Samsung has won the 2015 Android flagship battle
Back in Februray 2014, When Samsung announced the new Galaxy S5 smartphone, many predicted that Samsung will struggle a lot as GS5 continued the boring deja vu` design for another year and they were right. Samsung revenues started falling, started losing market share in big chunks. Everyone though that the release of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus smartphones was the final nail in Samsung’s flagship coffin. LG and HTC brought out G3 and One M8 models and those were aboslutely superb. One M8 was an evolution of One M7 but still, it was better than then GS5 and it sold well. HTC started showing profits and then HTC decided to shoot itself in the foot.
Unlike Samsung, HTC is purely a smartphone company. They do not have any other revenue generating business. This also means that their process can be lot more streamlined than Samsung’s. Though One M8 had lot of hits, it had handful of misses (no design change, above average display, poor camera etc). One M9 was supposed to be a revolution (given that the One design is two years old) and given that Samsung is working on a design refresh, HTC needed to go one up. With close to 15,000 employees, all they could do is to bring out another smartphone that looks like One m7 and with mostly same specs as One M8.
HTC One M9 is a disaster. The phone costs more than the Galaxy S6 and has inferior display, camera, chipset, looks. The M9 looks like M8 and HTC didn’t even bother to upgrade the display. To make things worse, HTC released M9+ with a quad HD display. The end result is that HTC is struggling to hit 5 million shipment mark while Samsung has already crossed 35 million mark. Then came the shocker. HTC One ME is the M9+ with plastic build. Even this one is pricier than the Galaxy S6 in India. We have the One M9, One M9+ and One ME and none of these are capable of going head on with GS6. M9+ though has great display, comes with mediocre MediaTek chip while ME is an all plastic design.
HTC had all the time they need to deliver a knockout punch to Samsung. All that HTC had to do is to listen to those who are shouting at Samsung. HTC needed to make a phone that does not look like One M7 or M8. Making a phone that is similar to One M7 or M8 will only put HTC in same light as Samsung is in. It does not matter how amazing M8 is, the design refresh was necessary. Even Apple, with blind followers does a design refresh once every two years (with 3G, 4, 5, 6). Instead of trying to outsmart and knock Samsung out, HTC delivered the win to Samsung, gift wrapped.
Sony’s case, well, I can sum up in one sentence. Company that makes flagship phones that look like Xperia Z and think that they can sell them at sky high price.
The only competition to Galaxy S6 in the world of Android is the LG G4. At first, I thought that the Snapdragon 808 chip will make G4 obsolete but looking at benchmarks and the performance, that turned out to be wrong. LG G4 looks very good, comes with a superb display, a great camera, changeable back cover (the leather back look stunning), removable battery and a microSD card slot. The problem though is that LG G4 has just hit the market and Samsung has walked away with massive sales numbers and has the momentum right now. Many Android lovers will go with Samsung Galaxy S6 and if they dont want to buy a Samsung phone, they will join LG’s camp. This year’s flagship fight is over and Samsung has won it without breaking a sweat.
