Okay there's nothing much to see here but I wanted to share some ideas and wonder what you guys would think about it. Okay here it goes. I've noticed that from reviews that a lot of people have been expecting smartphones to be released with premium quality designs and now this trend with brushed aluminium housing which usually ends up getting into some casing to conceal all that beauty. I also understand that there's a huge demand from consumers with regards to phone covers and I see that OEM don't particularly pay a lot of attention to this demand. And the ones who do offer OEM cases have very limited and very generic looking designs.
So heres the idea: why don't manufacturers offer smartphones that are very minimalistic( like a Nexus 5), generic (boxy) and even slimmer in design and focus more on marketing a bigger variety of housing/cases that would perfectly fit the phone like a glove. Given that the phone would be extremely slim, this would not add much bulk to the phone after fitting the case. In fact it would still be comparable to the thickness of most smartphones in the market.
So heres the scenario: you walk into a store and choose to purchase this type of smartphone, then you get offered a choice to select from the wide selection of outer shell to protect the delicate core and personalize it according to your requirement.
The manufacturer can then focus on offering more varieties of shells with each coming months to liven up and keep their product line active instead of trying to release different versions of the same phone a few months after release.
If this concept is new then I hope some OEM is reading this and decides to take up the idea. I would definitely get one.
What do you guys think?
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
Related
The successor to Samsung’s Galaxy S II has got to be the second most speculated and talked about smartphone over the past couple of months, with Apple devices always taking the top spot, of course. Samsung has some big shoes to fill and after the kind of success they achieved with the S II, there’s a lot of pressure to up the ante once again. Given the kind of trend that we’ve seen post MWC 2012, we can now come to expect the S III to have these features as standard, if it has to qualify as a ‘high-end’ Android in today’s day and age. We know it will have a quad-core Exynos CPU, the screen size will probably be around 4.6 inches and have an HD resolution, the camera will most likely be a 12MP with BSI and so on and so forth. Samsung will never launch their flagship device that’s inferior in specifications to the competition and now that we’ve seen what HTC and LG have in store, we can draw a rough picture of what to expect.
However, impressive hardware alone is not enough to guarantee a successful product. If you’ve been following the rumour mills, then you’ve probably heard of some of the features that could make it to the S III and we really hope that it’s true as it would truly make it an unique phone and possibly the best Android so far.
A non-ugly, waterproof phone
So far, all water resistant phones haven’t exactly been much of a looker, except for perhaps the Sony Ericsson Xperia Active. But even that wasn’t slim, primarily because of the protective coating for the screen and all the ports. Any manufacturer so far had to fall into the same trap, if they wanted to create an ‘all-weather’ cell phone. The S III, however, needn’t go down that same route. Early last month, we heard rumours about the Galaxy S III getting a water-proof treatment and thanks to the folks at Liquipel, Samsung need not compromise on the design. Available currently in the U.S only, Liquipel will water-proof any smartphone you have for a small fee. It works by injecting the phone with a compound that resists any liquid or moisture. They even had a very impressive demo at CES.
Think of all the money or silly contraptions you’ve used to protect your phone in the rainy season. This technology makes rubberised housings and bulky chassis a thing of the past. If Samsung does implement this and we sincerely hope they do, then they will be the first to do so and it will give them a major advantage over the competition.
Feel what you see
We know that the S III will have an HD resolution screen as the bare minimum, but high resolution mobile screens aren’t exactly cutting edge right now. What if you could feel what you see? Senseg have developed a special touchscreen technology that lets you feel the texture of the image on screen. This is achieved by creating a little electrostatic field around the area that simulates a particular type of texture. They call this a ‘Tixel’ charge driver that creates a small force and by modulating the charge, Senseg can simulate different textures.
While this exact technology might or might not make it to the S III, we hope that Samsung do something special with the screen. If not the ‘Feel Screen’, then at least a higher resolution display would be a nice addition. There were passing rumours that the S III may have a 1080p screen, which seems like overkill, but then again, most high-end Android phones are, so i guess it's ok.
Wireless charging
With everything going wireless, why do we still have to put up with charging cables? According to the Wireless Power Consortium, a number of big companies, including Acer, HTC, LG, etc have certified handsets and chargers that use wireless charging.
‘Qi Certified’ products will be able to charge either from a wall charger or from another compatible device, wirelessly, just as long as they are placed in close proximity. Now Samsung’s name may not be on the list of companies that have applied for patents, but the website clearly states that it’s up to the company, if they want their name up there. Now, given how secretive Samsung have been with the S III, it’s no surprise they don’t show up on the list. This is another big advancement in mobile phones and Samsung can add another feather in their cap should they choose to include it.
