Samsung May Copy Apple After Mocking Them. Galaxy S21 will most likely not include charger and headphones (will be sold separately).

[Arika]

Oh no, I'm going to have to dig into my drawer with 20+ usb chargers....

[RejZoR]

10 hours ago, R1TTER said:

If you say so, I guess triangles or triangular cam arrangement is the "in thing" for you 

 

Whatever floats your boat.

I don't recall ANY phone maker that uses triangular camera array arrangement in the phone corner on the hump in a way Apple does. They all do it either in straight line or rectangular arrangement. Or in case of the Sharky, centered triangle "pointing down" without big rings around lenses. Whenever you see Apple's camera arrangement you can unmistakably know it's an iPhone. That was my point. Even when it's a lesser model with just 2 cameras. You instantly know it's an iPhone. And that was my point.

[oldSock]

Here is the reality of smart phones, laptops and other devices. Companies will move towards a "disposable" form factor regardless what the people want. They know as long as the device is almost impossible to fix, they will probably sell more of those devices. Again consumer protection should be considered by governments and place down regulations so that devices can be properly maintained in future. 

 

As all of us know there are problems with wireless charging, and 1 of the critical failure points in any mobile smart device is the battery life. So once again planned obsolescence will become a factor in future electronics. 

 

Quote

In economics and industrial design, planned obsolescence (also called built-in obsolescence or premature obsolescence) is a policy of planning or designing a product with an artificially limited useful life

 

This is not a good situation for the end user at all. Yes smart wireless charging might be really cool tech and yes they might have solved a lot of the problems this tech had BUT it also means that any attempt at repair WILL be effected by this form factor. 

 

A law should exist that will allow the end user to repair their device and allow them to keep it running. The fact that they are selling the headphones as at best a inconvenience given that most of us already have some kind of Bluetooth solution BUT again we are now subject to a second "disposable device" with no way to truly repair and maintain it.

 

The biggest problem is do we as end users see a expensive devices AS disposable ? The second question is disposable tech sustainable given the rarity of their parts? The last question is how will it effect our environment?

 

Just saying people should start to ask their governments to push regulations because planned obsolescence and disposable electronics will seriously effect the end user in many many more ways. 

 

Again right now it is only a wireless charger but the bottom line is it is about so much more.          

[Brooksie359]

On 12/22/2020 at 9:43 AM, DrMacintosh said:

They probably figure that if it was ok with Apple customers that it would be ok with their customers too...and they're right. What are you going to do, not buy a new phone? 

I would have to disagree. While I do like Samsung Android phones I will say that they are much more replaceable with other brands as there are many brands that sell phones that run Android . The same cannot be said with apple. Most of the people I know buy iphones for ios so there really is no alternative for them. 

[Quackers101]

all companies that want their own ecosystem.

their own assist voice program, everyone having their own app, own accounts etc.

Just hope Nvidia is not going full Apple too.

[RejZoR]

I never understood the silly e-waste excuse anyway. It's not like you just throw away the charger when you buy a phone. Every phone that I sold or gave away, I also gave away with all its accessories. And you could always sell any device way easier if you had everything, down to original box and all the accessories. Always. How is that e-waste when products are in circulation or use? Even those crappy 5W Apple's bricks have use. At least European versions of it are super slim and you can easily stick it anywhere as a backup charger. I have one in my car along with car charger. So I can charge my phone anywhere if there is some sort of an emergency. Still not e-waste. I just don't get it. Also why make charger so slow and basic that no one uses it anyway and then you remove it coz no one uses it. Just add a brick that's actually good and people would use it. But I guess that was Apple's plan all along even when they were bundling them with phones. People were buying their more powerful ones regardless. So, now they won't have to bundle one and ppl will still buy them from Apple. It's literally pure profit now where before it was just extra profit. Heh.

[Quackers101]

If not a lot of devices couldn't use it, the chances of using it is slim.

But if most use the same standard, then it would be less of an e-waste situation and can be used for something?

[LAwLz]

35 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

I never understood the silly e-waste excuse anyway. It's not like you just throw away the charger when you buy a phone. Every phone that I sold or gave away, I also gave away with all its accessories. And you could always sell any device way easier if you had everything, down to original box and all the accessories. Always. How is that e-waste when products are in circulation or use? 

You got it the other way around. It's not throwing things away that is harmful to the environment. It's producing the thing to begin with. It's the process of mining and manufacturing that contribute most of the environmental harm. 

