[yogeshnagpal]

Originally Posted by concorde24

.

What next : 5G hardware is more complicated now and may not be in mainstream soon though it is slated to appear next year. This should trigger the next wave of smartphone update cycle.

That will only happen after the 5G spectrum auctions. I doubt that will happen before the elections. Maybe next year oct/nov is when 5G Auctions happen and rollout about a year after that. So a good 2-2.5 years before 5G phones become mainstream.

[ashwinprakas]

At least in my case smartphone's have peaked their potential a long time ago, at least half a decade ago if my memory serves me right.

Sharing an experience, a few months back I was gifted an iPhone, don't remember the model but it wasn't anything fancy, got rid of it within a week and went back to my trusty Dumbphone vs Cheap Smartphone combo simply because the iPhone did nothing better for me.

If I scrap the Dumbphone for the iPhone then I suffer from pathetic battery life irrespective of minimal use. If I scrap my existing Cheap Smartphone for the iPhone then I would end up with a dead iPhone due to my primary Smartphone usage being navigation mostly being mounted on a RAM Mount on my motorcycle, I've had past experiences with frying a really expensive HTC phone within a couple of weeks of ownership so didn't want to risk that happening again.

When I travel I carry an entry-level DSLR with me and otherwise, I have a point and shoot in my bag at all times. There isn't much a top of the line smartphone can do that my Cheap Smartphone i.e Moto C cant do as far as my use goes, and after the HTC incident(HTC did replace my phone with a new one, but I gifted that to my Mom) I have a strict rule of not investing more than 5k on a cellphone.

My current Dumbphone is a Nokia 3310 DS which incidentally I practically got for free in exchange for recycling a few older Symbian smartphones I had from my boarding school days. Earlier it was a Micromax Bharat 1, an Android phone with a candybar/T9 form factor, costs around 2k and gets the job done without missing a beat, the lack of a touch screen also ensured that I get a decent battery backup and still be active on IM all the time via WhatsApp, I would recommend it for anyone who needs a cheap phone with an old school T9 keyboard that runs WhatsApp flawlessly.

[BlackPearl]

I take good care of my phone, not a single scratch, never fell from my hand, yet the one plus 2 suddenly stopped working one afternoon. There was no warning, just went dead. It worked well for 2 years 9 months. I was thinking of buying the one plus 6 in a few months, but this sudden demise somewhat irked me. Went online and bought a midrange phone, a Motorola G6. It is turning out to be a fantastic phone.

[drsingh]

The thread title is misleading, because it is more of a software game now.The smartphone is the new computer and we are finding out new ways to use it everyday/every hour. The app store model means that a useful piece of software written by one guy can be used by billions of people around the world.

Voice is the next big thing. It pushes down the skills required to do modern computing to people who may not be able to read.

That being said, Camera and display quality are the only differentiation factors left for the hardware companies to compete on. And battery life.

Most modern smartphones fail due to battery issues more than anything else.

For most people Smartphone Camera is the best camera they will have .

I remember similar talk of 'Phone Saturation' during the Nokia featurephone heydays.Even though it was clear that cameras and microsd card storage expansion was only beginning to be used in phones at the time.

[Vid6639]

Originally Posted by drsingh

The thread title is misleading, because it is more of a software game now.The smartphone is the new computer and we are finding out new ways to use it everyday/every hour. The app store model means that a useful piece of software written by one guy can be used by billions of people around the world

Actually the title holds true for GTO in this case since he got a Samsung

Samsung has just been facelifting their phones and upgrading to current hardware.

In usability you will not find much between the S6 and S9.

The major advancement is in the software by Google not Samsung. For example Bixby is pretty useless vs Google Assistant.

Google's small AI touches make a big difference to the user experience.

I was using a Nexus 5X then moved to a newer and significantly on paper improved LG G6. took me 9 months till I got the Pixel 2 XL. I felt like I had gone backwards with the G6. The Nexus 5X with 8.1 had more UI features than the Lg G6 stuck on 7.0.

Android has had a complete overhaul and the performance of a S9 vs Pixel 2 is noticeable. On top of that you have project treble.

Another improvement in hardware is USB-C. This makes a huge difference in data transfer as well as convenience of the cables that don't need fiddling when charging. I've moved to type C more than 2.5 years back and now can't go back.

[quickdraw]

Originally Posted by GTO

Been using it and I really love the phone, but am wondering if the phone is actually "3 years ahead"? Has cellphone development peaked for the time being?

- It's as fast as my 2015 S6 Edge was after a clean format. Okay, the S9 is a little quicker, but the difference is hardly a deal maker or breaker.

- Looks wise, I still prefer my sleek & slim S6 Edge.

My S6 also had the same Android version. So, in a nutshell, this upgrade feels more like a 'facelift' with new headlamps & some extra gizmos, than an entirely "new generation".

