Samsung to Unveil New Smartphones at Galaxy Unpacked Event on January 14

Imo the S21 won't be a huge deal feature wise, but it's more of a comeback for Exynos. We already see that most of the spec, especially on the regular S21 and plus, are not that much different than the S20. But it will be a huge upgrade for Exynos market as for the past few years, Exynos chips used in most regions like Europe and Asia don't perform as well as the Snapdragon coutnerpart. Heck, even Samsung themselves ended up using Snapdragon for their own home market, S. Korea. Hopefully the Exynos 2100 delivers the hype, as it's long overdue that us in exynos regions to get the premium that we paid for.
 
rp2011 said:
Those rumored prices seem way too high for the specs. I know that Samsung has midrange phones also, but the S20 line didn’t have a great year, and this sounds lie they will have an even worse year. I don‘t get it. It’s like they are ceding the market to Apple at the high end, and Chinese brands for everything else. And their silly folding phones flopped.
Hopefully Samsung has secret plan, but things do not look good for their phone lines.
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Samsung S line has never been the volume seller. When you have products ranging from sub $100 models to $1000+ models, you are going to have more spread of volume vs companies like Apple. Even if we look into iPhones, the best seller is the regular 12, not the more expensive Pro models. It's the same thing, the S line will never be a volume seller, that part is taken by the A series.

And Samsung is actually doing better in markets where the Chinese are all out in force. Eg. in my country, Samsung managed to return as the top brand marketshare thanks to their re-strategized Galaxy A lineup. Asking around many retailers, they still say most people gravitate towards Samsung. Most people trust the Samsung brand more than the likes of Xiaomi/Oppo/Realme/etc. With Samsung having many Samsung service centers around, it also makes people wanting to get support easier. We tech literates might not think twice about support, but regular people really deem accessibility of support to be important.
 
waquzy said:
No. After all, Samsung’s motto is: “First we mock and then we copy!”
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... but at the time they’re also rumoured to reduce their prices from $900 last year to $850 this time. It almost makes up for the removal of charging brick! OTOH Apple increased the prices ($699 to $829) on the iPhone 12 despite removing charger and EarPods.
 
ian87w said:
Imo the S21 won't be a huge deal feature wise, but it's more of a comeback for Exynos. We already see that most of the spec, especially on the regular S21 and plus, are not that much different than the S20. But it will be a huge upgrade for Exynos market as for the past few years, Exynos chips used in most regions like Europe and Asia don't perform as well as the Snapdragon coutnerpart. Heck, even Samsung themselves ended up using Snapdragon for their own home market, S. Korea. Hopefully the Exynos 2100 delivers the hype, as it's long overdue that us in exynos regions to get the premium that we paid for.
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What's interesting is that in camera tests there is a difference between the Exynos and Snapdragon models. Dxomark has tested both (at least the Note 20 variants) and they get different scores, Exynos being better even though in general computing it is slower. So they may have some custom image processing happening on the Exynos just like Apple does with their own chips.
 
Pangalactic said:
I guess someone hasn't used a good android phone for a while. The software updates on my Galaxy roll out pretty much as often as on the iPhone, perhaps even more. As for the security, I would say Apple is definitely ahead but not that much. You get all the stop/allow tracking options on Android, and you can get a lot more monitoring software to see what is happening with your data
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Three years of guaranteed updates for Samsung phones now and in the fourth year you still receive security updates. The S7 is still getting security patches now.
 
Relentless Power said:
It’s not the consistency in which the updates ‘roll out’, it’s the longevity. Three years v.s. five years on the iPhone? I’d say the iPhone is more dominant in that respect. That’s why the iPhones perform so well, and look at the iPhone 7 for example compared to a Samsung Galaxy on the same year, which phone do you think peforms better?
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It’s not as simple as quantifying it as 3 years vs 5. For a Samsung flagship it’s 3 years of major OS updates, 4 years of security updates. Also you have updates to google play services and core apps which goes on for many years, even beyond the 5 years that Apple provides. I have an old note 4 phone. It came out in 2014. It still gets updates to core apps and services. Google also make new features compatible with older devices which may not be receiving software updates. For example the nearby share feature which is Google’s answer to Airdrop which was released last year is compatible with all devices running android 6 or newer, which includes devices released in 2014.
 
ian87w said:
Samsung S line has never been the volume seller. When you have products ranging from sub $100 models to $1000+ models, you are going to have more spread of volume vs companies like Apple. Even if we look into iPhones, the best seller is the regular 12, not the more expensive Pro models. It's the same thing, the S line will never be a volume seller, that part is taken by the A series.

