Technology Android

[masta247]

Honestly, if the S20 series are starting a trend for Samsung, the S8 might be the end of the line for me. I was on Galaxy S phones since the S4 and upgraded every 2 generations. Then the S10 felt like a relatively small upgrade over the S8, so I thought I'll wait a gen, but this launch has really left a sour taste in my mouth.

On another note, I have never felt more happy with a three year old phone than I am on the S8, and I think this same sentiment can be felt by people who are on the likes of the iPhone X, Galaxy S9 and other "aging" flagships. Newer phones are bringing very little to the table while coming with ridiculous price tags.

Not only is my S8 supper snappy in literally every aspect, the camera isn't even tangibly worse than on the S10 or the newest iPhones (except it's missing a zoom cam) but even the design still feels excellent, as instead of a notch or punch hole there's simply a slim bezel that imho doesn't look any worse and displays the entire image. The battery lasts as long as it does on the newest flagships because the Snapdragon 835 was Qualcomm's last really balanced chip, and I have never had fewer reasons to upgrade. Plus I have a 256GB card in it and a headphone jack that I use all the time despite also having the Galaxy Buds - I'd be losing storage and the jack on the S20.

I also realized that today I'd have to pay literally 50% more than what my phone launched at for what would be the smallest technological improvement. I'm just not down to do that, I'd feel like a sucker and wouldn't be even able to enjoy the phone itself.

I read somewhere that Apple was releasing a phone at a really low price. I just saw the headline and I think it was on something like Google News, so there's a chance it was a shitty blog looking to bait someone with a clickbait headline. I just did a quick search and saw the 11 was $699? I don't know how I missed this but Apple's base model phone is cheaper, at launch, than the S10e, if I'm not mistaken? That's ridiculous.

Yeah the iPhone 11, which is still probably around 50% faster than the S20, with around five years of software support and likely with a better battery life, although an inferior screen, launched at and is still $699. It didn't feel that cheap because that was a flagship price two or three years ago. The S8 and S9 launched at $720 and these were the most expensive Android phones you could get.

 

[dilla]

Honestly, if the S20 series are starting a trend for Samsung, the S8 might be the end of the line for me. I was on Galaxy S phones since the S4 and upgraded every 2 generations. Then the S10 felt like a relatively small upgrade over the S8, so I thought I'll wait a gen, but this launch has really left a sour taste in my mouth.

On another note, I have never felt more happy with a three year old phone than I am on the S8, and I think this same sentiment can be felt by people who are on the likes of the iPhone X, Galaxy S9 and other "aging" flagships. Newer phones are bringing very little to the table while coming with ridiculous price tags.

Not only is my S8 supper snappy in literally every aspect, the camera isn't even tangibly worse than on the S10 or the newest iPhones (except it's missing a zoom cam) but even the design still feels excellent, as instead of a notch or punch hole there's simply a slim bezel that imho doesn't look any worse and displays the entire image. The battery lasts as long as it does on the newest flagships because the Snapdragon 835 was Qualcomm's last really balanced chip, and I have never had fewer reasons to upgrade. Plus I have a 256GB card in it and a headphone jack that I use all the time despite also having the Galaxy Buds - I'd be losing storage and the jack on the S20.

I also realized that today I'd have to pay literally 50% more than what my phone launched at for what would be the smallest technological improvement. I'm just not down to do that, I'd feel like a sucker and wouldn't be even able to enjoy the phone itself.



Yeah the iPhone 11, which is still probably around 50% faster than the S20, with around five years of software support and likely with a better battery life, although an inferior screen, launched at and is still $699. It didn't feel that cheap because that was a flagship price two or three years ago. The S8 and S9 launched at $720 and these were the most expensive Android phones you could get.

Yeah, it seems like many mocked Apple for removing the headphone jack years ago but now don't say a peep when Samsung is the last, big OEM to remove theirs. People just accepted it, I think, but regardless, there wasn't much of a stink raised about the jack removal. Maybe the pricing was a bigger target for people to attack. I think the Note 10 dropped the jack too last Fall so people weren't as up in arms about it.

I don't really miss the headphone jack, though, not gonna lie. My car is the oldest car in the lineup and so while it supports bluetooth for call audio, it does not support playing music or notifications through the car's speakers via bluetooth. So I do still use an aux cord in my car if I want to stream Spotify while driving but if my S10+ ditched the headphone jack, I would have just looked for those $15 FM transmitters instead and made do with that. Otherwise, all the headphones I have are wireless and I don't really mind it. I'm also no audiophile so whatever sound quality is lost over bluetooth, I don't notice, nor care. My my most expensive headphones were $120, so far from the audiophile stuff that's $500+, so audiophile quality was not a priority for me. They still sound good, though, and support the AptX or whatever it is that's the best wireless tech/codecs/etc. But in every other car, Android Auto has taken over music and podcast responsibilities. Some even do that wirelessly, so there's no need to plug it in every time and it charges on the built-in wireless charging pad.

