Samsung Is Getting Bashed for Good Reason, Here's Why

Samsung hasn’t even launched the Galaxy Note 4 and Galaxy Note Edge on the market, but they have already been trolled by competition.

One of the companies that have recently taken a jab at Samsung is Sony Mobile through the voice of Calum MacDougall, Director of Xperia Marketing.

You see, Mr. MacDougall has said that 2K displays are not worth putting into smartphones mainly due to battery consumption. And he's completely right: trading off battery life for a higher-resolution, 2K display is nowhere near what users would expect from Samsung's new flagship devices.

In a time when most high-end smartphones barely make it until the end of the day with some battery left, adding another piece of hardware that eats even more energy does not make sense at all. Unless you can counter that in some way, of course.

Most handset makers are trying to tackle the issue by putting higher-capacity batteries into their phones or by optimizing software and some of the components to consume less energy, but the improvements (sadly) are negligible.

Galaxy Note 4 and Galaxy Note Edge both come with large 2K Super AMOLED displays, which have been highlighted by Samsung as great selling points.

Another problem with 2K displays, aside from higher battery consumption, is the fact that the difference between them and full HD (1080p) screens is barely visible for the human eye.

Obviously, they look nice, but it’s difficult for us to discern the differences, and overall, the trade-off does not seem to be worth it. Consumers would benefit more from having this kind of high resolution on screens much larger than 5 or 6 inches..

A 10.1-inch tablet with 2K display would totally make sense, as we would definitely be able to tell the difference between the QHD screen and a full HD one. Obviously, a much larger 2K display would suck even more energy than a 5 or 6-inch one, but tablets usually have much bigger batteries anyway.

Moreover, Super AMOLED technology is already among the best in the mobile display business. A full HD (1080p) display would look almost as great as a 2K screen, so from the user experience point of view, the difference would be so minimal that it’s not worth the risk of having your battery dried in less than a day.

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You add a 2K display, a more powerful CPU and more RAM and keep almost the same battery as the Galaxy Note 3? Well, I think that only 7.5% better efficiency won’t get me 2 days of full usage from the Galaxy Note 4. In fact, I believe battery life will be worse than that of the previous model.

Obviously, Samsung thinks the same, otherwise it wouldn’t have highlighted another “great” feature related to Galaxy Note 4’s battery: fast charging. Apparently, the 3220 mAh battery inside the Galaxy Note 4 can charge up to 50% in about 30 minutes.

Wow, that’s so cool. Only that Oppo’s Find 7 smartphone that’s already available on the market since May comes with a 3,000 mAh battery that charges up to 75% in 30 minutes. So there goes another “important” feature that comes with the Galaxy Note 4.

But Samsung Galaxy Note 4 is not the only smartphone that competition laughed at. During Microsoft’s IFA 2014 conference, Chris Webber, CVP for Mobile Device Sales, made a very nice comparison between Lumia 830’s low light picture capabilities and those of other flagship smartphones available on the market.

Mr. Webber chose the iPhone 5s, which did not prove to match Nokia Lumia 830’s low light picture performances. He also said that he wanted to show the audience a comparison between Lumia 830 and Galaxy S5 and his engineers did the test, but the results were so bad that it was not worth it to fill the PowerPoint presentation with them.

Samsung Galaxy S5’s 16-megapixel camera is even worse than the one on the iPhone 5s when it comes to taking pictures in low light conditions.

Unfortunately, the Galaxy Note 4 does not seem to be a revolutionary improvement over the Galaxy Note 3, and what’s worse is that Samsung definitely doesn’t understand what consumers want. Instead, they prefer to copy what the competition does.

So, what’s your opinion on Samsung’s continuous “innovation” in the smartphone business? Are you excited about the Galaxy Note 4 or Galaxy Note Edge? Do you think that Samsung Galaxy S6 will be a game-changer?