In 2011, Sharp released the 007SH, a smart phone built with Android that flipped - and swiveled - the standard design. It was still an Android phone, but it offered the compatibilities of a standard flip phone's dialpad, among other aspects.
It's 2015 now, and we've seen the releases of others since. The Gionee W800, the Samsung Galaxy Golden, and recently announced ones like the LG Wine Smart, a new "smart" iteration on the existing LG Wine flip phone brand.
Of course, there are issues for these. Specifically in price, and the use case. Now, I don't live in the countries where these phones are being made, but in America, at least, the flip phone is deemed to be an "elderly" option now. Keen to this, the prices of the Gionee and Samsung ones are exuberant. I can't see why anyone would pay $500+ for the luxury of going back to 2005. Ideally, today, the flip phone exists as "the other budget phone" alongside the weak Android 2.3 and 4.2 smartphones you get for sub $200.
I favor companies like Lenovo, who recently released the A588T, an Android smartphone with a clamshell design that they tout as being a Business/Elderly phone. And it looks to be perfect. At $117, this looks like the perfect price to compromise for those who still live in the flip phone era, surrounded by people with smartphones, and have struggled with using smartphones previously.
What do you guys think? Is the clamshell gonna make a comeback in Android flavors? Do you guys see it potentially making enough of a dent to bring on releases in America, instead of all these Chinese/Japanese variants? Do you know any other affordable clamshell smartphones, like the LeFun/Otium 2015?
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Hey guys,
I'm just curious to see what new products you guys are most looking forward too this coming CES 2011!
Personally, I'm reallllly hoping for the unveiling of a Samsung Galaxy S sucessor (GS2) http://android-addicts.org/news/?p=2909
What are YOU excited for? Is it the onslaught of Honeycomb tablets, new phone unveiling, possible Verizon iPhone, leave a comment!
I'm not necessarily waiting for a specific device but more would like to see what new technology they will show. I'm really excited for dual-core cpu. Also I would like to see some new type of battery technology even if it's still a prototype.
What about HTC´s operating system?
That would make me excited about it!!!
ErOR22 said:
I'm not necessarily waiting for a specific device but more would like to see what new technology they will show. I'm really excited for dual-core cpu. Also I would like to see some new type of battery technology even if it's still a prototype.
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Yes! I'm all for new battery technologies to keep our phones juiced up even with those power hungry dual core CPU's.
Personally Im excited for Tmobile's new phones. Especially the LG OPTIMUS 2X. I cant wait to take advantage of those 4G speeds.
Looking forward to see some WP7 handsets for VZW. Zune HD2. Tablets.
Ford Focus Electric.
Another thing I would love to see is something like dual SD card slot on a phone to allow for more space even though I doubt this will ever happen since manufactures don't really care much about space. Just look at WP7, 8GB is nothing.
looking forward to picking out my next device which will be a honeycomb tegra 2 tablet. Looks like it'll be slim pickins though....
not to mention i am pretty excited just to see honeycomb running on a device.
CES
A Trade fair (trade show, trade exhibition or expo) is an exhibition organized so that companies in a specific industry can showcase and demonstrate their latest products, service, study activities of rivals and examine recent market trends and opportunities. In contrast to consumer fairs, only some trade fairs are open to the public, while others can only be attended by company representatives (members of the trade, e.g. professionals) and members of the press, therefore trade shows are classified as either "Public" or "Trade Only". A few fairs are hybrids of the two; one example is the Frankfurt Book Fair, which is trade-only for its first three days and open to the general public on its final two days. They are held on a continuing basis in virtually all markets and normally attract companies from around the globe. For example, in the U.S. there are currently over 2500[citation needed] trade shows held every year, and several online directories have been established to help organizers, attendees, and marketers identify appropriate events.
assignmenthelps.com
Wow checked out the Ford Focus Electric. I want one!
Before returning to Apple in 1997, Steve Jobs said that there was one thing wrong with Apple, "The products suck! There's no attraction in them anymore!" what he meant was that they had become boxes with generic designs and some chips thrown inside for good measure. They failed to induce lust within the consumer, did not make them wait in lines for their release, did not make them think about selling vital organs, apendages, wives, anything, just to lay their hands on a new Apple product.
