Like most technology, smartphones lose their value over time. As new models are released with improved features and capabilities, people start to lose interest in older models, and with this decreased demand comes a dip in value.
However, this depreciation doesn’t always happen at a steady rate – certain things can cause sudden drops. Knowing the best time to sell your phone can help make sure you get the most money possible.
Update: I went back to another Best Buy to test another Note 8 demo unit and can confirm: I was able to unlock the Note 8 demo with different Facebook profile pics and Instagram selfies from my iPhone as well.
"Whatever, that's just a demo."
You see, that's actually the problem. I see three possibilities:
Which is it?
Played around with the S8 at Best Buy for five minutes. Here are my quick-fire first impressions:
One thing I like about the Galaxy S8 is they finally got rid of their logo from the front.
Let the industrial design speak for itself.
One of Galaxy Note 7's hallmark features this year is the iris scanner. I've personally had a hard time envisioning iris scanners as a better solution than fingerprint scanners, especially when companies (including Apple) are racing to build fingerprint scanning right into the touch screen.
This review by Steve Kovach — which is only one of many that came out today — validates my concern:
The iris scanner doesn’t work well in bright sunlight (it failed on me at the beach last weekend), and it’s not as convenient as clicking the home button and resting your fingerprint on the sensor to unlock the device. With the iris scanner, you have to power on the phone, swipe to unlock, and awkwardly hold the phone close to your face while staring into an interface that looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. Not exactly seamless.
Kovach's review overall gives a lot of credit to the Galaxy Note 7's beautifully-crafted hardware. But he also shines a light on Samsung Galaxy's biggest weakness:
If there’s one big weakness to the Note 7, it’s the software powering it. Samsung likes to make big modifications to Android, which often gums up the experience. That said, the interface is definitely a lot cleaner in the Note 7 than it’s been in previous Samsung phones. Still, Samsung has a horrible record of keeping its phones updated with the latest software, and there’s no guarantee you’ll be getting the new Note features a year from now.
On top of that, the Note 7 also comes bogged down with extras from carriers here in the US. I tested the T-Mobile version, and had to spend the first few minutes clearing away all the T-Mobile branded junk from my home screen. Plus, Samsung has its own suite of apps for email, calendar, etc. on top of all the Google versions of those apps. I’m not a fan of making users juggle two different apps for all the same tasks.
The redundant app solutions on Samsung devices definitely hinder the user experience. The other day I paid for my groceries with Apple Pay and the cashier told me she's been wanting to do that with her Samsung for the longest time.
She's just never been able to figure it out because when she holds up her phone to the credit card terminal, "some Android app pops up instead of Samsung Pay."
The software isn’t a deal breaker, but compared to the consistency and of iOS and its rock-solid ecosystem of apps and updates, it’s enough to still give the iPhone a very slight edge over the Note 7.
"The software isn't a deal breaker" to people who value hardware over software. But to people who value software and ecosystem more, this is a deal breaker.
Overall, the Note 7's biggest weakness is its software. It's not great, but it's good enough. Aside from that, when it comes to hardware and design, Samsung has cemented its position as the leader in the smartphone world. The Note 7 is the best phone the company has ever made, and one of the first you should consider buying.
Hardware-wise, the Galaxy Note 7 is the best & most exciting device Android has to offer. The S Pen is a key differentiator that provides a lot of value to certain types of consumers.
Software-wise, it still falls short of the streamlined iOS user experience and the iPhone ecosystem. And Samsung's S Pen advantage can be dampened with Apple Pencil support on future iPhones.
So, depending on which camp you are in — specs-oriented vs. experience-oriented — one product line will be an obvious winner over the other.
Anecdotally, everyone I know who switched from Samsung to iPhone switched mainly because of one reason — they got tired of Samsung's software.
A typical response I see on the daily. But here's what really happened.
NY Times on December 18, 2011:
Over the last year, Apple and Google have secretly begun working on projects that will become wearable computers. Their main goal: to sell more smartphones. (In Google’s case, more smartphones sold means more advertising viewed.) [...]
