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Yes, a failure. Did they sell S5's? Surely. Did Samsungs start losing global market share afterwards? Yes.
The S5 is a great phone and I agree with you that the camera is excellent. But it's true, it was when the S5 launched that Samsung started slipping from the top spot. And I don't think the S6 will be enough for them to reclaim it.
Yes, a failure. Did they sell S5's? Surely. Did Samsungs start losing global market share afterwards? Yes.
The S5 is a great phone and I agree with you that the camera is excellent. But it's true, it was when the S5 launched that Samsung started slipping from the top spot. And I don't think the S6 will be enough for them to reclaim it.
I would not call it a failure though, though your right it globally sold less than the s4, "failure" seems a bit strong. What I think it was is the they just overestimated the market, as I mentioned, I do not think many people hop on the auto-upgrade bandwagon every time a new model comes out, unless that model is a significant leap in tech. The smart phone market is slowly becoming more and more like the computer market, in which soon everyone will have one, and after that, the need to constantly upgrade diminishes. I even remember buying a new laptop every other year due to the constant improvements, yet now my current laptop is going on seven years old and work great.
I think Samsung's shakeup was premature in this regard. The s5 is a great phone, but is it great enough for someone to switch from a s4 or similar? Like I stated, I only switched because my phone was already five years old, and when I got it was not even the latest model at that, so for me, the s5 was a huge leap, whereas if I had the s4, I guarantee I would not have bought an s5.
Also, Samsung seems to be comparing itself to Apple, which it just cannot do; Apple has brand loyalists which allows it to set prestige pricing and have almost a guarantee of selling new models when they come out, no matter how miniscule the upgrades are to the new model. Samsung cannot replicate this in my opinion, nor should they try.
I'm excited about the MST technology, Samsung Pay being compatible with existing mag stripe readers should be a massive help with adoption, it's really going to disrupt the industry if it works properly...Samsung will need to make the technology pervasive somehow though, they're not going to be able to limit it even to Samsung phones.
I can live without an SD slot provided there's enough internal storage, generally I do heavy movie watching on my tablet, so I just need enough room for my apps, and a portion of my Google Play Music library. I might even be able to get away with 64 GB, though I'll probably get 128 GB just to make sure. That version should hold its value better later on anyway, if I sell it after a year.
The battery I'm a little more ware of, I do want to see some performance numbers with that battery, it's on the small side. The one in my Xperia Z3 does OK but its quite a bit bigger. Of course, when the battery gets low on that, a few minutes on a QuickCharge charger fixes everything, so a sealed battery isn't too bad a thing provided it's of sufficient size. Plus Sammy's giving us wireless charging, which will be nice when used with a car dock.
I'm tempted to wait around to see if there's an S6 Active version, because Qi and MST might not work through a Lifeproof case on the regular S6. Then again, a potential Active version may drop MST and/or the fingerprint reader.
It bothers me greatly that they took away the microSD slot and removable battery, the former especially. Why do that? The room it takes up is minimal, and it's extremely beneficial. The only reason I can think of is because of how stupid people are caring so much about how something looks, and as such the lack of a microSD slot means the phone's physical body doesn't have flaps or such. Why should that matter more than functionality, though, especially since most people use aftermarket cases on their phone anyway? It smacks of Apple introducing the iMac years ago, with its limited expand ability, yet people bought it because it had a clear green case. It's so silly how people can be in that way.
Me personally--if I was so wrapped up about looks, I'd spend my time in the realm of parts of life where that really matters, like fine architecture or shopping at an antique store--or staring at a woman in a cocktail dress or a bathing suit. THAT is where looks matter, not with a phone.
My issue with the SD Cards is that some companies STILL sell 16GB phones with no slot.
Smartphones have been out almost 8 years now. More then that if you look at Palms.
The base model phones should come with 64GB..not 16 or even 32.
That's a lot easier then most. A lot. I would never attempt a battery swap on my phone. The Samsung one tells you right in the manual how to change it. No other company does that unless it's designed to be swapped easily.
I'll be keeping my S4, and have actually thought about finding a few S4's to stockpile because I just don't see the Galaxy S series heading in a favorable-to-me direction. I like the easily removable battery, the SD slot (sooo much easier to backup files and media and move from device to device, especially if the device itself fails), and the size of the S4. The only other phone I'd consider going to at this point is a Note device, and that's about it. I've used the S5 a little, and still preferred my S4 over it.
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