Android OEMs seem to be suffering from a similar fate as Apple in its Jobs-less era. Though it has become highly successful in the low and middle-end market, Android has been unable to usurp the iron throne of the iPhone on top of the high =-end market, where all the large profit margins reside. A few phones are able to make a splash, but none of them have had as huge an impact as the iPhone. Even developers are getting tired of the highly fragmented platform and journalists are getting bored of reviewing similar looking devices coming out of a thousand different camps, as everyone and their mother, maybe even their grandmother along with a few nephews, think that it’s a good idea to 'develop' a new Android device.
What Android needs is a super sexy halo device, a flagship that through amazing design, stands out in the crowd and attracts customers towards it in droves. The iPhone was such a device and now even Microsoft’s Windows Phone has such a device in the shape of the Nokia Lumia 800 and it’s upcoming follower the Lumia 900.
The iPhone offers a perfect mix of stellar hardware married to beautiful, yet simple software. People are attracted by the design, and once they get it in their hands and explore the UI, it’s the begining of a love affair. With its latest iteration, Ice Cream Sandwich, Android has, for the first time, gained as beautiful an interface. All Android needs at this point is for some OEM to build a design, attractive enough to give consumers that initial push to fall in love with their OS and to take them to the level of sophistication, as their competitors.
Here are a few of my thoughts about what leading OEMs in the Android world can do to have any hope of being as sexy as their competition:
Samsung
Of all Android OEM’s, none have been as successful in the Android arena as Samsung. Owing to the fact that they produce their own chipsets, they are able to optimize their software much closer to their hardware and are thus able to create a blazing fast user experience. Even their designs are mostly serviceable, but they lose out on one key aspect: material quality. They tend to make all of their phones with cheap looking plastic, which is not preferable for customers who are spending exorbitant amounts of money to purchase their high-end phones. We need more metal, glass and polycarbonate, people!
HTC
Initially, HTC were on the right path; they made some pretty cool devices, like the Nexus One, the Desire S and the Legend, which proved successful for them. But they took that success to heart a little too vehemently. Now, all their devices seem so similar that one would need a microscope to differentiate them, the same wide speaker grills and curved edges; do not make a sexy device! Add to that the sheer volume of devices they produce, customers can get confused far too easily. Guys, churn out low to mid-end devices, all year, but focus all your attention and all your design chops on one high end device per year and build a brand around it. Fortunately, their new One series seems to be on the right track, let’s see what kind of impression it makes.
Motorola
Motorola, just needs focus! They are being acquired by Google, which is a huge deal! One would think that their collective vision of software would be better. After their ridiculous experiments with MotoBlur, their new skin is a major improvement, but there’s still a long way to go to achieve design parity with their competition. Also, they need to maintain the integrity of their brands; it wouldn't exactly inspire customer loyalty to have their newly minted devices one-upped just months after they bought them. For example, the Droid Bionic was released in September 2011, the Razr, two months later and the Razr MAXX a mere three months later, all at the same launch price of $299.99 on a two year contract. Such tactics do not inspire customer loyalty, as customers buy high-end phones with the assurance that theirs would be the best phone on the market for the foreseeable future. Again, focus on one flagship slab phone, coupled with another flagship QWERTY slider per year, and you're golden.
Sony
Sony is one of the strongest Android OEMs, right now in terms of design. Both the Xperia Arc and the newly announced Xperia S are pretty well-designed phones, but Sony always commits one fatal error, it does not iterate fast enough! The fact that the Xperia S is going to be launched with Gingerbread, instead of Ice Cream Sandwich and that it is using last year’s silicon (i.e. the Snapdragon S3, instead of the S4) cumulatively makes it a bittersweet deal. Good design needs substance as well, so ramp-up your game Sony, catch up already!
Android has now evolved into a pretty compelling platform with the advent of ICS. OEMs need to do justice to such attractive software and combine it with, simply put ‘amazing hardware’, to make sure that this sweet lass called Android, finally becomes sexy enough to attract as large a cult following as iOS.