Interesting topic allow me to share some points which should give you more insight.

• Majority of improvements will be done on software side going forward, a great example of this is the Google Pixel camera. The magic is the software which makes the photos amazing. They are able to do portrait with just 1 lens and the camera shoots in HDR+ all the time, this tech will trickle down hopefully to consumer cameras but right now the software algorithms and other advancements being made thanks for smartphones cameras blow my mind. Here is an interesting tech which should make its way into smartphones in the future.
• The Samsung Galaxy S9 Display is the highest rated phone display ever, basically, this means the colors its ability to reproduce are almost as good as the real world. This is a monumental achievement for a smartphone display. Unfortunately, to our naked eye, we won't be able to notice the difference unless the content takes advantage of the wide color gamut and HDR capabilities.
• The thing to be aware of is not that top of the line phones are getting cheaper, but mid-range phones are getting really good. Unlike the car industry because of the rapid pace of growth the tech from top end devices trickles down to cheaper phones way faster. Think wireless charging, OLED displays, NFC etc.
• Just like a person buying an S class might not use all the features but they are there, the same thing applies to your S9 its packed with features and you'll be pleasantly surprised when you discover some of them. My favorite is the scroll screenshot capture, tap the bottom of any icon in quick settings to get more toggles etc.

Samsung has been really innovating and I can actually say they have the best hardware in the business by a long shot. Its unfortunate to see that lot of people feel that they are not innovative enough when they literally over innovate and pack too many features and keep the popular ones around. They were the first to have wireless charging, OLED, Full glass phones etc but the amount of brand pull Apple has cannot be matched.

I know so many people (uncles and aunties) who have an iPhone X but don't even use it to 1% of its potential, you can get a great Android phone for 1/4th the price that can do everything and will be decent enough on the software front too. Going ahead it might feel that the pace of progress is slowing down but the reality is there is loads of innovation still left on the table in hardware and software.

I hope to see more cool phones come out like ASUS ROG with vapor cooling. Phones are fast enough but are not designed for peak performance (small internals, prone to overheating and throttling).

[RYP]

If one have to believe there's no significant hardware improvement, sorry buddy you've already missed the bus. By a mile. AI, Machine learning, Cognitive Speech recognition, AR, VR (to name a few) are the melting pots of innovation right now. The way Tech is evolving, it is treading a path where the destination is it exists not just as a mere medium to interact to get stuff done but to become the 'Gets stuff done' fundamentally.

To put it simply, Hardware innovation is like building an Engine with best power to weight ratio (grows exponential initially then each iteration is inconsequential) and this Software stuff is like How well a car can be driven which includes a constant learning curve, effectively dealing with different scenarios each moment, rapid decision making., the list just goes on, but you get my point rite. Sky is the limit. Peace.

[deathwalkr]

Originally Posted by quickdraw

They were the first to have wireless charging, OLED, Full glass phones etc but the amount of brand pull Apple has cannot be matched.

Sorry but i thought LG nexus 5 was the first one to come out with wireless charging and if memory serves me correctly, a nokia was the first oled display phone. one of their mighty N series phones back in the day

Companies are going to put 3 cams at the back or have already and two in front.

Bezels have become like audio cassettes and floppy discs.

Water proof is a joy to possess though i miss removable batteries.

Companies do need to innovate or their flagships won't sell all that much and their cash balance will keep coming down. [Apple's cash reserve boggles the mind :P]

Having sold phones for a living since the early 2000s, it has been a great journey to witness all the changes that have happened.

Here's another company which has to keep innovating itself every year to survive. [Thankfully]

Gorilla 6: To survive 1meter drops upto 15 times. Now if they could make it truly 100% scratch proof...
https://www.theverge.com/circuitbrea...ement-features

[bigron]

Actually the cell phone has indeed reached a plateau in-terms of usability, features and performance.
I will try to elucidate. I use a s7 edge. A 2 year old phone that got updated to the latest Android O sometime back. In the meantime I came into the possession of a s9 plus. The latest greatest Samsung phone. To be honest, between the two phones in terms of usability there is hardly anything separating them. Yes the newer one looks better (subjective), is marginally faster and maybe some more usability features but overall they are pretty evenly matched for everyday use.
I also have an iphone 7 which is/was very similar to the 6s and 6 before it and the 8 after that barring the X.
No wonder manufacturers need to find novelty features like a pop up camera or in screen fingerprint etc to make people buy their products.
Will be sometime till the next wave of innovation comes and a departure form the hoards of thin glass slabs happens.
One thing that has changed for the better is that the mid range category of phones have become so good that there is really no need to spend an arm or a leg on the top of the line category anymore.