So I get that some might be upset about the headphone jack removal, but it seems like the vast majority of users, who are casual users like me, don’t really mind switching to wireless headphones and have even found be more convenient. Only the power users, or really just audiophiles, are the ones bemoaning the missing jack. And you and I both know that Samsung, Apple, etc. aren’t catering to the minority users. This isn’t like the computer market where there are devices catered to different needs. Having a ”Pro" model phone is stupid. You know, like what Apple did with the 11. Pro. Pro Max. If Samsung thinks they're Apple, someone should remind them they're not.

 

[dilla]

https://www.techradar.com/news/the-...s-more-ram-than-most-laptops-and-thats-stupid

 

[masta247]

https://www.techradar.com/news/the-...s-more-ram-than-most-laptops-and-thats-stupid

The "article" is just an uneducated rant not worthy of being posted on anything with a ".com" domain.
The S10 series already had 8-12GB of RAM. The S20 series come with 12-16GB, and the cost of RAM doesn't have much to do with the price of the phone as RAM prices are at an all-time low. To the point 16GB today is cheaper than 8GB was two years ago. It's the 5G (and the ridiculous price gouging by Qualcomm forcing OEMs to buy two large chips instead of one) and the associated circuitry, larger batteries and camera sensors that led to S20's through-the-roof pricing.

Nobody should need that much RAM in a phone, except Android is actually NOT a lightweight operating system. In terms of memory usage, it's an absolute resource hog COMPARED TO Windows, in fact. It launches as much stuff as it has RAM for at the same time, and kills stuff when it runs out.
On Windows and iOS, system services do launch in the background, but you do have full control over which user's apps and programs are running and which ones should be closed and when.. which as retarded as it sounds is not the case on Android.

Samsung using 12-16GB of RAM in a phone is a ridiculous solution to a ridiculous problem - they are hoping this will increase the battery life and user experience, as most of your apps and services will be able to be constantly open without being killed and relaunched by a stupid operating system they are running. This isn't a problem on iOS - the newest iPhones still come with 4GB of RAM, which is a perfectly reasonable amount for a phone that does not run a misdesigned operating system. Adding more RAM on an operating system with great memory management like iOS would actually decrease standby time on battery as you would extremely rarely load more than 4GB of RAM with apps you actually want running at the same time, and idle RAM still uses power. Furthermore, iOS doesn't kill apps that you have open in your task manager once you are close to running out of RAM, just compresses them. All in all, their memory management is close to perfect, while Android's is likely more horrible than any software architect's wildest nightmares prior to Android's launch.

Now for the cost, adding 4GB of RAM costs Samsung less than $10, while going with the Snapdragon 865 and a 5G modem, together with the engineering required to implement the complex (and largely unnecessary but forced by Qualcomm) solution definitely costs Samsung closer to $100 over the 855 with a built-in LTE-A modem. I bet if they could, they would skip the 865, but they were pushed into a corner by the fact it's the only chip they can upgrade to in North America this year, which nobody but Qualcomm is happy about. The only alternative they had would be using last year's chip they already used in the S10, or putting a mid-range chip in their flagship products, which Qualcomm knew Samsung wouldn't go for when they told OEMs that if they want the 865 they have to buy it in an expensive package together with their stand-alone, big-ass 5G modem.

On top of that, Samsung was gradually increasing its margins since the S8 to ensure they make as much money while selling fewer phones as the upgrade frequency and demand on flagship smartphones decreases (ironically creating the largest contributor to that trend). Making phones more expensive means even a similar profit margin earns them more money per phone sold as well. It's as if phones should be becoming cheaper due to decreasing demand, decreasing component prices and increasing supply but OEMs are fighting that off by leeching off of customers and pushing to make flagship smartphones a luxury yet popular item.

 

[dilla]

The "article" is just an uneducated rant not worthy of being posted on anything with a ".com" domain.
The S10 series already had 8-12GB of RAM. The S20 series come with 12-16GB, and the cost of RAM doesn't have much to do with the price of the phone as RAM prices are at an all-time low. To the point 16GB today is cheaper than 8GB was two years ago. It's the 5G (and the ridiculous price gouging by Qualcomm forcing OEMs to buy two large chips instead of one) and the associated circuitry, larger batteries and camera sensors that led to S20's through-the-roof pricing.

