New Samsung Galaxy Impressions

At first I didn’t want to write about the new Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, but something weird happened: as I was watching the event, I got more and more excited about their new devices. And it’s the first time this has happened to me when talking about Samsung.

They announced today two new phones: their new Galaxy S6 flagship and a more flamboyant version: the S6 Edge, which has a curved screen on both sides.

This year I think Samsung sacrificed a lot to get back on top of the Android market after slowly loosing market share to competitors like Apple or LG. So this year, we have a lot of things that the old Galaxy phone did not have: a metal edge surrounding the phone, a non-removable battery, no expendable memory and kinda of a new design.

From the front thinks look as Samsung as ever. Same button layout, same combination of physical and capacitive buttons that Samsung has been going with for the last 4-5 years. On the back, we have a nice, glass back panel made out of Corning Gorilla Glass 4, the same material we find on the front of the phone.

From a software side, Samsung has inspired itself a bit from the Google Material Design (their latest software is running on Android 5.0 afterall) and has reduced the number of icons and tried to simplify the user experience a bit, but they kept the same icon layout and UI that make up TouchWiz so things looks just as usual, although first hand-on videos claim that the new S6 seems snappy enough. And it should be! Samsung has in it it’s new generation of octa-core processor that they claim is the best and fastest ever.

What I really like about this new phones is the build quality that has gone up in my eyes, and the fact that from the back at least, they have a new design and a better feel. The new Galaxy also has a “new-improved-greatest-in-the-world” 16 MP camera but what I’m really exited about is the wireless charging and the mobile payment procedure. Wireless charging isn’t something new and has been around for quite some time so I’m not even sure why I get excited when I hear about it in new phones. The new Samsung payment feature is something interesting as they claim it allows you to use your phone to make payments even with machines that are not NFC enabled, and that only accept magnetic bands (aka cards). I’m not sure if Samsung has the marketing force of Apple to push this type of mobile payments into the market, but I do think that every manufacturer can try benefit of Apples efforts to bring Apple pay into the world.

The new display they claim has 70% more pixels than the S5 isn’t a great attraction to me, because after a certain pixel density I really don’t care that much as I don’t use my phone to watch some National Geographic like documentary where I would want to see every insect in a rain forest on my screen.

The edge variant I think looks really cool but what I would really like to see is some special functionality added to it, other that a fancy desk watch or a quick-access menu to 5 friends. But that aside, it is a really nice looking device that I appreciate for the fact that it’s different.

So when wrapping up the day, I think Samsung clearly stole the show at MWC with the most changes. I’m not sure if they are for the better or worse of its future, but compared to HTC’s launch, Samsung brought a new design, it let go of a few traditional Samsung features like the plastic back, removable battery and SD slot and tried to improve the user experience. I think that fresh start gives them an advantage for this year. What do you think?

 

When did smartphone screens became too big?

Starting around 2008 or 2009, smartphone screen sizes have gone up. Constantly. Every new phone that came out had to have a bigger display than the previous model or else it wasn’t better than it. This is the thing that always bothered me: when did a smartphone’s performance started to be determined by its size? Giving it some thought, it kinda makes sense in a way.

The screen of modern day smartphones is not just a piece of glass or plastic that shines and that you poke with your finger hundreds of times a day, it is probably the most important characteristic of the phone, even if nobody realizes it. The screen is the component that less or more determines how the front side of your phone looks, and more importantly, it determines how big your phone is. If you fit a bigger screen, you have to make the body of the phone bigger and that gives you more room inside the phone to work with. More room means you can add new parts, new functions, you can improve on the old ones and you can do all this without having to rely on some kind of really expensive nano-technology to fit everything together. So in a way you could say that the bigger the screen, the cheaper the making of the phone is.

But here’s the kicker: a bigger screen also need more power to keep it working, and there’s no linear equation between the percent of how bigger the screen is with how much extra power it needs. So for example, if you increase the size of a screen by 1 inch, it will consume let’s say for argument’s sake, 15% more energy, but with all that extra room you get in that inch, you can only fit a battery that supplies 10% extra. Sure, there are exceptions, but because for some weird reason every phone maker wants a bigger and thinner phone, that’s rarely the case.

And bigger phone have their problems too. I went over some of them here and let’s face it: there must be a limit for the normal person where they just can’t handle their phone correctly anymore. For years, Apple kept their iPhones to 3.5 inches and people were at first thrilled, then started to want something else, they wanted a bigger view of the world, so they went for bigger screens, but now they want something else, and manufacturers have finally started listening.

Maybe this year is still fresh, it’s only February, but as spring is just around the corner, there are a lot of big smartphone announcements on the way, like the new Galaxy S6 and the new HTC One (M9?). Right now all we have are rumors but it’s said that Samsung is considering reducing its Galaxy flagship from 5.1″ to 5 inches. I know it doesn’t really count but it’t the principle that matters. They are starting to reduce the size of their flagship. That means  they can stop thinking about how to put more features into it making it bigger and bigger and start thinking about working with what they have, making what they already offer better and better. I like the sound of that, especially when you consider that Samsung has some areas where the whole planet wants it to improve (I’m looking at you TouchWiz).

Another surprise came in January at CES in Las Vegas where LG showed the G Flex 2. It has a 5.5 inch display, which is fairly big, but compared with the original G Flex, which had a 6 inch screen, this one looks small. But LG didn’t set the trend for smaller flagships, Sony has been doing it for at least a year with its Compact line. The Sony Z1 Compact and the Sony Z3 Compact. They had all the specifications of a big 5+ inch smartphone, in a smaller form factor (4.3 and 4.7 inches). And I really appreciate Sony for what they are doing and the trend they were trying to set.

Personally I am glad that the screen sizes will if not go down, at least stop going up. I consider we reached the point where the line between an actual powerful, compact phone and a small tablet is thinner and thinner and I consider we need to keep that line clear. I don’t mind phones around 5 inches, but I want phones with beautiful and smooth user interfaces, beautiful design and well developed software features, not just small TV’s in my pocket.