[arun687]

My perspective is that my phone is the ONLY thing that is with me throughout my waking hours in a day, so it has to be good enough and should remain updated with times. Last few upgrades have given me meaningful improvements in usability in the form of 4G data, better range of network bands while traveling abroad, dual sims, better camera, smoother performance (For Android, lesser the bloat bundled by the manufacturer, the better)

I prefer mid range phones (like One Plus) and upgrade every 18 months or so, rather than buying a flagship for twice as much money and upgrade less frequently. Mid range phones of next year are going to be better than today's flagships.

Also, I really like how Samsung has implemented Samsung Pay with MST and NFC. Wish more manufacturers do the same so that we can use it extensively in India.

[extreme_torque]

Originally Posted by quickdraw

[*]Majority of improvements will be done on software side going forward, a great example of this is the Google Pixel camera. The magic is the software which makes the photos amazing. They are able to do portrait with just 1 lens and the camera shoots in HDR+ all the time, this tech will trickle down hopefully to consumer cameras but right now the software algorithms and other advancements being made thanks for smartphones cameras blow my mind. Here is an interesting tech which should make its way into smartphones in the future.

And the software needs hardware for it to run. Pixel 2 have a special chip in the SOC which handles the functions that you described. The other reason is that Google is sitting on a mountain of private data of user sitting in Google Photos which it can use to train its AI. The better the training, the better the results. Apple does not have this luxury because even the analysis of the photos happens on the phone and not on their server like Google.

Originally Posted by quickdraw

[*]The Samsung Galaxy S9 Display is the highest rated phone display ever, basically, this means the colors its ability to reproduce are almost as good as the real world. This is a monumental achievement for a smartphone display. Unfortunately, to our naked eye, we won't be able to notice the difference unless the content takes advantage of the wide color gamut and HDR capabilities.

Its difficult to trust displaymate when their review came right after phone's launch and they said they were provided "pre-release units" for evalutation. This is not to say that it does not have a good display but for real evaluation refer to this.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/12520...xy-s9-review/7

Originally Posted by quickdraw

Samsung has been really innovating and I can actually say they have the best hardware in the business by a long shot. Its unfortunate to see that lot of people feel that they are not innovative enough when they literally over innovate and pack too many features and keep the popular ones around. They were the first to have wireless charging, OLED, Full glass phones etc but the amount of brand pull Apple has cannot be matched.

Brand pull does not exist in vacuum. For it to work, the product has to be good. The amount of thought that goes into every component of the iPhone is staggering. For reference look at the image of Galaxy S9 opened up and then iPhone. Which one is better though out?
Galaxy S9
https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.ne...XuWyemnaBSOSvl

iPhone X
https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.ne...a2QHEoq4Ke16su

Also, hear what iFixit founder has to say about the iPhone in this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx-9LkVIdz0

For all the innovation from Samsung that you speak of, what exactly are they innovating on - they use off the shelf SOC's (qualcomm), off the shelf software (Android but only make it worse). They do not have any services to speak of (apple/google music, app store etc etc). And for all their talk of high end design, they cant even get their ports aligned. The bottom and the top of Galaxy S9 is a complete mess as far as industrial design is concerned. Huawei is doing far better when it comes to innovation than Samsung who has always been an also ran.

[vb-saan]

Originally Posted by Vid6639

Actually the title holds true for GTO in this case since he got a Samsung

Samsung has just been facelifting their phones and upgrading to current hardware.

Google's small AI touches make a big difference to the user experience.

Android has had a complete overhaul and the performance of a S9 vs Pixel 2 is noticeable. On top of that you have project treble.

I agree with this! Two days after I got the Pixel 2 XL I was wondering what this hype of pure Android experience is all about. The phone felt so underwhelming compared to my wife’s Samsung Note 8. So much that I called up the Telco and enquired if I can do a 1-1 exchange with a S9+. But after another couple of days I start appreciating what this nifty device has to offer. Those little touches makes it a real joy to use. Unlike the Samsung it goes on with its job without bragging about it. There is no baggage of insignificant apps and the much-praised camera really lives upto its hype. In a way keeping things simple and efficient is indeed an advancement. My wife hates the camera; (unlike the Note 8) as it brings out every minute details

As far as Samsung is concerned, I feel they have really cleaned up quite a bit, but I feel they have peaked with the Note 8 and probably the big updates are now reserved for the S10 range next year.

[Turbo_Charger]

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

For all the innovation from Samsung that you speak of, what exactly are they innovating on - they use off the shelf SOC's (qualcomm), off the shelf software (Android but only make it worse). They do not have any services to speak of (apple/google music, app store etc etc). And for all their talk of high end design, they cant even get their ports aligned. The bottom and the top of Galaxy S9 is a complete mess as far as industrial design is concerned. Huawei is doing far better when it comes to innovation than Samsung who has always been an also ran.