Apple has also experimented with prototype products that could relay information back to the iPhone. These conceptual products could also display information on other Apple devices, like an iPod, which Apple is already encouraging us to wear on our wrists by selling Nanos with watch faces.
A person with knowledge of the company’s plans told me that a “very small group of Apple employees” had been conceptualizing and even prototyping some wearable devices.
One idea being discussed is a curved-glass iPod that would wrap around the wrist; people could communicate with the device using Siri, the company’s artificial intelligence software.
Fifteen months later, Bloomberg reports :
Samsung Electronics Co. is developing a wristwatch as Asia’s biggest technology company races against Apple Inc. to create a new industry of wearable devices that perform similar tasks as smartphones.
"We’ve been preparing the watch product for so long," Lee Young Hee, executive vice president of Samsung’s mobile business, said during an interview in Seoul. "We are working very hard to get ready for it. We are preparing products for the future, and the watch is definitely one of them." [...]
Samsung’s disclosure comes after people familiar with Apple’s plans said last month the U.S. company has about 100 product designers working on a wristwatch-like device that may perform similar functions to the iPhone and iPad. The global watch industry will generate more than $60 billion in sales this year, and the first companies to sell devices that multitask could lock customers into their platform, boosting sales of phones, tablets and TVs.
Sorry, Apple haters. The Apple Watch was well into development before Samsung came along.
Even then, Apple has never cared about being first. Tim Cook explains:
These are lots of insights that are years in the making, the result of careful, deliberate...try, try, try...improve, improve, improve. Don’t ship something before it’s ready. Have the patience to get it right. And that is exactly what’s happened to us with the watch. We are not the first.
We weren’t first on the MP3 player; we weren’t first on the tablet; we weren’t first on the smartphone. But we were arguably the first modern smartphone, and we will be the first modern smartwatch—the first one that matters.
Samsung was more focused on mentioning key words such as design, hardware, camera, and mobile payments, instead of discussing why certain things were being done or removed from the phone. This lack of clarity has been Samsung's problem for years as the company has mostly relied on offering consumers choices that other smartphone makers decided not to pursue. The problem is Apple is now selling larger screen iPhones, and Xiaomi and other local Chinese smartphone vendors are selling decent hardware at lower prices. Samsung's differentiation has disappeared. Samsung may not be at the point of utter desperation, but they certainly came off as remaining quite nervous. Samsung says they want to be first in mobile, but they show great discomfort in leading.
Killian Bell, Cult of Android (emphasis mine):
Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface for Android is universally mocked for being bloated and slow, but it would appear the South Korean company is finally set to do something about it. Sources say it won’t just be overhauling its hardware for the upcoming Galaxy S6, but also its software as well as it aims to deliver an experience as smooth as pure Android.
TouchWiz isn’t just a skin on top of Android; almost every element of the user interface has been modified by Samsung in some way, and it comes with a whole bunch of Samsung apps and features — the vast majority of which are never used by the average consumer.
It doesn’t just make for a poor user experience, but it means that even on the latest hardware, TouchWiz can be slow and inefficient. Many Android fans — including me — will avoid Samsung devices just because of the software, or use third-party ROMs like CyanogenMod to provide a better experience.
Looks like Samsung's Next Big Thing is backtracking on all the gimmicky crap that they used to promote as The Next Big Thing.
More doesn't always mean more, folks. Samsung is learning this the hard way.
In the next decade or so, I believe the smartwatch will replace the smartphone (and even the PC) for most of our everyday tasks. This vision, however, will require a total reimagination of the user interface; specifically, inputting data.
Samsung understands the vision. Unfortunately, they have no idea how to get there.
What they've done here with the Gear S is taken a smartphone and shrank it down to the size of a wristwatch. Who cares if a wrist-size keyboard won't work in the real world. A smartphone on a wrist sounds pretty cool, right? Keyboards worked on smartphones so obviously they'll work on the wrist, right? The Apple Watch won't have a keyboard but the Gear S does, so that makes the Gear S superior, right?
This is a perfect example of what happens when companies just say "yes" without understanding "why".