And Samsung is actually doing better in markets where the Chinese are all out in force. Eg. in my country, Samsung managed to return as the top brand marketshare thanks to their re-strategized Galaxy A lineup. Asking around many retailers, they still say most people gravitate towards Samsung. Most people trust the Samsung brand more than the likes of Xiaomi/Oppo/Realme/etc. With Samsung having many Samsung service centers around, it also makes people wanting to get support easier. We tech literates might not think twice about support, but regular people really deem accessibility of support to be important.
Click to expand...
The S line has been a volume seller in the past. Not so much now. It does about 40-50 million units per year but at its peak the S4 sold 80 million units.
 
Weird timing to launch - many people are just getting their credit card bills from the holiday shopping. I’m certainly not in a shopping mood in mid-January!
 
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Shanghaichica said:
Three years of guaranteed updates for Samsung phones now and in the fourth year you still receive security updates. The S7 is still getting security patches now.
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That’s good then-if there’s one thing I’ve never liked about Android is releasing a decent handset and then deciding it’s not going to receive the latest update even though the hardware can likely handle it.
 
Shanghaichica said:
The S line has been a volume seller in the past. Not so much now. It does about 40-50 million units per year but at its peak the S4 sold 80 million units.
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Yes. The market was completely different back then. I mean the flagship was only like $500-$600, and the lower end phones were totally garbage. As time progresses, The flagships grow more expensive, while the lower end are getting better.
 
waquzy said:
No. After all, Samsung’s motto is: “First we mock and then we copy!”
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There are brands in Europe, e.g. Nokia etc who haven't been including a charger with their phones for years, so the Apple moto could be ".... we copy and pretend to be first!"
 
ian87w said:
Imo the S21 won't be a huge deal feature wise, but it's more of a comeback for Exynos. We already see that most of the spec, especially on the regular S21 and plus, are not that much different than the S20. But it will be a huge upgrade for Exynos market as for the past few years, Exynos chips used in most regions like Europe and Asia don't perform as well as the Snapdragon coutnerpart. Heck, even Samsung themselves ended up using Snapdragon for their own home market, S. Korea. Hopefully the Exynos 2100 delivers the hype, as it's long overdue that us in exynos regions to get the premium that we paid for.
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yeah the chip set for exynos uses will be a big reason to upgrade. exynos 990 for me was a complete nightmare.
 
The Game 161 said:
Security updates they do but OS updates not so much. android 11 has been out a number of months and still no sign of it arriving on all samsung phones. one UI 3.0 has been rumoured for months and it's still not out and if it's out it's only out on certain devices thats the difference really.
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This is why, back when I used budget / mid range Android phones, I got a new phone every year. Some vendors may give you one OS update, but not many. Given I got the phones for a great price and they worked well for the year or so I had them, I can't complain. But I don't miss them now that I have an iPhone XR.
 
Captain Trips said:
Wait until 2022...
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I don't actually care how fast the processor in my phone is. It just needs to be fast enough and they have been for the past 5 years or so. The A series is overkill because the power is largely overkill. The iPhone can't do split screen apps and cant be used as desktop like a Samsung phone with Dex can.
 
TVreporter said:
Weird timing to launch - many people are just getting their credit card bills from the holiday shopping. I’m m certainly not in a shopping mood in mid-January!
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I haven't upgraded my phone yet from the 11 pro max and I usually upgrade every year so I'm ripe for an upgrade if anything catches my eye lol
 
Big agree with the top-voted comment here, competition is important, and Samsung is probably the biggest competing force relative to Apple in the smartphone world. Would go so far as to say Samsung is a big reason why Apple’s cameras are (lol, no pun intended) top-notch these days.

On that note…

God DAMN those cameras look TERRIBLE. Oh my GOD. If the flash were contained within the same notch that has the three lenses, that’d be one thing. But…just thinking ahead to pictures of this in a case…there is no way to make that look good. For all the complains people have made since the 6/6s days about a camera bump, at least Apple tries when it comes to making their phones’ camera bumps look good/flush in a case.

(Before anyone says anything: yes, I know the 12 Pro Max doesn’t sit flush, even in an official Apple case. Yes, I would agree this is a weak point. But I would also say the 12 Pro Max camera absolutely destroys every other smartphone camera currently on the market.)

EDIT: I guess I typed this comment out hours ago and just left it here, forgive me if someone has already typed out the exact same thing. Don’t care enough to look at all the comments 😂
 
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