Basically you've addressed the strategy each of the major players in Android need to take. I have generalised it a bit more other threads, saying that they need a strategy close to Sony and HTC, meaning more polish and support on a range of fewer phones. Although I do agree about Sony being behind on both OS and tech. While churning out numerous various iterations each year seems to be profitable, it is conversely damaging to these companies. The company's reputation becomes tarnished, and when they perfect the 'smaller range of phones with more polish' strategy, the companies should see more profitability.
Samsung while needing to put better build materials, also needs to reduce the sheer range of phones they put out each. Galaxy S series (1, 2 and upcoming 3) Galaxy Note, and Ace series really comprised the quintessential range of Samsung Android phones. The Galaxy Beam could be included when released. However you can't say that about the Galaxy R, W, Fit, Mini, Gio etc. It fails to really bring meaningful variation. Android is about options, but the difference in choices should be substantial or tangible.
I, often, go as far to say you have three level for consumers; high end, mid level, and budget. Now the major players excluding Sony, usually like to intergrate the lastest tech, which means that 4 - 5 months later the manufacture can introduce a new phone on just two levels or all three. So you've got a base range of 9 phones more or less each year. You might have a catergory of Special phone category for unique features like the Galaxy Beam or Xperia Sola or Padphone. A company should easily be able to provide excellent support for 9-10 phones. It might be a little more with 4g(or next gen)/International variations but is a new budget phone every 4 months necessary?
I really think customers would get this, but what do you think.
Agreed with pretty much all of it. Ever since after the Nexus One (arguably, before it as well), there have been too many Android devices that are practically clones. Although this is good because the more phones there are the more people will use Android (I guess), it's just overcrowding crap. And yes, Samsung's phones major downside is the stupid plastic they use, haha!
charmthief88 said:
Basically you've addressed the strategy each of the major players in Android need to take. I have generalised it a bit more other threads, saying that they need a strategy close to Sony and HTC, meaning more polish and support on a range of fewer phones. Although I do agree about Sony being behind on both OS and tech. While churning out numerous various iterations each year seems to be profitable, it is conversely damaging to these companies. The company's reputation becomes tarnished, and when they perfect the 'smaller range of phones with more polish' strategy, the companies should see more profitability.
Samsung while needing to put better build materials, also needs to reduce the sheer range of phones they put out each. Galaxy S series (1, 2 and upcoming 3) Galaxy Note, and Ace series really comprised the quintessential range of Samsung Android phones. The Galaxy Beam could be included when released. However you can't say that about the Galaxy R, W, Fit, Mini, Gio etc. It fails to really bring meaningful variation. Android is about options, but the difference in choices should be substantial or tangible.
I, often, go as far to say you have three level for consumers; high end, mid level, and budget. Now the major players excluding Sony, usually like to intergrate the lastest tech, which means that 4 - 5 months later the manufacture can introduce a new phone on just two levels or all three. So you've got a base range of 9 phones more or less each year. You might have a catergory of Special phone category for unique features like the Galaxy Beam or Xperia Sola or Padphone. A company should easily be able to provide excellent support for 9-10 phones. It might be a little more with 4g(or next gen)/International variations but is a new budget phone every 4 months necessary?
I really think customers would get this, but what do you think.
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My Personal opinion differs for every company,
1. HTC - Last year, they produced many handsets, but none of none them was able to catch up with Samsung's flagship. They even produced two variants of their previous flagship Sensation which are Sensation XE and XL. In terms of design, XL was just a re-branded sensation with the beats logo, colored grills and increase in the CPU speed, while the XL was Xtra Large and was really costly. This played a major role in their loss of profit or revenue last year, Although i liked the Explorer, it was quite cool handset and showed improvement over it's predecessor Wildfire S.
2. Sony- Previous year, they just focus on their Xperia line of phones, one by one they just released Xperia series phones. They completely forgot their legendary series viz Walkman, Although the xperia smart phones were good- looking, sony's strategy failed to appeal to consumers much.
P.S. Sorry, it was Sony Ericson previous year.