Not a Samsung Fan but don't agree that they are not doing any innovation. Samsung has been the leader in

1. Storage - UFS 2.0
2. RAM - LPDDR4 and will introduce LPDDR5 next year.
3. SoC - Their in house Exynos outperforms Qualcomm Snapdragon 8xx series by a fair bit and is also much more battery efficient. (except the Exynos 9810)
4. Camera - Samsung regularly uses their own camera sensors alongside Sony IMX sensors and their sensors are at par with Sony. Also Samsung was the one to introduce Dual Pixel & ISOCELL tech.
5. Screen - Samsung AMOLED screens are the benchmark in the mobile world. So much so that despite Apple's cases against Samsung, it still had no option but to use their screen in iPhone X.
6. Software - I don't like their software per se but there are a ton of features in Android that were first introduced by Samsung which later on became part of Stock Android. A few I recall are Split Screen and Floating Window.

PS : Samsung is one of the largest chip makers in the world. They are the leading RAM, Flash Storage & SoC producer and even make the Qualcomm 835 & 845 SoC that you have accused them of buying off the shelf. They even manufactured Apple's A series SoC at one point of time. It's their manufacturing ability that has stopped Qualcomm from approaching rival chip manufacturers like TSMC after the Snapdragon 810 fiasco.

[ruzbehxyz]

Coming to the phone market then Samsung and Apple are the leading companies for obvious reasons. The Chinese ones are giving good specs but the question is quality.
If you are a compulsive phone changer who changes his phone every 2-3 years then you can experiment on the Chinese ones. But if you plan to keep your phone for 5 years like a car then it should be Apple, Samsung or for that matter Google pixel .
One plus5 and 6 is an excellent phone but how many people you know who have kept the One plus 3 till date and known to have it run in the same way.
So it's not the brand value that matters, it's also the quality. Upon hunting for a phone in May, I was seeing the Vivo V9 online and when I went to a shop to buy it, I was disappointed with the built quality and lightness. I told the salesman that if I drop this phone then it will shatter to pieces and he agreed.
Another problem is in-built battery. The newer phones come with in-built battery. In the older phones when your battery went kaput or weakened, you just bought a new one and replaced it yourself, but that's not easy in the newer Chinese phones. So how long will the battery last ?
Finally I settled for the Samsung S9 plus after my Samsung Note 3 which I bought in 2014 and is still running well with the same battery .

[extreme_torque]

Originally Posted by Turbo_Charger

Not a Samsung Fan but don't agree that they are not doing any innovation. Samsung has been the leader in

1. Storage - UFS 2.0
2. RAM - LPDDR4 and will introduce LPDDR5 next year.
3. SoC - Their in house Exynos outperforms Qualcomm Snapdragon 8xx series by a fair bit and is also much more battery efficient. (except the Exynos 9810)
4. Camera - Samsung regularly uses their own camera sensors alongside Sony IMX sensors and their sensors are at par with Sony. Also Samsung was the one to introduce Dual Pixel & ISOCELL tech.
5. Screen - Samsung AMOLED screens are the benchmark in the mobile world. So much so that despite Apple's cases against Samsung, it still had no option but to use their screen in iPhone X.

You are talking about Samsung the semi conductor company, I am talking about Samsung the mobile company. Sony also produces everything that you just mentioned but that does not make the Xperia range any good. A phone is more than sum of its parts.

Speaking of Exynos, their 9810 in the S9 has been slammed compared to Qualcomm 845 as they have made some basic mistakes not befitting a semi conductor company. For more refer to Anadtech's review and numerous reddit threads on the same issue.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12520...laxy-s9-review

In the same review you will also read that iPhone X's OLED better's the one in Galaxy S9. Manufacturing something is not the same as designing that thing. Apple and Qualcomm have outsourced the manufacturing to Samsung while keeping their own designs.

Originally Posted by Turbo_Charger

6. Software - I don't like their software per se but there are a ton of features in Android that were first introduced by Samsung which later on became part of Stock Android. A few I recall are Split Screen and Floating Window.

For every useful software feature there are 10 that do not work. There is a duplicate app for every native Android app (mail, calender etc etc) Samsung's usual way is to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. A very bad way to design software. There is a reason why Samsung's slow down as they age or as you put more stuff into the phone. More important than doing it first is doing it right.

Originally Posted by Turbo_Charger

PS : Samsung is one of the largest chip makers in the world. They are the leading RAM, Flash Storage & SoC producer and even make the Qualcomm 835 & 845 SoC that you have accused them of buying off the shelf. They even manufactured Apple's A series SoC at one point of time. It's their manufacturing ability that has stopped Qualcomm from approaching rival chip manufacturers like TSMC after the Snapdragon 810 fiasco.

I have already addressed this but will repeat it anyway. Manufacturing something for someone is not the same as designing.