 

Having a charger lying in a drawer results in about the same environmental impact as throwing a charger into the woods. Once it's built it doesn't really matter where the materials (charger) are located or if it's in use or not. But the process of digging up metal, running massive factories to smelt said metal, and shape it into the working charger is very harmful. 

[Blademaster91]

45 minutes ago, Quackers101 said:

If not a lot of devices couldn't use it, the chances of using it is slim.

But if most use the same standard, then it would be less of an e-waste situation and can be used for something?

I have 3 chargers, one of which came with my phone, and I don't see the harm in having an extra one that comes with the phone, if you don't want to use it then keep the charger in the box and re-sell it with the phone when you upgrade.

It's totally a profiteering move rather than it reducing e-waste, if we want to reduce e-waste then we should push manufacturers to bring back removable batteries rather than replacing the device because the battery went bad. And bring back the headphone jack as well because BT headphones are a device you throw away once the sealed in batteries no longer hold a charge.

[Quackers101]

2 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

It's totally a profiteering move rather than it reducing e-waste, if we want to reduce e-waste then we should push manufacturers to bring back removable batteries rather than replacing the device because the battery went bad. And bring back the headphone jack as well because BT headphones are a device you throw away once the sealed in batteries no longer hold a charge.

Yes, kind of miss those batteries.

Well some phones have becomed better and sometimes worse again, with the idea of replacing your battery in a sealed phone.

Not everyone is doing as great of an job, sadly apple wants to have their own verification so you can't just simply change a battery for whatever reason...

 

That is my dislike with some of the BT stuff, and a notice with BT headphones and their ANC with on some devices that it goes bad after a time too.

Making people want a newer better version anyways, although battery on for example headphones could be a lot easier to be replaced.

Not sure what can or cannot change.

[RejZoR]

37 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

You got it the other way around. It's not throwing things away that is harmful to the environment. It's producing the thing to begin with. It's the process of mining and manufacturing that contribute most of the environmental harm. 

 

Having a charger lying in a drawer results in about the same environmental impact as throwing a charger into the woods. Once it's built it doesn't really matter where the materials (charger) are located or if it's in use or not. But the process of digging up metal, running massive factories to smelt said metal, and shape it into the working charger is very harmful. 

That's a weird logic you're running there. Charger laying in the woods literally serves no purpose and never will. One laying in a drawer can at any point be used. Or you can give it away to someone who needs it. Or you can sell it with your old phone. Or just be a backup one. Or use it at work and another at home. You can't just equate that with something being thrown away at which its functionality literally drops to zero and is an actual waste. Also if we're gonna go with "we're just manufacturing too many things to begin with", then why not just pay for a phone and get nothing. Most eco solution ever. All corporations are rich and we save environment with it! Hurray! The amount of far more pointless crap we produce outnumbers any charger next to a phone by trillions of tons. But hey, charger is the most obvious thing one can point at and blame coz chargers are evil apparently.

[LAwLz]

20 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

That's a weird logic you're running there.

It's really not if you think about it.

 

20 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Charger laying in the woods literally serves no purpose and never will. One laying in a drawer can at any point be used. Or you can give it away to someone who needs it. Or you can sell it with your old phone. Or just be a backup one. Or use it at work and another at home. You can't just equate that with something being thrown away at which its functionality literally drops to zero and is an actual waste.

From the environmental impact POV, what you use it for doesn't matter.

If I set fire to a liter of gasolin it will release the same amount of harmful gasses regardless of whether I did it to light a fire and have a BBQ, or just for the spectacle of it. Likewise, the actual amount of electricity (in the manufacturing process), conflict materials and other impact producing a charger has on the environment doesn't change regardless of whether you use the charger or not.

Again, it's the process of making the thing to begin with that is harmful. Everything else after the charger is made is kind of irrelevant if we are looking at it from the perspective of, "how detrimental are chargers to the environment". 

A charger lying in a drawer or a charger lying in the woods have both caused the same amount of damage (roughly) to our planet because almost all of the damage is done when the thing is being made.

 

28 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Also if we're gonna go with "we're just manufacturing too many things to begin with", then why not just pay for a phone and get nothing.

Well, not buying anything new and only reusing stuff is the best thing you can do for the environment. I'm not sure if you have heard of the "three Rs" but it's something often brought up when it comes to waste management. The three Rs are: Reduce, reuse and recycle.