Nobody should need that much RAM in a phone, except Android is actually NOT a lightweight operating system. In terms of memory usage, it's an absolute resource hog COMPARED TO Windows, in fact. It launches as much stuff as it has RAM for at the same time, and kills stuff when it runs out.
On Windows and iOS, system services do launch in the background, but you do have full control over which user's apps and programs are running and which ones should be closed and when.. which as retarded as it sounds is not the case on Android.

Samsung using 12-16GB of RAM in a phone is a ridiculous solution to a ridiculous problem - they are hoping this will increase the battery life and user experience, as most of your apps and services will be able to be constantly open without being killed and relaunched by a stupid operating system they are running. This isn't a problem on iOS - the newest iPhones still come with 4GB of RAM, which is a perfectly reasonable amount for a phone that does not run a misdesigned operating system. Adding more RAM on an operating system with great memory management like iOS would actually decrease standby time on battery as you would extremely rarely load more than 4GB of RAM with apps you actually want running at the same time, and idle RAM still uses power. Furthermore, iOS doesn't kill apps that you have open in your task manager once you are close to running out of RAM, just compresses them. All in all, their memory management is close to perfect, while Android's is likely more horrible than any software architect's wildest nightmares prior to Android's launch.

Now for the cost, adding 4GB of RAM costs Samsung less than $10, while going with the Snapdragon 865 and a 5G modem, together with the engineering required to implement the complex (and largely unnecessary but forced by Qualcomm) solution definitely costs Samsung closer to $100 over the 855 with a built-in LTE-A modem. I bet if they could, they would skip the 865, but they were pushed into a corner by the fact it's the only chip they can upgrade to in North America this year, which nobody but Qualcomm is happy about. The only alternative they had would be using last year's chip they already used in the S10, or putting a mid-range chip in their flagship products, which Qualcomm knew Samsung wouldn't go for when they told OEMs that if they want the 865 they have to buy it in an expensive package together with their stand-alone, big-ass 5G modem.

On top of that, Samsung was gradually increasing its margins since the S8 to ensure they make as much money while selling fewer phones as the upgrade frequency and demand on flagship smartphones decreases (ironically creating the largest contributor to that trend). Making phones more expensive means even a similar profit margin earns them more money per phone sold as well. It's as if phones should be becoming cheaper due to decreasing demand, decreasing component prices and increasing supply but OEMs are fighting that off by leeching off of customers and pushing to make flagship smartphones a luxury yet popular item.

The part where he attributes the rising cost in phones to RAM did sound incorrect and there were some Reddit comments mentioning that. Is there anything that can be done about Android being such a "lazy" OS that fills up its RAM and then dumps them as it sees fit, regardless of what the user wants?

I occasionally go to the zoomed-out-window look on iOS (I don't know what its proper name is) and it shows all the apps I've opened and that are in the background. I sometimes find thumbnails of the apps in their state from 2 weeks ago, when I last used it. Like a video streaming app like Hulu or something. iOS just held on to it all that time while I did tons of work in a handful of apps lol. I don't know if that's good or bad, but it's always like a mini time capsule of when I last used the app. I always have the urge to swipe them away/close them, but my iPad does not lag. At all. Even on my Air, this happened then as well and I'd feel like it was a bad thing that I had a browser, PDF viewer, several streaming apps, Apple News, and Twitter open from the past week of work but it would not affect performance, so I just kept it.

I don't do it often on my S10 but there will be some times that apps become unresponsive and I'll just hit the menu button and close all the apps. But it makes me think that having apps I don't use often get caught under Samsung's built-in app sleep manager might not be a good thing since there are apps I use only a few times a day but still they restart every time I open them. Android isn't keeping them "ready" especially with the 8 GB of RAM it has. I might disable the app nap/sleep/hibernation/whatever it's called and see how performance changes. I get ridiculous battery life on the "normal" mode under power settings; I never put it in medium or power saver mode. And I just looked at my battery stats in GSam and in 6 days, I have used 200% of my battery's capacity. I put it on charger for short periods of time, never to 100%, and it over 6 days, almost-seven, it's used 210ish%. I wonder if the tradeoff for that was none of my apps were allowed to run in the background and that's why they always restart when I tap them.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

Can they not redesign that part of Android so that apps don't constantly launch in the background and hog the resources?

 

[THEV1LL4N]

At some point you will have to upgrade though, so will have to do without the headphone jack. I would like to keep the headphone jack and keep my wired headphones. I only purchased new sports earphones a couple of years ago which are wired, and my Sennheiser PX100-II headphones are in desperate need of refurbishment (sponge pads). I use these occasionally now and so would much rather get replacement pads for those and continue using the same pair rather than swap them for new wireless headphones. It would be more cost-effective and would enable to continue enjoying them while they still work. Unfortunately, they were discontinued a long time ago.

