4 ms·

They're obsessed with making money. No 3.5mm means you're more likely to buy bluetooth earbuds. No SD? Cloud services. Battery? You'll get a new phone after

by zozin 6y ago

They're obsessed with making money. No 3.5mm means you're more likely to buy bluetooth earbuds. No SD? Cloud services. Battery? You'll get a new phone after 18-24 months. No charger? Wireless charging pad. Apple can "get away" with it because to a lot of people it's a luxury/lifestyle brand. Android vendors copy them because they want to create new revenue streams by removing features/out of nothing too!

unreal6 6y ago
Then why wasn't there massive commercial success for the phones that kept these features, like a headphone jack an SD card? Samsung tried to market it for a few years, but eventually surrendered to the same trends like the rest of the market. If this was really so bad for consumers, they would've chosen the alternatives that were available at the time.
- Judgmentality 6y ago
  The only reason I bought a Pixel 4a instead of a Pixel 5 is because I wanted a headphone jack.
  - galangalalgol 6y ago
    Battery life is better too. Love my 4a.
- Exmoor 6y ago
  I'll be interested to see what happens with Samsung's decision to drop SD. They did that once before with the Galaxy S6 and brought it right back with the S7 after disappointing sales. Personally, I just purchased a Note20 Ultra (at a heavy discount) because it looks like it might be the last phone with microSD that gets long term updates. In theory they sell phones with larger amounts of storage, but they rarely seem to drop below MSRP or are always out of stock if they do.
- klondike_ 6y ago
  Vendor lock in. People might be upset at Apple for removing features, but all their pictures are on iCloud and all their friends are on iMessage, etc. They'll stick with a mediocre iPhone because the friction to switch is too high.
- fraudsyndrome 6y ago
  I would speculate that for some people, while the feature that they removed was preferable for the consumer, it wasn't necessarily a deal breaker. So in the same vein, if they included that feature, it wouldn't be a deal maker either. With all these features they are removing, I personally can't ever see myself buying a device solely based off of that one feature and so I compromise. I'm not happy with having to compromise but it's not a perfect world and I'm not so set in my opinion that I would consider not buying it based off of X feature (to an extent)
- sgtnoodle 6y ago
  I own 3 LG G6 phones. I like the SD slot and headphone jack. I like the display. I like the lack of gimmicks. The camera is mediocre quality-wise, and slow to load and snap a photo, though. The OS is falling out of date, and Google's apps have bloated enough that it's annoying to navigate and listen to youtube music at the same time. The G6 has some reliability flaws around its USB port and camera focus mechanism. I bought two of them used, and the 3rd new because it had a 2 year warranty. The warrantied one I sent in twice under warranty. The 2nd time, they sent me back an "upgraded" G6+ with amazon branding and a locked bootloader, which was unacceptable to me. I politely asked for the G6 or another phone with an unlockable bootloader, and a month later they sent me another G6+. It took 3 months to get that straightened out, but I ended up with a like-new refurbished G6. LG definitely lost money just on the one phone I bought new due to the reliability issues, and probably burned through $100+ in unnecessary stupidity with their warranty process. I tried buying a used V20 (I think) at some point, but the display had severe burn-in, and I was able to return it. I think LG just went slightly too mediocre on each of their phones to optimize costs, missing the forest for the trees. The G6+ would probably be a nearly perfect phone that I would happily pay money for, if it wasn't bootloader locked and infected by amazon. The only reason I have an itch to replace my G6 right now is because of the mediocre camera; I miss so many precious toddler moments that my wife's pixel doesn't. I'll bet every G6 ever made complains about "moisture in the USB port". The V20 clearly has a screen burn-in issue. I bought a used-but-modern mid-range Samsung tablet to mount on an exercise bike, but it turns out none of the biking apps support it. I was annoyed at first because I hate consumer electronics without a purpose, but it turns out it works well as a tablet and I use it all the time. I've owned other tablets over the years, and they all sucked. Clearly Samsung has some idea of what they're doing.
- Macha 6y ago
  The transition was very quick. My experience (replace phones every 3-4 years), I got one phone to pick from where only apple and Google pixel lacked the headphone jack then the next where only the pixel a and some xiaomi devices had a headphone jack
TruthSHIFT 6y ago
A lot of those design decisions can be explained by Apple’s push towards smaller, more waterproof and more durable devices. Like you mention, these choices do make Apple money. But, they also lead to a superior product.
- klondike_ 6y ago
  >more durable I disagree. Lithium cells wear out over time, they're a component that needs to be regularly replaced to maintain peak performance much like the tires on a car. A lot of iPhone users put up with this for some reason, lugging around external batteries as their phone ages which defeat the point of the space savings anyways. With my LG V20, I just buy a replacement battery every year and never have anxiety over finding a charger since it lasts all day even with heavy use. As for waterproofing, the Samsung Galaxy S5 proved that you can have both a removable battery/SD card and maintain waterproofing. Plenty of action cameras have removable batteries too that don't compromise waterproofing.
ekianjo 6y ago
Nevermind all the disposable junk that it creates. And people at the same time complain about the lack of respect for the environment.
- sgtnoodle 6y ago
  That's why I try to buy used phones when possible, and repair them when seemingly wrecked to eek out a bit more life (going as far as re-flowing BGA ICs and bypassing damaged PCB traces with enamel wire). The LG G6 was a great phone to buy used, and it's not too horrible to open up to repair. Probably has something to do with LG giving up...
cerved 6y ago
they make money because the product sells and as others have pointed out, these features have advantages and most consumers appear to appreciate them or not care about them
7952 6y ago
But I will get a new phone after 24 months. It is going to wear out because I am constantly using it.

by zozin 6y ago

unreal6 6y ago

Then why wasn't there massive commercial success for the phones that kept these features, like a headphone jack an SD card? Samsung tried to market it for a few years, but eventually surrendered to the same trends like the rest of the market. If this was really so bad for consumers, they would've chosen the alternatives that were available at the time.

