Samsung Falls 6.2% On Lower Poor Sales Of S4....which Begs The Question Of How Bad Apple Sales Are?.

[zugzwang]

Women seem to love the Galaxy Note. If I carried a handbag I would get one as I do more surfing on my phone than call making these days.

Yes, they seem to. The other day I saw a woman driving unsteadily while using one, it looked as if she was holding a tea-tray under her chin.

[interestrateripoff]

I've had a lot of luck over the years with phones. For some reason, every year or two (depending on the phone) O2 give me a brand new one for free, despite paying about £10/month.

However, on my latest 'upgrade' they've offered nothing other than starting a new contract with a phone. Two shops have said the old upgrade process where you renew and get a free phone is gone.

I've never got on with Samsung stuff. Always seems poor, plus bad software compared to others. HTC stuff is way better in my opinion.

At £10 a month your not going to get much of a phone unless you keep swapping service providers, I can't see them making much profit out of you if you keep getting a new phone.

[gadget]

I know a few Iphone fans who are going to get S4s when their contracts are up, but that isn't for another few months - I suspect this is quite common given the traditional apple product launch dates.

I can add to that anecdotal evidence. All for the same reason too "I'm bored of the iPhone".

There's only so many years you can be excited by a grid of static square icons...

[Bruce Banner]

You can have large phone sales when you have 12 or 18 month contracts as standard.

When you only offer 18 month and 24 month contracts you then have a problem when you realise a new phone yearly as possible 50% of your user base can't upgrade for at least 12 months + which means they'll get the S5 instead.

There is also the point of if you have an S3 that's working perfectly why would you upgrade it might make more sense to upgrade every other release.

If they want big sales they need to alter the tariffs but then I'm guessing the phone isn't economical for the phone companies to do on a 12 month deal without it being ridiculously expensive.

My S2 is still going strong. Great screen and plenty fast enough for what I do. I had thought about missing out S3 and getting S4 but now I think I'll wait for the "bendy?" S5.

[Executive Sadman]

Apple will be fine. They're going to sue for royalties from Granny Smith.

Apple seems to cosy up to governments and public sector orgs. Here and in the US schools seem more than happy to report they are wasting millions on ipads when regular PCs would be cheaper and suit needs better.

[wonderpup]

I caught an announcement on Bloomberg that Apple are offering trade in deals on at least one of their products- if true this does imply a distinctly un apple like degree of desperation.

[Si1]

My S2 is still going strong. Great screen and plenty fast enough for what I do. I had thought about missing out S3 and getting S4 but now I think I'll wait for the "bendy?" S5.

samsung are re-branding the S2 as the 'Galaxy Core' and carrying on selling an updated version, for those who want the functionality but not quite the bling of the S3/S4 stable, AFAIK

[winkie]

[MarkG]

Yes ARM will go down the pan as soon as Google and Apple completely rewrite their operating systems to run on Intel Haswells and Intel dramatically drops the price of its CPUs. If Google and Apple start rewriting today they should be ready in about 18 months to use Intels.

Uh, you do realise that Android already runs on Intel CPUs?

The apps are the problem, not the operating system. At least, apps which run native ARM code rather than Google's bastardised version of Java.

[interestrateripoff]

samsung are re-branding the S2 as the 'Galaxy Core' and carrying on selling an updated version, for those who want the functionality but not quite the bling of the S3/S4 stable, AFAIK

As a replacement for the ace?

[Superted187]

The S4 is a nice phone, but is too damned expensive. It's over £500.

[Paece]

FWIW - My 2+ year old S2 has been solid, but it recently started doing odd things (hanging in apps, not going onto 3G after being on the house WiFi for a while,etc. I assumed it was ageing and might need replacing but I did a factory reset (as part of an Android OS upgrade) and it's all happy again - Contacts/ Apps,etc all restored perfectly.

My Galaxy 1 is still going strong after 3 years of constant use, in fact I've been hoping it would break so I could upgrade but it won't die.

However it is noticeably slow so I bought the S4 a week after it came out; handset only at £580 and stuck my giffgaff sim in (unlimited data/texts, 250 minutes, free to other giffgaff calls, £12 pm), this way no direct debits cluttering up my bank account plus no contract - heard too many bad stories of people getting grief from debt collectors because of some mistake.

S4 is good, not as fast as I thought it would be, still haven't explored all of it, S Voice is quite disturbingly good but will occasionally come out with some amusing howler; we were using it in the pub the other night to look up film trivia and it worked more often than not. I'm hoping to use it as a satnav on my motorcycle.

Plus Samsung are coming out with a new back cover for it to enable wireless charging.

Edit to stay on topic; I wouldn't have an iphone, I looked at them while weighing up the various models and in comparison to Sony/Samsung/HTC the iphone's are now very small and, imho, dated looking!

Plus, I was in the Apple store in Regent St a few months ago and I didn't like the atmosphere - quietly frenzied and arrogant- plus no one in there looked particularly happy.

Edited June 9, 2013 by Paece

[Sour Mash]

Yes ARM will go down the pan as soon as Google and Apple completely rewrite their operating systems to run on Intel Haswells and Intel dramatically drops the price of its CPUs. If Google and Apple start rewriting today they should be ready in about 18 months to use Intels.

Intel have been trying to crack the mobile market for years, without too much success. The problem for them is that their main selling point is that their chips run x86 instruction set code (which is and has always been the standard in the PC market). This complexity makes them less than optimal for low voltage, low power applications.