Masta, do you have recommendations for anything similar to the PX100-II headphones?

 

[dilla]

lol Samsung's Find my Phone snafu has turned in to a meme now. It was odd but when I got the notification, I didn't think much of it and assumed the app was acting up. I don't really use many of Samsung's own apps so I never pay attention to them. I just assume the Galaxy Store updates them automatically and figured it was just a weird notification from the update.


In other news, our second clinic needed new front desk computers so I thought we'd go the space-saving route and get an AIO. I thought the AMD option was coming with a Ryzen chipset and it was priced at $499. I figured it was a steal so I had it in the cart until I realized that, nope, it had an A7 or A9. There was no Ryzen option. These may have been 2019 models they were looking to unload, so maybe Dell hadn't embraced Ryzen fully then.

So I went the i5 route, base model. They came in today and I just got done setting them up. They're pretty nice for a sub-$1000 AIO. I don't think they go much beyond that when they're fully-specced either, unless you look to an iMac or something. I think the design on this one is pretty sleek so it should look expensive and modern to patients, assuming they're not that computer-literate lol. It's a 27 incher so despite being pretty wide, it should still look and feel less messy than our old setups, which had towers on the desk next to 24" screens.

Coincidentally, my dad's LG monitor started flickering real bad. Turns out my dad noticed this the past few months but never said anything because he thought his eyesight was going to shit lol. So he just lived with the flickering and the screen occasionally getting a light purple hue from time to time. I remember when he bought it almost 10 years ago. Maybe even a bit before then. So it certainly served its purpose for 10+ years and I told him I'd order him a new one and maybe move him on from the FHD and just one step up to QHD. And a big step up from 24" to 27" so I got him the UltraThin S2719DM. There was a sick deal for a 27" Acer or ASUS gaming monitor (or maybe it was AOC?) for $85 but I figured that would be ridiculous to give him lol. Plus, his room/desk is right next to a window and from my understanding, TN displays blow when it comes to glare and viewing angle.

 

[dilla]

Son of a bitch, Samsung https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/02/24/samsung_data_breach_find_my_mobile/

I guess changing just the Samsung Account password will be enough? I did have site passwords saved on Samsung Pass for the few times I use the Samsung Browser. I don't know if those are safe.

 

[masta247]

Son of a bitch, Samsung https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/02/24/samsung_data_breach_find_my_mobile/

I guess changing just the Samsung Account password will be enough? I did have site passwords saved on Samsung Pass for the few times I use the Samsung Browser. I don't know if those are safe.

They made it seem like an account ID mix-up, as other account's data was available to random users, not a password breach. The lack of transparency is annoying and dangerous though. Sure, a breach is bad, but not telling people what happened ASAP so they can react properly is just horrible.

Edit: Apparently it only affected around 150 users that they reached out to. Also:

"SamMobile also tracked down some details of how this data leaked out. Apparently, some users logged in to the account section of the Samsung Shop and found the phone numbers, emails, shipping addresses, recent orders, and even the last 4 digits of credit cards of complete strangers.". No wonder it's just 150 users - that's probably around the entire global user base of the Samsung Shop, lol.

 

[dilla]

lol

They made it seem like an account ID mix-up, as other account's data was available to random users, not a password breach. The lack of transparency is annoying and dangerous though. Sure, a breach is bad, but not telling people what happened ASAP so they can react properly is just horrible.

Edit: Apparently it only affected around 150 users that they reached out to. Also:

"SamMobile also tracked down some details of how this data leaked out. Apparently, some users logged in to the account section of the Samsung Shop and found the phone numbers, emails, shipping addresses, recent orders, and even the last 4 digits of credit cards of complete strangers.". No wonder it's just 150 users - that's probably around the entire global user base of the Samsung Shop, lol.

lol yeah probably. You'd still think Samsung would send a mass email to every Samsung account owner informing them and then assuring them that nothing to worry about. Because as far as I know, all Samsung users hot this random notification, right? Not just Galaxy and Note 9/10 users.


Also, do you have a screen protector on your S8? Or S9, I forget which you have. I still have the one that came from Samsung still on there but it's starting to get some holes in it and a bit is peeling off. My S7 was pretty good for not have a screen protector but there were still tiny scratches you could see if you held it up to a bright light. I plan on keeping the S10 until it dies on me so I'm trying to preserve both the aesthetics and the battery.

Samsung sells one on their website but people on forums said they had chatted with Samsung and they were told those were still not the ones that were shipped with the phone. For some reason, Samsung sells a different one than what it puts on at the factory, and the one being sold separately is not good, according to forum members. Feels the same but less protection. So I'm looking at third party ones that still play nice with the fingerprint sensor under the screen.