Judgmentality 6y ago
The only reason I bought a Pixel 4a instead of a Pixel 5 is because I wanted a headphone jack.
- galangalalgol 6y ago
  Battery life is better too. Love my 4a.
Exmoor 6y ago
I'll be interested to see what happens with Samsung's decision to drop SD. They did that once before with the Galaxy S6 and brought it right back with the S7 after disappointing sales. Personally, I just purchased a Note20 Ultra (at a heavy discount) because it looks like it might be the last phone with microSD that gets long term updates. In theory they sell phones with larger amounts of storage, but they rarely seem to drop below MSRP or are always out of stock if they do.
klondike_ 6y ago
Vendor lock in. People might be upset at Apple for removing features, but all their pictures are on iCloud and all their friends are on iMessage, etc. They'll stick with a mediocre iPhone because the friction to switch is too high.
fraudsyndrome 6y ago
I would speculate that for some people, while the feature that they removed was preferable for the consumer, it wasn't necessarily a deal breaker. So in the same vein, if they included that feature, it wouldn't be a deal maker either. With all these features they are removing, I personally can't ever see myself buying a device solely based off of that one feature and so I compromise. I'm not happy with having to compromise but it's not a perfect world and I'm not so set in my opinion that I would consider not buying it based off of X feature (to an extent)
sgtnoodle 6y ago
I own 3 LG G6 phones. I like the SD slot and headphone jack. I like the display. I like the lack of gimmicks. The camera is mediocre quality-wise, and slow to load and snap a photo, though. The OS is falling out of date, and Google's apps have bloated enough that it's annoying to navigate and listen to youtube music at the same time. The G6 has some reliability flaws around its USB port and camera focus mechanism. I bought two of them used, and the 3rd new because it had a 2 year warranty. The warrantied one I sent in twice under warranty. The 2nd time, they sent me back an "upgraded" G6+ with amazon branding and a locked bootloader, which was unacceptable to me. I politely asked for the G6 or another phone with an unlockable bootloader, and a month later they sent me another G6+. It took 3 months to get that straightened out, but I ended up with a like-new refurbished G6. LG definitely lost money just on the one phone I bought new due to the reliability issues, and probably burned through $100+ in unnecessary stupidity with their warranty process. I tried buying a used V20 (I think) at some point, but the display had severe burn-in, and I was able to return it. I think LG just went slightly too mediocre on each of their phones to optimize costs, missing the forest for the trees. The G6+ would probably be a nearly perfect phone that I would happily pay money for, if it wasn't bootloader locked and infected by amazon. The only reason I have an itch to replace my G6 right now is because of the mediocre camera; I miss so many precious toddler moments that my wife's pixel doesn't. I'll bet every G6 ever made complains about "moisture in the USB port". The V20 clearly has a screen burn-in issue. I bought a used-but-modern mid-range Samsung tablet to mount on an exercise bike, but it turns out none of the biking apps support it. I was annoyed at first because I hate consumer electronics without a purpose, but it turns out it works well as a tablet and I use it all the time. I've owned other tablets over the years, and they all sucked. Clearly Samsung has some idea of what they're doing.
Macha 6y ago
The transition was very quick. My experience (replace phones every 3-4 years), I got one phone to pick from where only apple and Google pixel lacked the headphone jack then the next where only the pixel a and some xiaomi devices had a headphone jack

TruthSHIFT 6y ago

A lot of those design decisions can be explained by Apple’s push towards smaller, more waterproof and more durable devices. Like you mention, these choices do make Apple money. But, they also lead to a superior product.

klondike_ 6y ago
>more durable I disagree. Lithium cells wear out over time, they're a component that needs to be regularly replaced to maintain peak performance much like the tires on a car. A lot of iPhone users put up with this for some reason, lugging around external batteries as their phone ages which defeat the point of the space savings anyways. With my LG V20, I just buy a replacement battery every year and never have anxiety over finding a charger since it lasts all day even with heavy use. As for waterproofing, the Samsung Galaxy S5 proved that you can have both a removable battery/SD card and maintain waterproofing. Plenty of action cameras have removable batteries too that don't compromise waterproofing.

ekianjo 6y ago

Nevermind all the disposable junk that it creates. And people at the same time complain about the lack of respect for the environment.

sgtnoodle 6y ago
That's why I try to buy used phones when possible, and repair them when seemingly wrecked to eek out a bit more life (going as far as re-flowing BGA ICs and bypassing damaged PCB traces with enamel wire). The LG G6 was a great phone to buy used, and it's not too horrible to open up to repair. Probably has something to do with LG giving up...

cerved 6y ago

they make money because the product sells and as others have pointed out, these features have advantages and most consumers appear to appreciate them or not care about them

7952 6y ago

But I will get a new phone after 24 months. It is going to wear out because I am constantly using it.