The order is actually very important because it goes from most effective to least effective. Reducing your consumption is the absolute best thing you can do for the environment. If it's something you already have, then reusing it instead of getting something new is the best. If you no longer have a purpose for it and it can't be reused, then recycling is the last way out.

If you want to help the environment then asking yourself "do I really need this" and coming to the conclusion "no" is the absolute best thing you can do. Reducing demand and thus the amount of products being made is far better than getting something and reusing it or recycling it.

 

I understand that not always buying the latest gadget is a crazy idea on a forum about consumer electronics run by an influencer (aka, sales person) but refraining from constantly buying stuff is a great way to slow down the harm we are doing to mother earth.

(I feel kind of dirty writing that because I sound like a hippie)

 

 

37 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

The amount of far more pointless crap we produce outnumbers any charger next to a phone by trillions of tons. But hey, charger is the most obvious thing one can point at and blame coz chargers are evil apparently.

That's whataboutism.

Just because we can do better in one area (pointless crap products) does not mean we shouldn't try to strive to become better in other areas too (like phone chargers).

 

And don't get me wrong. My next phone will probably be a Galaxy S21, unless I feel like waiting for the S22 instead (depends on how big of an upgrade it is).

Do I need a new phone? Not really. My S10 is more than enough, but I like getting new and shiny things because I am a simpleton. Would I like to get a charger and headphones with my new phone? Absolutely! Why wouldn't I want another charger and another pair of headphones? I am just short of being able to have a charger in every room and every bag I own.

 

The charger I got with my S10 is USB A to USB C and it seems like the newer chargers are USB C to USB C, so I won't actually be able to use the new cable with the old charger. That's a bit annoying. But if we are being realistic, not shipping your phone with a charger is not a big deal. You can literally get a 2-pack for 10 dollars on Amazon.

So the whole "companies are trying to rip customers off by making them buy new chargers" feels a bit overblown when we're talking about people spending 800 dollars on a phone, and then getting really mad when they need to buy a 5 dollar charger to go along with it (if they don't already have one). If I bought a phone then of course I would want an extra charger. The more crap they throw in to the box the more fun it is to open. But the amount of anger I see from some people feel like it has less to do with the charger and more to do with them just hating a particular company and wanting a reason to bitch about.

[Mooshi]

My charging brick that came with my S20 stopped working yesterday out of nowhere. My old LG brick still fine, same goes for the GFs Pixel one.

 

When I restored default settings thinking it was that, I totally forgot Facebook was a preinstalled app on an unlocked variant of the phone. Yeah..thankfully I have zero brand loyalty cause this is my first and probably last Samsung phone.

[Quackers101]

1 minute ago, Mooshi said:

My charging brick that came with my S20 stopped working yesterday out of nowhere. My old LG brick still fine, same goes for the GFs Pixel one.

 

When I restored default settings thinking it was that, I totally forgot Facebook was a preinstalled app on an unlockef variant of the phone. Yeah..thankfully I have zero brand loyalty cause this is my first and probably last Samsung phone.

yeah the bloatware on samsung and maybe some other brands too, is just god awful.

[RejZoR]

@LAwLz

I just can't be bothered to respond to that fat noodle, but the fact you're equating a functioning device that is in use or is ready to be used at any point with one you set on fire now, to have same impact on environment tells me you're straight up delusional. Something existing to have a purpose is not a waste. Even if it's a garbage 5W charger. It can still charge any USB device and that's a function and a purpose. If anyone really gave a crap about environment, we'd make things the best one can possibly make. Instead of releasing small iterations with 15% performance bumps year over year coz that brings in more money. There are so many more problematic things over some stupid included chargers and we're tackling the problem by going after the least problematic things. Coz money.

[LAwLz]

3 hours ago, RejZoR said:

@LAwLz

I just can't be bothered to respond to that fat noodle, 

But you just did. 

 

3 hours ago, RejZoR said:

@LAwLz

but the fact you're equating a functioning device that is in use or is ready to be used at any point with one you set on fire now, to have same impact on environment tells me you're straight up delusional.

It does. I strongly recommend you read my post again. 

Like I said before, it's the process of making the items that is the most harmful and that step is the same regardless of whether or not an item gets used. Let's say making a charger produces 1kg of carbon dioxide. The heat energy isn't going to say "oh this kg of carbon dioxide comes from a charger that is being used, so I'll pass through it as if it didn't exist". 