 

[masta247]

lol



lol yeah probably. You'd still think Samsung would send a mass email to every Samsung account owner informing them and then assuring them that nothing to worry about. Because as far as I know, all Samsung users hot this random notification, right? Not just Galaxy and Note 9/10 users.


Also, do you have a screen protector on your S8? Or S9, I forget which you have. I still have the one that came from Samsung still on there but it's starting to get some holes in it and a bit is peeling off. My S7 was pretty good for not have a screen protector but there were still tiny scratches you could see if you held it up to a bright light. I plan on keeping the S10 until it dies on me so I'm trying to preserve both the aesthetics and the battery.

Samsung sells one on their website but people on forums said they had chatted with Samsung and they were told those were still not the ones that were shipped with the phone. For some reason, Samsung sells a different one than what it puts on at the factory, and the one being sold separately is not good, according to forum members. Feels the same but less protection. So I'm looking at third party ones that still play nice with the fingerprint sensor under the screen.

I never had a protector and don't regret. My phone dropped from waist height and cracked front AND back glasses, so it doesn't feel like I have anything to lose anymore. I replaced the back glass for $35 because it began developing glass shards that eventually cut my finger open, but now after replacement, the back is as good as new. The front would be $250-300 to replace as they'd have to replace the entire screen just to fix the glass, which would be pointless as that's more than the phone is worth now. It works perfectly well and isn't noticeable unless the screen is off during the day, but it still feels like a "damaged" phone that I don't need to protect from the elements anymore - a couple of extra scratches just wouldn't bother me, so I might as well go raw and appreciate it as it is.

Needless to say, I'm not a fan of glass sandwich designs.

I really like Samsung's S10 leather covers though - they look really slick in real life. My girlfriend has the black one and it looks better with it on than with it off.

Can't find real-life photos of the black one, but it really looks much more premium than on the product pictures. It looks kind of like this, just better (same cover, just black looks much better):

Samsung even made a silicone cover for the S10 that doesn't look like crap:

 

[dilla]

I never had a protector and don't regret. My phone dropped from waist height and cracked front AND back glasses, so it doesn't feel like I have anything to lose anymore. I replaced the back glass for $35 because it began developing glass shards that eventually cut my finger open, but now after replacement, the back is as good as new. The front would be $250-300 to replace as they'd have to replace the entire screen just to fix the glass, which would be pointless as that's more than the phone is worth now. It works perfectly well and isn't noticeable unless the screen is off during the day, but it still feels like a "damaged" phone that I don't need to protect from the elements anymore - a couple of extra scratches just wouldn't bother me, so I might as well go raw and appreciate it as it is.

Needless to say, I'm not a fan of glass sandwich designs.

I really like Samsung's S10 leather covers though - they look really slick in real life. My girlfriend has the black one and it looks better with it on than with it off.
View attachment 491
Can't find real-life photos of the black one, but it really looks much more premium than on the product pictures. It looks kind of like this, just better (same cover, just black looks much better):
View attachment 490

Samsung even made a silicone cover for the S10 that doesn't look like crap:

View attachment 488

Yeah, that does look really nice. I never looked in to Samsung's case offerings when looking for a case. I just looked at the big names like Otterbox, Speck, Spigen, etc. I think i mentioned it before that I got the Spigen Tough Armor with a kickstand. It's not a comprehensive case with thick borders and bulky, but it's not what one would consider minimalist, either. It's just in between. But the kickstand was a big deal for me this time around with how much video I stream, since al my TV watching, live or recorded, is done on my phone. YouTube, too.

Speaking of YouTube, are there any "casual" tech reviewers that you follow? Not for news like one might follow on Twitter or a blog, but just...a vlog? I used to watch MKBHD a good bit a few years ago but now that he's gotten bigger and bigger, his content has evolved to just "something else." On the other hand, I really enjoy Unbox Therapy and UrAvgConsumer and their style of videos. Their casual review of products and it's a mix between popular products and then some random, no-name stuff that either ends up being surprisingly good or ridiculously shitty. Austin Evans sort of follows the same structure as well.

I still watch MKBHD but he can get really technical on his videos while at the same time not going too in-depth. And when he gets really technical about stuff I don't care about, like the $1000+ camera equipment he has or the eccentric furniture he has in his studio (workstation desks, docks, chairs, etc.), it really seems like the content is irrelevant to me.

 

[dilla]

How different the tastes of Americans are compared to the rest of the world, when it comes to mobile OSs.

https://www.rprna.com/news/smartphone-sales-2019-counterpoint/

 

[dilla]

Samsung's scapegoat for poor sales lol https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/...nk-compared-with-last-year-coronavirus-blamed

Totally not the pricing vs features. It's the virus.