Lose the plastic body
While the S II was a sturdy and durable phone, it wasn’t any match for HTC’s unibody aluminium Sensation in terms of build quality. One of the reasons they went with plastic was to keep the weight down, which was fine in 2011, but not anymore. With polycarbonate being used in the Lumia 800 and HTC going with space-age material (literally!) for the One S, Samsung have to step up their game. If you haven't already, check out this really cool video of how HTC creates the chassis for the One S.
Alternately, they could use a ceramic casing or even something fashioned out of carbon fibre or kevlar. The trouble with building chassis with materials like these is that the battery would probably be non-removeable. This is not a very big deal and we can certainly live with it just as long as they have a way to hard reset the phone in case it locks up, because I don’t want to wait around for the battery to drain out.
Gesture control?
This one’s not from any of the rumours, but just hit us while coming up with this list. Rather than using the front camera to recognize gestures, which quite frankly is quite ridiculous because, for one, you can’t use it in the dark and two, it has never, ever worked properly; i were thinking of something along the lines of a PS Vita like touchpad at the back of the phone. The entire phone needn't have this, just a small patch on the top and bottom. For instance, if you hold the phone in one hand, you can easily use your index finger to swipe the rear to unlock the phone, or have a two finger gesture to open the camera. Once in landscape mode, your fingers automatically align around the edges, which comes in handy in racing and action games. Now you never need to block the screen with your fingers, which happens a lot in first person shooters.
This way, even if the screen doesn’t have an oleophobic coating (which never really work anyways), it’s not a major issue, since you’ll be using the gesture pad. This would be a very interesting feature, if Samsung implements something of this nature, as you now have a ‘gaming phone’ as well.
While it’s great fun to speculate what upcoming tech products may shape up to be, a side effect is the pang of disappointment when you realize that none of the features that were so greatly hyped are actually true (iPhone 4S anyone?). Recently, live shots of a Samsung GT-I9300 have been doing the rounds, which is expected to launch in mid-May. To us, it’s highly unlikely that it’s the S III, as it appears to be more of an upper-end mid-range smartphone. Also, we don’t know if Samsung will actually call it the S III. While that does seem like the most logical name in the series, they could decide to start a completely new series, altogether. Samsung have managed to keep the phone a secret incredibly well, but now, the wait is getting a bit frustrating. They better have one hell of a phone in hand whenever they launch it or risk losing their huge fan following.
I wish they make touchwiz as functional and good as sense. After a year of owning the sgs2 I found out it's not just the specs that count. I still prefer my desire (w/sense 3.5 of course)
btw, one of the things I do like about the sgs2 is the build quality, it's not cheap that phone is almost indestructable....
edit2: the sgs2 is not plastic, it's made out of magnesium chasis with a plastic shell, magnesium is used by some of the most expesive cars and racing cycles because it is so light and sturdy (and expensive)
I would like to see custom phones like empty shells that can have this screen that processor and this much ram. To put tegether the hardware we want.
Sent from my LTEVO using xda premium
They probably won't ever be available to the general consumer, since it is pretty much a customized item. Which are usually very expensive. If the manufacturer has to keep taking requests instead of mass producing then either
A. Production is extremely slow and they go out of business
Or
B. They charge high prices to do this and no one wants to pay that except for Lebron James so once again not available to the general consuner
Also no updates. You would have to build a custom ROM yourself if a new version of Android came out
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium
It would still be cool if we could upgrade the ram or something on our own maybe one day with a different operating system. Hmm maybe blackberry 10
Sent from my EVO using xda premium
Go work in China
Sent from my GT-P3100 using xda app-developers app
Phones aren't desktop computers - they're not even laptops.
Being able to "upgrade the RAM" is not the same concept when it comes to the phone. Besides, even if someone could come up with a system - you'd be paying an extraordinary amount of money just to be able to have a huge, clunky phone in which you could "upgrade" one component.
Why bother ? The other components are going to become obsolete, too. Why spend more money when you could just buy a "normal" phone and upgrade ALL components for at a total savings ?
Phone hardware is specialised to fit in a small package. "Custom" laptops are ugly and bulky - and don't even let you pick that many components. Who wants an ugly and bulky phone that costs more than a mass-market one ? I don't think a lot of people would go for that. Sure, custom desktop geeks are willing to let a big chassis take up a lot of space in their homes - but they don't have to lug that thing with them everywhere they go (only to really serious LAN parties and only if they're poor college geeks who can't keep up with gaming laptops or mini-boxes or something).
If you look at phone motherboards, they're very, very compact with chips on both sides - this is going to mean making the phones a lot bigger to be able to make those user-accessible, not to mention the bulk taken up by the new connections needed to make this all interchangeable.
So, let's say it will cost you $2000 for this phone - and this phone is going to be at least 7" tablet size... o, but there's another problem... you can't just make the screen bigger to cover all the area taken up by these new, bulky, spread-out components - because you'd have to make the battery bigger, but there's nowhere to put more battery unless you make the phone even thicker.