3. Samsung- They are the most successful company in the Android smart phones arena. Producing smart phones like Galaxy SII and Galaxy Note, i think i don't need to say much about them. But, whereas they produced great phones, they also made some goofy mistakes, like producing clones of their previous flagship like Galaxy S Plus, Galaxy S advance and the recent Galaxy S blaze. In my opinion, Samsung currently holds a powerful portfolio of smartphone varying from Low-end droids to high end. But they also have some obsolete stuff in their portfolio which they should clean viz. Pop, fit, mini etc.
Samsung has released a new flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S3, including voice control, wireless beaming of content and exclusive apps, as it aims to consolidate its position at the top of the mobile sector.
The S3 has a super AMOLED 4.8in screen, larger than its predecessor the S2, with an 8 megapixel rear camera and 1.9MP front camera which offers "intelligent camera features" that the company says will adapt to what it sees you doing.
The phone runs on Google's Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) software, but has a number of Samsung additions – including voice recognition and eye tracking.
The phone will go on sale on 30 May in the UK, with Orange and Phones4U already lined up to sell it. No price has yet been given. It will go on sale in the US this summer. Samsung said it will go on sale with 296 carriers in 145 countries. It can connect at "4G" speeds in compatible countries.
"S Voice" can respond to spoken orders such as "wake up" when its screen is off, "snooze" for an alarm, or to play a particular song, change volume settings, and take pictures. It also responds to gestures, so that lifting the phone to the face while sending a text message will dial the recipient's number instead.
Samsung has also souped up Google's Android Beam (which can pass data such as business card details) so it is capable of sending a 1GB file between two S3 phones in three minutes, or a 10MB file in two seconds by touching them together.
It comes in a 15GB or 32GB version, though the company said a 64GB model would come soon. Buyers can get an optional wireless charging pad, similar to that offered with the now-defunct HP TouchPad last year.
At 4.8in, the screen size is only just below the minimum 5in that most analysts class as a tablet – indicating Samsung's confidence that top-end users will want larger screens. The first-generation Galaxy S in 2010 had a 4in screen; the S2, a 4.3in screen.
The company sold an estimated 44m smartphones across its entire portfolio in the first quarter of 2012, more than any other company. It dominates the Android sector too, selling around 50% of phones on a platform which itself makes up 50% of smartphone sales.
Jason Jenkins, editor of CNET UK, said: "The Samsung Galaxy S3 is a cracker of a smartphone that makes the iPhone look a little like yesterday's model. It cements Samsung's place as one of the leading phone manufacturers and really puts the pressure on Apple to come up with something different for its next iPhone later in the year.
"It's also starting to look like this will be a two-horse race – Samsung and Apple fighting it out for the number one spot with everyone else left to pick up the crumbs. HTC, Sony, BlackBerry and Nokia are the ones with the real work to do."
Ian Fogg, an analyst at IHS Suppli, said: "What's striking is that Samsung is focusing on software and the experiences, more than the hardware (although that is excellent too). Features like Pop over, social tag, and S Voice all aspire to differentiate from the opposition through the user experience that Samsung's software customisation delivers.
"Samsung have been leading up to this for a while, but this is the first time they've led their product positioning on user experience and software."
Francisco Jeronimo, IDC's smartphones analyst, was downbeat, saying: "It is not an eye-catching device that will overwhelm consumers."
He noted that analysts had not been given the chance to try out the voice control in pre-release demonstrations of the phone. Of a brief test, he said: "Overall, [it] seems very similar to Siri, but my first impression was that is not as well integrated with the phone as Siri is with the iPhone."
Carolina Milanesi, smartphones analyst at the research group Gartner, said that Samsung was looking for ways to remain ahead of rivals in the Android space, as well as Apple.
"They need to push the boundaries in order to remain ahead," she said. "It will be interesting to see how many of these new features [in the S3] will be open to developers so that they can take advantage of them in their apps."
However, if developers start to target Samsung APIs for apps, that could potentially split the Android platform still further beyond the individual versions produced by Google – and would also tend to increase Samsung's control of Android.
Such an "embrace and extend" manoeuvre would build its control of the platform, where it already presently has half of worldwide sales and is the biggest profit-maker.
Jeronimo observed: "Samsung definitely embraced Android, and is extending it. We shouldn't also forget that Samsung has a quite opportunistic approach to market trends.