 

[masta247]

Samsung's scapegoat for poor sales lol https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/...nk-compared-with-last-year-coronavirus-blamed

Totally not the pricing vs features. It's the virus.

I agree with this article. Samsung started losing it with the S10 and completely lost it with the S20. I really admired Samsung for the Galaxy S series prior to these two generations. Each phone had its flaws, but IMHO they offered the most complete smartphone packages in each generation since the original Galaxy S, they were always a couple of steps ahead of everyone else, and for rather reasonable prices at that. I think objectively they are now offering less while charging more.

Mainstream tastes are definitely different in North America than the rest of the world, and is the perception of Apple as a company. In many other places, people still call Apple-device owners suckers or simpletons. I would still feel like the black sheep with an iPhone in Poland but in Canada, even in tech circles, they are rarely frowned upon.

Also, Apple made dramatic improvements over the last few generations in terms of their Smartphone hardware and software. Hardware now has most of the modern features that traditionally they lagged behind with (like wireless charging, decent cameras and batteries, enough RAM, fairly competitive design etc.), and iOS is less limited than it ever was, even if it's still more limited than Android.

At the same time, Android lost its edge and flagship smartphones in the Android camp began adopting the traditional cons of the Apple camp (limited and expensive hardware options, killing off desired features, little progress per generation). I think this shows in Apple claiming nr 3 spot in Europe and APAC with the XR, which was an excellent phone, even compared to its Android competition, even in terms of value (and so is the iPhone 11).

The interesting takeaway too is that the world is going mid-range, with almost all of the most popular devices outside of North America being mid-rangers. No wonder, since prices of flagship devices surged out of control, while mid-rangers offer 80% of their features and performance for less than half of the cost.

 

[masta247]

In other news, reviews of the S20 ultra are out, and even though the phone got 4/5 with lots of hesitation from GSMArena, my personal take is that it's definitely the biggest disappointment coming from Samsung Mobile (not counting the exploding Notes).

Just as feared, the big batteries aren't even able to mitigate how hot and power-hungry the new Qualcomm chipset and their separate 5G modem are. The 5000mAh battery in the S20 Ultra is sub-par and battery life is actually shorter than it was even on the regular S10. This will be even worse for the smaller S20 phones which come with smaller batteries, and I'm sure that's one of the reasons Samsung aren't sending these to the reviewers despite having pre-orders on these up.

"Ten and a half hours on the web over Wi-Fi is just barely passable, while thirteen hours of offline video playback is on the lower end of the spectrum. "
https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_s20_ultra_5g-review-2074p3.php
For reference, the S10 with a 3400mAh battery did almost 15 hours, the S10e with a 3100mAh battery but smaller screen did 15.5 hours in the same test. Also, the 120hz display mode on the S20 shortens battery life by ~20-30% despite lowering rendering resolution to non-native 1080P.

Considering these phones offer barely anything else over the S10, including barely any improvement in performance (as it's apparently 10-17% faster, but overheats and throttles), This looks like the first big failure in the Galaxy S line.

Oh, and the big feature was supposed to be the camera, which I was REALLY looking forward to as the set-up on the Ultra looks amazing on paper.. but:

"Image quality out of the main camera in broad daylight is... well, good. The nature of the 108MP sensor's filter array doesn't let it capture nearly as much detail as the triple-digit number would have you believe and the Galaxy S20 Ultra's resulting 12MP photos are as detailed as the ones from the natively 12MP Note10+ camera, to name one. High frequency detail (like the grass in the first and second shot, asphalt and pavement) is rendered in a particularly non-pleasing way, and the complex patterns in the balcony blinds have been smeared altogether.

To be fair, both of these effects are characteristic of Samsung processing, it's just that they're all the more prominent in the Ultra's images. Straight lines also do not have that bite that you'd find in a regular 12MP image from a Note or an iPhone."

The redeeming quality is that night shots look nice.

 

[dilla]

I agree with this article. Samsung started losing it with the S10 and completely lost it with the S20. I really admired Samsung for the Galaxy S series prior to these two generations. Each phone had its flaws, but IMHO they offered the most complete smartphone packages in each generation since the original Galaxy S, they were always a couple of steps ahead of everyone else, and for rather reasonable prices at that. I think objectively they are now offering less while charging more.

Mainstream tastes are definitely different in North America than the rest of the world, and is the perception of Apple as a company. In many other places, people still call Apple-device owners suckers or simpletons. I would still feel like the black sheep with an iPhone in Poland but in Canada, even in tech circles, they are rarely frowned upon.