So you're going to end up with a a big rock with a small screen - either really, really thick or a huge bezel. That alone is going to make it pretty ugly. And you have to remember that this thing isn't super-powerful, either. So you're trading the portability and weight of a phone to be able to change a few components that are likely going to be obsolete before the $2000 even pays for itself.
Because you could have just bought a $700 phone - and another one, and most of a 3rd. That's six years of phones if you keep them each for 2 years.
Do you really think that the huge beast of a $2000 phone with swappable components is going to be in great condition or have great specs 4 years out, even if the company that made it for you is still in business and producing the custom RAM it needs ? Of course not. Yet you could have had a brand-new, top-of-the-line phone at that time for the same amount of money.
I know it's a cool idea to be able to customise your phone - and maybe some day technology will be there. But right now it's a really, really bad trade in value.
So far most of the major brands have shown off their wares at MWC 2013 and there's really nothing that excites me. The HTC One annnouncement with ultrapixels and full-metal unibody from last week was much more interesting. Nokia was suppose to show off or at least hint at their new Pureview phone, but trotted out a line of budget handsets and even candybar phones. LG, ZTE, Huawei, etc. had a slew of generic looking spec-bumped handsets for all tiers. There were big phones like the Optimus G Pro and the Memo, but bigger screens and faster processors are pretty unexciting these days. I am more keen on unique phone designs, new cameras, new displays, new features, etc. Nothing industry changing or worth upgrading to from a 2012 flagship yet.
However, there are a couple of phones that are on my radar. The Lenovo K900 that was shown at CES is back and it is still better than everything else at MWC. The design looks great and it seems a perfect fit to replace my plasticky and saturated Note 2 with some rigid metal and natural colors. The other phone is the Asus Padfone Infinity. the 5" size is more ideal for me and it also has a metal back, although it isn't as good looking as the K900 and pretty drab in the front. Asus needs to skin their phone and put a brighter, more colorful wallpaper to show off the screen. Stock icons and colors just look drab, coupled with the all black front.
With the larger brands opting more and more to show their best stuff at their own events, these larger all-inclusive shows are becoming duller and duller. A dumping ground for vanilla phones. There are of course, startups and rising stars among them, and you can observe them as they make progress, but by the time they are confident enough to show off something grand, they probably won't be showing it off at MWC.
zte grand memo i see ites aperfect phone must have but after lying in specs 2gb ram>>>1gb and qs800>>>qs600 make me get away from ZTE forever
The thing is nowadays everyone wants to do like Apple... have your own event to announce your new product.
See HTC announcing the new One just before or Samsung who will have a separate event to show the S4, etc...
It kind of makes you wonder what's the point of the exhibition in the end if everybody is going to show their product separately..
Then, MWC is also a professional event where deals/contracts with network operators and manufacturers are discussed (who knows?)
so that alone is probably enough to justify the exhibition even if it will be of little to no interest to the public
Wait and see as they say
or not
katamari201 said:
...long rant...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not everybody buys hones as fashion accessories though. I don't care one jot about looks.
The one and only thing that frustrates me about the Galaxy line is the lack of sports cases/bands that fit well, protect the phone and are comfortable. I've gone through a half dozen since the SGSII and they all sucked. And some were outright highway robbery for what they offered.
This Elevate Sleeve on Kickstarter looks like it has good potential. I'd back it, but the creator will only support bigger devices if he gets more than 25 requests. If anyone also thinks this could be the right sports case, head over and make a request for the SGSIV. There are other "sleeve" type cases, even a couple from Kickstarter, but they are just like the armbands, not real high quality, look cheap and still have that raggedy plastic face.
I was going to buy something similar from nike yesterday, but the last time I checked it out I didn't notice, it was for iphones/ipods.....I was seriously bummed.
Big thanks for posting this and getting my hope up a little bit!!
If I understood correctly, then they consider requests, not how many will actually going to buy this?? Everyone who even likes the idea....start emailing
The price is actually quite good too.....~10€ more expensive than the nike's long sleeves that were 50% off, but the elevate definitely seems alot nicer!!!
Just_s said:
The one and only thing that frustrates me about the Galaxy line is the lack of sports cases/bands that fit well, protect the phone and are comfortable. I've gone through a half dozen since the SGSII and they all sucked. And some were outright highway robbery for what they offered.
