Samsung to Adopt Apple-Like Phone Tier

[Guest]

Samsung is about to copy Apple in an entirely new way

Source: http://bgr.com/2018/04/26/cheaper-galaxy-s8-galaxy-s9/

 

(Sorry for clickbait title above - not my words at all, I think the author of this article is um, well one of those Apple guys - but I don't want to make one of those threads so let's just say a not-so-brand-independedent journalist. I'd take this article with a grain of salt and remember it is a rumour, but Samsung isn't so tight-lippy with these things as other companies.)

 

Quote

Samsung earlier this year hinted that it might copy that iPhone sales strategy, without revealing too many details about it. The South Korean giant just posted its earnings report for the first quarter of the year, in which it alludes to the possibility of keeping flagships in stores for one more year.

For the second half [of the year], Samsung will seek to strengthen sales in the premium market by launching a new flagship model and maintaining long-tail sales of the Galaxy S9, S9+, and flagship models from the previous year. [From the leak]

Samsung is practically saying the Galaxy S8, and Note 8 will be available in stores all year long, right alongside their successors, without revealing actual details about its short-term mobile plans.

Both are nice phones with minor differences. I don't see any real problems - but they will have to change their prices to compete with second-hand markets presumably, which are vastly different than Apple's. 

 

Quote

A report from SamMobile said earlier this week that Samsung may launch a Galaxy S8 Lite phone in the near future.

That handset, model number SM-G8750, appears to be a watered-down version of the Galaxy S8. The phone drops the Snapdragon 835 chip in favor of the Snapdragon 660, and features an all-screen display with Full HD resolution — it’s unclear if it’ll be an Infinity Display, however.

I'm not up-to-date on Android chipsets but I think the 660 is quite a big drop? Good news for those on a budget however, it's a bold move, lets see if it pays off. 

 

Both of these solutions will depend on their pricing to be honest. Samsung phones depreciate a lot more than Apple and are quicker to be obsolete to the average consumer, so not those custom ROMs etc. They are also pretty popular which means second-hand stock is very abundant. 

[Sauron]

I guess it makes more sense than just repackaging the same hardware in a new, lower tier model...

[captain_to_fire]

3 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

Samsung is practically saying the Galaxy S8, and Note 8 will be available in stores all year long, right alongside their successors

I think this is good instead of releasing cheapo mid range Galaxy phones all the time like their A and J series Galaxy phones.

[Guest The Viking]

"Galaxy S8 Lite"

 

mmmm.... Samsung, you out of ideas? now copying the chinese manufacturers? 

 

You can find the S8 for 500 to 600 euros now, it's constantly on promo. I would just get rid of stock and have people get the S9 really, the second hand market is filled with barely used or even brand-new S8's...

 

For the Lite version, you too late, budget market is saturated between Huawei/Honor/Xiaomi, at least in Europe (+few others brands like Wiko and such)

 

Lite. I wonder where I've heard that naming scheme before 

 

Spoiler

p8 lite, p9 lite, p10 lite, p8 lite (2017), p20 lite

edit: oh look the S8 for 539 euros

 

[mr moose]

I hope they've done their research.  Sometimes what makes a companies products popular is the fact they don't do it like their competitors.

[yolosnail]

37 minutes ago, The Viking said:

"Galaxy S8 Lite"

 

mmmm.... Samsung, you out of ideas? now copying the chinese manufacturers? 

 

You can find the S8 for 500 to 600 euros now, it's constantly on promo. I would just get rid of stock and have people get the S9 really, the second hand market is filled with barely used or even brand-new S8's...

 

For the Lite version, you too late, budget market is saturated between Huawei/Honor/Xiaomi, at least in Europe (+few others brands like Wiko and such)

 

Lite. I wonder where I've heard that naming scheme before 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

p8 lite, p9 lite, p10 lite, p8 lite (2017), p20 lite

 

This just reminds me of when they used to make 'mini' variants of the flagships which I think they stopped with the S6

[Arika]

but do we really need 8 versions of the same phone?

 

I'm a fan of the tag on this thread

[AlTech]

Why not just literally do what Apple does and sell the S8 with the original S8 specs at $100-150 cheaper than the current model?

[AlTech]

26 minutes ago, VegetableStu said:

maybe "an S8 sold is an S9 not bought"? o_o

Well then why doesn't it bother Apple when that happens with their phones?

[captain_to_fire]

2 hours ago, Sierra Fox said:

but do we really need 8 versions of the same phone?