Also, Apple made dramatic improvements over the last few generations in terms of their Smartphone hardware and software. Hardware now has most of the modern features that traditionally they lagged behind with (like wireless charging, decent cameras and batteries, enough RAM, fairly competitive design etc.), and iOS is less limited than it ever was, even if it's still more limited than Android.

At the same time, Android lost its edge and flagship smartphones in the Android camp began adopting the traditional cons of the Apple camp (limited and expensive hardware options, killing off desired features, little progress per generation). I think this shows in Apple claiming nr 3 spot in Europe and APAC with the XR, which was an excellent phone, even compared to its Android competition, even in terms of value (and so is the iPhone 11).

The interesting takeaway too is that the world is going mid-range, with almost all of the most popular devices outside of North America being mid-rangers. No wonder, since prices of flagship devices surged out of control, while mid-rangers offer 80% of their features and performance for less than half of the cost.

One of the only things keeping me on Android is the ability to sideload apk files. I think iOS users can sideload as well, but that definitely requires jailbreak and while I haven't been in the jailbreaking scene for 5+ years now, I remember the whole process of jailbreaking being really silly and inconvenient. The actual jailbrekaing process was typically simple and a one-click app, but maintaining the jailbreak was a problem which required you to be on older versions of iOS, sometimes one or two main updates behind. And then there was the whole thing about whether it was a tethered jailbreak or not and if it was tethered, a simple restart of your phone would render your phone useless until you were near a computer again to re-jailbreak it. Not worth it, in my opinion, especially if it was a tethered jailbreak.

Still, sideloading is a big deal for me since I use a lot of modded apps for services like Instagram and Spotify, which remove ads and trackers. Also for shady streaming link aggregators for TV shows and movies. None of those are possible on iOS and I don't think even the jailbreak community offers that.

About the mid-range market, I don't think I could do a mid-range Android phone. I still hang on to the notion that the flagships get support for longer and with the full features of newer OSs, even if that may not be true. In the US, the only carriers that really advertise mid-range devices on their ads (the A7, the random Moto and LG devices no one has heard of) are carriers like Virgin and Boost Mobile. I don't know what the proper terms are for those carriers, but they are smaller carriers, typically prepaid carriers, that still use the networks of the bigger carriers. They just come at a cheaper price but with harder data caps and low priority. But the bigger carriers here don't push those mid range devices in their ads on TV or the radio or on billboards. They would rather push older flagships, like the S10 or the iPhone XS when trying to cater to people who want to pay as little as possible to get a new phone. And I get the feeling people would rather pay for a used/refurb iPhone XS or even iPhone X than get a brand new but mid-range Android device.

The XR was a solid phone and the only difference was the screen tech. I think it was an LED screen while the rest of the iPhone flagships were OLED. The average consumer has no idea what any of that means. And whatever I may be considered, I only learned of the difference in the past few months when looking for TVs. So it's no surprise the XR sold so well at a lower price point. On Reddit, the iPhone SE from several years ago seems to still be a darling amongst the iOS community and with talks of the SE 2 possibly coming up, the hype is real for that too and I bet it sells just as well as the XR.

In other news, reviews of the S20 ultra are out, and even though the phone got 4/5 with lots of hesitation from GSMArena, my personal take is that it's definitely the biggest disappointment coming from Samsung Mobile (not counting the exploding Notes).

Just as feared, the big batteries aren't even able to mitigate how hot and power-hungry the new Qualcomm chipset and their separate 5G modem are. The 5000mAh battery in the S20 Ultra is sub-par and battery life is actually shorter than it was even on the regular S10. This will be even worse for the smaller S20 phones which come with smaller batteries, and I'm sure that's one of the reasons Samsung aren't sending these to the reviewers despite having pre-orders on these up.

"Ten and a half hours on the web over Wi-Fi is just barely passable, while thirteen hours of offline video playback is on the lower end of the spectrum. "
https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_s20_ultra_5g-review-2074p3.php
For reference, the S10 with a 3400mAh battery did almost 15 hours, the S10e with a 3100mAh battery but smaller screen did 15.5 hours in the same test. Also, the 120hz display mode on the S20 shortens battery life by ~20-30% despite lowering rendering resolution to non-native 1080P.

Considering these phones offer barely anything else over the S10, including barely any improvement in performance (as it's apparently 10-17% faster, but overheats and throttles), This looks like the first big failure in the Galaxy S line.

Oh, and the big feature was supposed to be the camera, which I was REALLY looking forward to as the set-up on the Ultra looks amazing on paper.. but:

"Image quality out of the main camera in broad daylight is... well, good. The nature of the 108MP sensor's filter array doesn't let it capture nearly as much detail as the triple-digit number would have you believe and the Galaxy S20 Ultra's resulting 12MP photos are as detailed as the ones from the natively 12MP Note10+ camera, to name one. High frequency detail (like the grass in the first and second shot, asphalt and pavement) is rendered in a particularly non-pleasing way, and the complex patterns in the balcony blinds have been smeared altogether.