This Elevate Sleeve on Kickstarter looks like it has good potential. I'd back it, but the creator will only support bigger devices if he gets more than 25 requests. If anyone also thinks this could be the right sports case, head over and make a request for the SGSIV. There are other "sleeve" type cases, even a couple from Kickstarter, but they are just like the armbands, not real high quality, look cheap and still have that raggedy plastic face.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hope he didn't do too much so searching for that idea
http://store.nike.com/us/en_us/pd/forearm-sleeve-sleeve/pid-581614
warnette said:
Hope he didn't do too much so searching for that idea
http://store.nike.com/us/en_us/pd/forearm-sleeve-sleeve/pid-581614
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, as I mentioned above, there are several other sleeve-style cases, but none that don't suck. I'm guessing you haven't used the NIKE version, which doesn't fit an SGSIV with or without a case on it, nor is it comfortable. Also the NIKE sleeve has the same cheap plastic face and the phone sits on the underside of your forearm rather than the top (very uncomfortable position when running IMO.) Sadly, it is still the best of the cases I've tried, too bad it doesn't work with anything but an old iPhone I use as an iPod.
I'd wager that this or even this were as much an inspiration as the NIKE+ sleeve for the Elevate.
If your criteria for buying something is that it be an original idea, your place must be empty. We don't come across may truly original ideas in the world we live in today. I'll happily take an innovation on an existing product in lieu of an original/bleeding edge product if it gets the job done. If we didn't buy better versions of existing products, we wouldn't have iOS nor Android devices, now would we?
That said, the Elevate is an unproven product, not unlike the betas we all like to run here at XDA, so I am not touting it as the end-all-be-all in fitness cases. From the specs and the prototype, it certainly looks like an innovation over the NIKE version. I'm also not asking anyone else to back the product. I'm just hoping that some folks will head over and chime in for the S4 so that if I decide to back it, I will have a case to receive.
warnette said:
Hope he didn't do too much so searching for that idea
http://store.nike.com/us/en_us/pd/forearm-sleeve-sleeve/pid-581614
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's exactly where there problem started, it's for the iphone...a tiny inferior phone.....a lot of useful stuff is produced for iphones/ipods only because they get to link their product with apple's name....but the rest of us have to suffer...
The approach on the materials is nice...shows that more consideration has gone into the product plus a possibility to get it for other phones as well....at least that seemed to be the idea behind this thread....
alliktaavo said:
That's exactly where there problem started, it's for the iphone...a tiny inferior phone.....a lot of useful stuff is produced for iphones/ipods only because they get to link their product with apple's name....but the rest of us have to suffer...
The approach on the materials is nice...shows that more consideration has gone into the product plus a possibility to get it for other phones as well....at least that seemed to be the idea behind this thread....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bingo!
And as of today, they only need 17 more requests to make this for the S4.
(Potential) Backers — Here's a quick update on the request count that we've gotten so far. Looks like S4 is our most popular so far. Not surprised. Just 17 more requests and we're adding it to the production list.
I put in my request yesterday! Hopefully we get enough for our S4's to be accommodated because this sleeve looks amazing! :good:
I've asked the maker to consider a semi universal sleeve for larger (not the largest, sorry Note folks) phones as this range is relatively similar in size.
Visual Comparison and SIze Specs
Found this kickstarter the other day and backed it. Seems to have a lot of potential if it'll fit the bigger phones (S3/S4)
Who remembers what the HTC One line of devices "used" to be called?
I shouldn't really say that... What I SHOULD ask is: What was HTC's original Android flagship device?
That's right... it was the EVO. And what was one of the coolest features of the EVO?
The kickstand!
There were variations of the kickstand - spring-loaded, reversible, even completely removed from one version of the Evo, and that sure did cause a stir! "I can't sit my phone up and watch -<insert-your-favorite-work-day-sporting-event-here> anymore!" was what I heard A LOT.
I feel like the Spigen gives you the best of both form and function with their Slim Armor offer. I have dropped my phone on multiple occasions, and whether it has been on the face of the device, or if it's been on a corner, or the back, the case has handled the impact to perfection. ZERO screen cracks or scratches, ZERO chipped corners or scuffed back of the device, and still a reasonably slick appearance. It's not as slim as some of the other Slim Armor style cases, but I feel like it's a bit more resistant to impact.
And of course... the kickstand! I'll be honest - it doesn't feel like the sturdiest of kickstands, but it certainly does the trick in terms of holding the device up and letting me run with a hands-free 2nd screen next to my laptop to watch the UEFA Champions League Semifinal... I mean... ummm... CNBC stock prices? (go Barca!)
Check out this product - I really do like their cases, and have nothing but positive feedback for the durability of the Slim-Armor I'm using right now!
D
Disclaimer: The Product Ambassadors are Sprint employees from many different parts of the company that love technology. They volunteer to test out all sorts of Sprint devices and offer opinions freely to the Community. Each Product Ambassador shares their own opinions of these devices, therefore the information in this post does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Sprint. The PAs do not represent the company in an official way, and should not be expected to respond to Community members in an official capacity. #sprintemployee.