Given the amount of resources that they have to throw at the problem - and the fact that they are so strong in manufacturing - they'll probably come up with something competitive eventually (probably mostly using shrunken-down manufacturing process technology) but I would bet a lot of money it still won't be optimal for the problems of mobile and the x86 execution capability offers next to no advantage for smartphones and tablets.

So far their track record is pretty much that of a one-trick pony, making x86 chips for PCs (laptop, desktop and server). The laptop and desktop market is now being eroded fast plus they have real competition in that space from AMD. I would say that their ongoing position of prominence is far from assured.

Still, maybe Windows 8 will rise phoenix-like from the train wreck that it has been so far and MSes idea of tablet computing will save them ...

[Sour Mash]

My Galaxy 1 is still going strong after 3 years of constant use, in fact I've been hoping it would break so I could upgrade but it won't die.

However it is noticeably slow so I bought the S4 a week after it came out; handset only at £580 and stuck my giffgaff sim in (unlimited data/texts, 250 minutes, free to other giffgaff calls, £12 pm), this way no direct debits cluttering up my bank account plus no contract - heard too many bad stories of people getting grief from debt collectors because of some mistake.

As you say, there are risks but a mobile phone contract can be a useful way to build a credit record/rating. There are some really good cheap sim-only deals out there which will give you as much voice/data as you need and make you look like a better bet come mortgage time.

[thecrashingisles]

Still, maybe Windows 8 will rise phoenix-like from the train wreck that it has been so far and MSes idea of tablet computing will save them ...

That would be Windows RT which runs on ARM?

[Sour Mash]

That would be Windows RT which runs on ARM?

Indeed, if even MS are recoding Windows for ARM that should say something about how they see the likely future dominance (or not) of the personal computing sphere by x86 chips.

However, so far the RT tablets are proving unpopular with consumers, even over and above the general unpopularity of Windows 8. MS just have got personal computing horrifically wrong - like Intel they are pretty much have got by on being a near monopoly in a market that is disintegrating and they are attempting to leverage their desktop dominance by squeezing desktop and mobile together in a franken-OS.

[Paece]

As you say, there are risks but a mobile phone contract can be a useful way to build a credit record/rating. There are some really good cheap sim-only deals out there which will give you as much voice/data as you need and make you look like a better bet come mortgage time.

Come mortgage time? But I don't want a mortgage, I just want a superstar phone to satisfy my data hunger lol!

Edit; make me "look like a better bet"? Don't count on me fella ...

Edited June 10, 2013 by Paece

[thecrashingisles]

IOS7 looks pretty good although clearly influenced by Windows Phone and Android.

Also, unusually for Apple you can't download it yet. It won't be released until Autumn.

Edited June 10, 2013 by thecrashingisles

[zugzwang]

Did they demo the app that ports your data straight through to the NSA? Oh i forgot, they all do.

[interestrateripoff]

Did they demo the app that ports your data straight through to the NSA? Oh i forgot, they all do.

The NSA must now hold the worlds largest porn collection.

[@contradevian]

You can buy a nexus 4 sim free straight from google for £250. This phone easily matches anything Samsung or apple offer at less than half the price. No rip off contract to sign either as companies like giffgaff offer much better value anyway on pay as you go.

Quite agree. You can get a PAYG Samsung Galaxy Ace for £80 and not have a committment.

Not a top of the line phone by any means, but make calls, accesses the internet, plays video's and toons, takes decent pictures and send/receives texts. It also runs my MT4 trading platform and that is all I ask of a "phone."

[Si1]

As a replacement for the ace?

in order from top down, the contemporary range (not including last years models) of samsung phones either imminent or currently available in the UK:

S4

S4 mini

Core (out in other countries AFAIK)

Ace 3 (not out yet, pre-announced)

Fame (just out now in UK - had a look - screen has the worst viewing angles i have ever seen on a main manufacturer smartphone, even for cheap ones)

Young (new one not last year's galaxy Y)

all look a bit like the S3/S4 more or less, and run android 4.1 or thereabouts

so that's 6 levels of performance depending on budget/need

[Si1]

Quite agree. You can get a PAYG Samsung Galaxy Ace for £80 and not have a committment.

Not a top of the line phone by any means, but make calls, accesses the internet, plays video's and toons, takes decent pictures and send/receives texts. It also runs my MT4 trading platform and that is all I ask of a "phone."

+1

there's a tendency to go for a top of the line phone just because the payments are spread, doesn't make sense to me, but lots of people do it

[interestrateripoff]

in order from top down, the contemporary range (not including last years models) of samsung phones either imminent or currently available in the UK:

S4

S4 mini

Core (out in other countries AFAIK)

Ace 3 (not out yet, pre-announced)

Fame (just out now in UK - had a look - screen has the worst viewing angles i have ever seen on a main manufacturer smartphone, even for cheap ones)

Young (new one not last year's galaxy Y)

all look a bit like the S3/S4 more or less, and run android 4.1 or thereabouts

so that's 6 levels of performance depending on budget/need

Thanks

Just had a look at the Ace 3, might go for that when it's released.

[Si1]

Thanks

Just had a look at the Ace 3, might go for that when it's released.

according to this:

http://www.itproportal.com/2013/06/11/samsung-galaxy-s3-mini-revamped-meet-galaxy-ace-3/

it is basically a repackaged S3 mini - which would be a belter of a phone for £150, maybe better than the nexus 4 - but maybe the nexus 5 will be out soon too...