To be fair, both of these effects are characteristic of Samsung processing, it's just that they're all the more prominent in the Ultra's images. Straight lines also do not have that bite that you'd find in a regular 12MP image from a Note or an iPhone."

The redeeming quality is that night shots look nice.

Going back to my point above about carriers and the types of deals they have, if I'm not mistaken, the S20 is free for new customers to Sprint. No money down, no monthly installment payment for the phone. Free. The S20+ is $8. Ultra, I think is $15 a month. Imagine if the average American user is willing to spend whatever on a phone and see the iPhone staring at $30 a month and then the S20 being free. They'll just automatically assume that the more expensive it is, the better and that Samsung's lineup is inferior to Apple's. There are a lot of reasons, founded and unfounded, that people think Apple/iOS is better. It might be the fact that developers really polish their apps for iOS and optimize the apps for the OS really well while Android versions look like shit for months or years before the devs get to it. But if we're talking about $1000 phones here, it's not unreasonable for people to think that the most recent Samsung flagship being given away for free within weeks of its release is a warning sign for just how good it really is. And then it's no mystery why people turn their noses up at Android and would rather pay more for any version of the iPhone instead of an Android flagship.

And yeah, the camera on the S20 is apparently shit and Samsung said they were going to fix it.

 

[dilla]

Big boners are being had over this A14 chip. I had read it was 50% faster than the A12? Whatever is in the latest iPad Pro. Some commenters said that the RAM would finally be a big issue for utilizing all of that power properly. Of course, I know jack shit about hardware, so I just read along and it seemed many agreed with the sentiment.

Also, I didn't realize my LG monitor was a 75hz screen. Thought it was 60hz because it was so cheap, but it does do 75hz. With a DisplayPort cable. Bought a cheapo one for $7 and now I am able to select 75hz in the display settings in macOS. No one cares.

Have you seen/heard about the HP Elite Dragonfly? I saw an Unbox therapy video on it and it looked really neat. Some Windows OEMs have really stepped up their design after being behind for so long. While others blatantly rip off the Mac styling, this one does its own thing. I was unaware tech existed that gave you a native privacy screen filter. I think HP called it Sure View? A press of a button and the viewing angle of the screen shrinks to what looks like a 45 degree angle. And the blue one looks really nice.

It costs more than a MacBook/Air, but the specs, I think, were much better, at least when it came to the processor.


EDIT: I was dead wrong. It's the 8th gen CPUs and maxes out at 16GB of RAM. I'll have to double check but this makes it a worse value than the MacBook Air.

 

[dilla]

Apple revealed the new iPad Pros today. I really like that Magic Keyboard, or whatever they called it, but it's the usual price-gouging at $300 for the 11" and $350 for the 12.9." Still, that cursor support looks pretty neat and I love the aesthetic of the floating design. It also feels like instead of adding touch support to their Macs, Apple took a slower, more convoluted route by making the iPad slowly transform into a Mac, all the while touting it as a replacement to a computer. I think it goes back to Jobs' days as CEO where Apple said they would never have a touchscreen on a Mac/OSX/macOS and instead of just going against that, they just the iPad Pro do it anyway slowly over the years. Which makes me wonder if all this talk of ARM Macs is just going to turn out to be the iPad taking the role of the Mac lineup completely and Apple moves forward from there.

Of course, it would leave heavy users without an option if the iPad can't handle the tasks they normally do on it. They may keep the Mac Pro around and maybe the iMac, but as far as their notebook lineup goes, the iPad might just supplant that and the Mac lineup consists of one or two models for "pro" users or people that don't want iPad OS /and/or to still keep using macOS.

That's just my stray predictions. I don't know if other people think the same thing will happen but the talks of ARM Macs has gotten louder and at the same time I feel Apple wants to shrink the lineup a bit and merge the iPad and Macs and create a new sector of tablets that truly do perform like full-fledge computers. It doesn't make sense to keep the Air around and they already axed the MacBook after the Air got the refresh. And those two models existed at the same time for some reason and it confused customers because of the capabilities and the pricing of the two. I feel those would be the first on the chopping block and the MBP lineup slowly fades away over 5 or so years.

But Apple also "refreshed" the Mac Mini with 8th gen Intel processors so Apple is still dragging that dead horse around. I don't know anyone that owns a Mac Mini and I can't imagine anyone shelling out for 2018 8th-gen tech in 2020 for the usual Apple Premium. So maybe Apple is content with the way their lineup of iPads and Macs looks right now. It's confusing as hell.