1kg of carbon dioxide produced when manufacturing a charger is and acts the same as 1kg of carbon dioxide produced when manufacturing a charger that isn't being used. 

 

Nature doesn't care what you do with your consumer electronics. That's why I keep saying a charger in a drawer has the same environmental impact as a charger someone threw into the woods. The harmful step is the actual manufacturing of the item. That is why "reduce" is the first step in halting climate change. Reuse is worse than reduce. 

[Quackers101]

soop

[maskmcgee]

On 12/24/2020 at 10:40 AM, Donut417 said:

I suspect the only reason Apple did this was because the EU cried like 2 year olds about making all devices use type C

 

On top of that most devices support Wireless charging anyway.

 

And the EU needs to hurry up and remind apple releasing any device without USB-C, including devices with no 'ports' but a non usb-C connector 'wireless charging' is banned and illigal. 

[Beskamir]

On 12/22/2020 at 8:43 AM, DrMacintosh said:

They probably figure that if it was ok with Apple customers that it would be ok with their customers too...and they're right. What are you going to do, not buy a new phone? 

Buy a phone from a better company. I'm never buying a phone that doesn't have a 3.5mm jack, an intact oled display, and a removable battery. It's insane that these 3 simple requirements are considered "unreasonable" these days.

[GoodBytes]

Xiaomi is also removing it's ads it made mocking Apple for removing its charger, and actually confirmed that it will do the same.

Xiaomi’s Mi 11 won’t come with charger after it mocked Apple for not including a charger - The Verge

 

No indication that the price of the phone will reduce, despite the push to charge more and more their devices.

[Commodus]

6 hours ago, Beskamir said:

Buy a phone from a better company. I'm never buying a phone that doesn't have a 3.5mm jack, an intact oled display, and a removable battery. It's insane that these 3 simple requirements are considered "unreasonable" these days.

So you're going to be That Person holding on to a six-year-old phone that's falling apart (and vulnerable to lots of security exploits), waiting for the industry sea change that never comes?

 

They're reasonable requests, but requirements? No. Reasonable people learn to adapt and move forward (even if they're not thrilled), rather than expecting the entire universe to bend to their will.

[GoodBytes]

20 minutes ago, Commodus said:

So you're going to be That Person holding on to a six-year-old phone that's falling apart (and vulnerable to lots of security exploits), waiting for the industry sea change that never comes?

 

They're reasonable requests, but requirements? No. Reasonable people learn to adapt and move forward (even if they're not thrilled), rather than expecting the entire universe to bend to their will.

Well... Ignoring Linux based distros, Windows 10 runs and support a Core 2 Duo, a 14 years old CPU.

It is possible to get support (at least security ones).... but companies promotes waste by no offering support, and charging their phone more and more, while removing more and more features.

 

And and Apple offers how many years of support? 5-6 years?

So it is a doable. But profit!

[Commodus]

7 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Well... Ignoring Linux based distros, Windows 10 runs and support a Core 2 Duo, a 14 years old CPU.

It is possible to get support (at least security ones).... but companies promotes waste by no offering support, and charging their phone more and more, while removing more and more features.

It's not to say that you should never demand some things, of course! Just that there's a balance to be struck between standing your ground and bending. It's good to have principles, but those principles shouldn't lead you to needlessly suffer.

 

I'm reminded of Richard Stallman and how he claims he's free... by using an ancient laptop with limited software. His "no, universe, you change" mindset actually traps him in a prison of his own design. I'm still convinced a Chinese iPhone user has more practical freedom than Stallman does.

[SFFDesigns]

Honestly I'm not too upset about this, most of us probably have chargers. I do think that the smartphone market is really stagnant though, I see no reason to buy a new phone in the current market, I've been using hand-me down phones (7 and recently XR which I got for extremely cheap) and I see no reason to switch to these new phones. 

[Donut417]

9 hours ago, maskmcgee said:

 

And the EU needs to hurry up and remind apple releasing any device without USB-C, including devices with no 'ports' but a non usb-C connector 'wireless charging' is banned and illigal. 

They told Apple USB-C charger. Apple released a USB-C charger. Apple also stopped providing a charging brick, because the EU was crying about E Waste. 

 

I dont see how a no port phone is illegal. No ports means Wireless charging, Apple uses the QI charging standard which is pretty much been adopted Industry wide. In that case any charger will work and you dont want to worry about what brick and cable you have.