone (Google among them). And, Google and the Android makers haven't really tried to tackle the enterprise market in any notable way, though the openness of the platform allows bigger businesses to do what they need to do, regardless of vendor support...which is pretty powerful, too. If IT guys are choosing, I'd be surprised if they don't choose Open Source stuff more often than something from MS. But, I have biases from my own days as an IT guy.

davidmathers 15y ago

Samsung also makes cars: http://www.autoblog.com/2011/06/14/renault-samsung-previews-new-sm7-w-video/ http://www.autoblog.com/2011/06/14/renault-samsung-previews-...

sliverstorm 15y ago

Samsung designs its own smartphone processors Sure, the same way that an iPhone app developer designs his own iPhones.