"If Android is now the new kid on the block that can best contribute to its success, they will invest and nurture it to maximise the opportunity. But if the trend changes (and they are very good at anticipating that), they will also change the platform they embrace in the future."
But, he added: "It is clear that Samsung has no other strong options at the moment."
No price was announced, though Milanesi suggested that it would be priced similarly to the Google-branded (but Samsung-made) Galaxy Nexus, released last October, and that prices of the year-old Galaxy S2 would be cut to boost Samsung's already dominant share.
Milanesi was generally impressed with the device, though with some reservations. "The design is much improved, and despite the fact that it is still plastic it feels much less cheap than the Galaxy S2 and the Nexus," she said.
But she thought the S Voice control was less convincing: "It came across as a little gimmicky when I played with it. But to me the main issue is that these features are quite buried in the device, so might not be that obvious to consumers. S Voice is not as complex as Siri – more like voice activation for simple commands."
Overall, she suggested: "I think Samsung has similar challenges to Apple but with a less convincing overall package and a weaker brand."
But Fogg suggested that the real problem would be for other companies. "For Nokia, this must be deeply concerning," he said. "One of Nokia's stated reasons they opted for Windows Phone was because they believed that it would be impossible to differentiate using Android.
"Samsung is showing with the the Galaxy S3 that it's perfectly possible to innovate with Android software. In fact, Android is enabling faster innovation than any handset maker has managed with Windows Phone."
But the new Galaxy S3 could also pose problems for the smaller players in the Android space, Fogg suggested. "Samsung's marketing spend and brand awareness are second to none. This combination of marketing spend and channels will cause serious problems for smaller handset makers such as HTC, LG and Motorola."
Jeronimo warned that Samsung needs to consolidate its position: "Samsung needs to come up with unique features and not to catch-up once again with other vendors. What is there that's completely unique on the S3 that we haven't seen on other devices? Maybe slight differences on the features, but nothing disruptive.
"They entered a new era. The only way to succeed is to set the pace of innovation. I believe that's exactly what they want to do, but they still suffering from the 'follower-syndrome': to improve what others created. That's why consumers will compare the S Voice to Siri and not the other way around."
If you're going to copy/paste an article that someone else wrote, I believe common courtesy would be to cite the source. Also, what is the point of starting a thread like this? There are already a ton of other GS3 threads, why not post your OWN opinions in one of those threads instead of starting a new thread with someone else's words?
All that said, I don't think Sammy is going to dominate anything with this phone, it is downright hideous. I really hope the US variants look a lot nicer.
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...
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Not everybody buys hones as fashion accessories though. I don't care one jot about looks.
Hello,
first, I'm happy i've found this forum, so many cool people discussing simply everything psosible about Android is great.
I'd really like to know your oppinion to this topic:
Do you think travelling with the premium smartphones of today (with full possible protection like cases and screen protectors) is nearly possible anymore?
If I look at the premium smartphones from right now: the S9, S8, LG G6, the iPhone X...
I see: smartphones with big displays, really small bezels and bodys totally out of glass!
Can a modern smartphone with the best cases and screen protectors be a relatively reliable partner on a travel or are they just 100% designed to look good?
If I look at for example the Galaxy S8 active, I see that beautiful design and functionality can harmonize together! Sadly there are nearly no active versions from other manufacturers at all and the S8 active is really rare.
Addition to the starting post
I don't want the main question of this topic (if modern smartphones can be taken on a travel anymore) to move into the background because of my personal question, that's why i'm not adding this into the starting post:
My story behind this is:
I'll probably go to Mexico for a longer time soon (that's a big thing belonging to where I live) and because I don't like carrying big cameras with me, I want to buy a good smartphone camera.
The problem is, that the best smartphone cameras are new smartphones (S8, S9, G6 etc.) and all of these have the extremely weak attributes I described above.
So the dilemma I am into now is:
Should I buy an older or cheaper smartphone with a relatively bad camera or should I risk to take a modern glass smartphone to Mexico, which could be destroyed after one drop?
Please take into consideration that this is my first post and I'm no native english speaker.