 

I'm a fan of the tag on this thread

I think Samsung and other Android OEMs are actually doing that years ago. Remember the Samsung Galaxy S2 having multiple versions for different carriers: 

• Samsung Galaxy S2 
• Samsung Galaxy S2 Epic 4G Touch 
• Samsung Galaxy S2 Skyrocket for AT&T 

Looks like Samsung is digging up stuff they’ve already shelved. 

[Sniperfox47]

7 hours ago, RorzNZ said:

I'm not up-to-date on Android chipsets but I think the 660 is quite a big drop? Good news for those on a budget however, it's a bold move, lets see if it pays off. 

It's actually not that bad off.

 

CPU wise it actually performs pretty close. A little bit behind the 835, bit way better than the earlier 65x series chips.

 

GPU wise you've got about half the performance of the SD835 so you're hit harder on 3D mobile games, tensor applications, and things like that.

 

And LTE download speeds on the modem are only about half (upload is the same), but you'd probably never saturate the faster modems anyways unless you live in Russia using some of the 3GPP test networks over there.

 

5 hours ago, The Viking said:

"Galaxy S8 Lite"

 

mmmm.... Samsung, you out of ideas? now copying the chinese manufacturers? 

Just for the record they've been doing this forever with their tablet and laptop lines. And even on the phone side, it's not new for their budget phones. They were doing this since we'll before the p8.

[Drak3]

So, what they've been doing for years.

 

Got it.

[AlTech]

32 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

So, what they've been doing for years.

 

Got it.

Except now it's officially official .

[Drak3]

3 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Except now it's officially official .

Whereas it was only unofficially official?

[AlTech]

Just now, Drak3 said:

Whereas it was only unofficially official?

Well, they didn't advertise them much. And traditionally they had ridiculous numbers of variants and names for cheaper knock offs of older devices.

 

Like the Neo series (think same chassis but ridiculously weak SOC and wayy too little RAM) and the Mini series (same as Neo basically but smaller form factor).

[mrchow19910319]

6 hours ago, The Viking said:

"Galaxy S8 Lite"

Lite. I wonder where I've heard that naming scheme before 

 

  Hide contents

p8 lite, p9 lite, p10 lite, p8 lite (2017), p20 lite

 

 

not sure whether this is appropriate... but I find it funny anyway... this is the 1st thing that popped out of m y head when I see so many "lite".... 

sorry if being racist... 

[Ginger_]

5 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

Well then why doesn't it bother Apple when that happens with their phones?

Apple most of the time has a noticable difference in at least the performance of their phones. The s8 to the s9 is well, underwhelming. I have an s8, typically always want the newest available and fastest available, but have 0 desire to get an s9. Not worth the hassle for about the same phone

[DrMacintosh]

12 hours ago, Ginger_ said:

Apple most of the time has a noticable difference in at least the performance of their phones.

Source: Geekbench

OC by: DrMacintosh

[dizmo]

I don't understand this news piece. They already release a phone every year. They launch the Note later, which is their premium device. If the only change is that they'll continue to offer their other devices for an extra year...it doesn't even seem news worthy. Likely just a slow news day there so the director said "guys, we really need to find something Samsung related we can take a shot. Anything at all." 

 

Also, no wonder it's heavily Apple biased. BGR is one of the worst publications for guzzling gallons of Apple's... 

 

21 hours ago, mrchow19910319 said:

 

not sure whether this is appropriate... but I find it funny anyway... this is the 1st thing that popped out of m y head when I see so many "lite".... 

sorry if being racist... 

While I take huge offense to this, you can't really be racist against a country. 

[Curufinwe_wins]

Actually an S8 frame with a lower tier CPU and FHD full-screen display would be an amazing phone for the elderly or people who dont need hyper fast devices, but want that premium construction. 

 

Running the same battery with a 660 instead and lower res display should easily boost battery life by a lot.

[Misanthrope]

Well that's neat....except Samsung already has literally hundreds of other devices in stores that are also named 'Galaxy' something (Usually also a letter and a number) so this isn't going to work out for you as well as it does for Apple.

 

Name your other phones something, anything else first.

[aezakmi]

Meh, all the phones look the same nowadays, you can't tell who's copying.

[ARikozuM]

So, Samsung's response to selling phones outside of their current markets... is to sell more phones? Why not just lower your prices? Why is everyone trying to increase the amount of money they can make on every damn product these days? 

 

Also, inb4 America bails out telecoms for creating a sh#t market condition.