“Samsung finally seems to understand the many criticisms that have long been leveled at its phones: the plastic hardware looked cheap, the most promoted features were mostly useless and the software was too complicated,” Farhad Manjoo writes for The New York Times. “Samsung, according to Samsung, has realized the errors of it ways.”
“The realization was born out of necessity. Samsung’s market share and profits in the smartphone business have plummeted over the last year. The company, which is based in South Korea, is in the unenviable position of getting squeezed from the bottom by the affordable phones made by Chinese upstarts like Xiaomi and at the top by Apple’s powerhouse line of iPhones,” Manjoo writes. “Despite improved hardware, the S6 and S6 Edge still lack compelling software. Unlike Apple, Samsung has never managed to create a built-in suite of software and services to keep people hooked to its own phones. And there are few obvious ways for Samsung to address this glaring flaw.”
The S6 and S6 Edge “are still something of a pain to use. The S6 and S6 Edge run Samsung’s modified version of Google’s Android operating system. Despite Samsung’s engineers’ efforts to clean up the software, the phone’s interface is a hodgepodge of odd design decisions and overly complicated functions… They sell for about the same price as Apple’s latest devices, $199 and up with a two-year contract, or more than $650 without a contract,” Manjoo writes. “If you pay the premium price to Apple, you get a phone with a well-designed operating system, no overlapping preloaded apps, and a host of services that often work very well, like iMessage, Apple Pay and expanding compatibilities with Apple’s personal computers and devices like the Apple TV and, soon, the Apple Watch. You can criticize Apple’s sticky ecosystem as a form of consumer lock-in, but Apple sure has built a luxurious prison, and customers are willing to pay extra for it. If you pay that premium to Samsung, you don’t get a whole lot more than you can get on, say, a phone made by Xiaomi, OnePlus or any of a dozen smaller players.”
Read more in the full review here.
MacDailyNews Take: Well now, there’s a lovely review.
Read the full review with its mentions of how much the “the S6 and S6 Edge strongly resemble Apple’s iPhone” and more.
Have a nice day, slavish copier!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
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Wired: Samsung’s Galaxy S6 Edge is pointless – March 26, 2015
Significant Android to iPhone switching weakens market for Samsung Galaxy S6 – March 24, 2015
Samsung’s Galaxy S6 design looks like another iPhone knockoff – February 4, 2015
Significant Android to iPhone switching weakens market for Samsung Galaxy S6 – March 24, 2015
Apple iPhone takes smartphone market share from Android around the world – March 4, 2015
Poor man’s iPhone: Android on the decline – February 26, 2015
Study: iPhone users are smarter and richer than those who settle for Android phones – January 22, 2015
Why Android users can’t have the nicest things – January 5, 2015
iPhone users earn significantly more than those who settle for Android phones – October 8, 2014
Yet more proof that Android is for poor people – June 27, 2014
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IDC data shows two thirds of Android’s 81% smartphone share are cheap junk phones – November 13, 2013
CIRP: Apple iPhone users are younger, richer, and better educated than those who settle for Samsung knockoff phones – August 19, 2013
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Study: Apple iPhone users richer, younger, more productive than other so-called ‘smartphone’ users – June 12, 2009
oh, snap!
Ouch! That wasn’t a review, that was an essay on why not to buy a Samsung phone! I’d feel sorry for Samsung if I wasn’t overcome with schadenfreude. 🙂
May Samsung receive the pressure and deserved payback from, the true, Apple iPhone sales. Then, if needed, the brutal sales against Samsung from the cheap iPhone knockoffs that steal Galaxy sales ,as they did from Apple, by further cutting profits and volume.
Have a nice playful day on the surface of the sun, Samsung.
POS
POS X 2 😝
and these things weren’t true and obvious before? to him?
although i haven’t kept track, seems i recall having read a number of reviews and articles by this author over the years and they usually found fault with mr. apple and his products.
so i guess samsungs stuff must really suffer in comparison, now, for his praise for apple to be so effusive (relatively speaking, for him)
whenever you read an Android device review remember that more than likely the reviewer has toned down the criticism.
this is because reviewers make a lot more money reviewing the tons of Android devices than the handful of iOS.
This bias is so prevalent Gruber has term for it : “Grading on the Curve” for Androids vs iOS.
One analyst counting lines for example found that the WSJ spent more than half of its iPad review on criticisms and only 10% on the Xoom tablet in spite of the obvious (sales figures would demonstrate this amply) inferiority of the xoom.
Andy Ihnatko former popular Macworld writer, Apple fanboy publicly went Android when he left to work outside saying “Here’s what changed: Android got GREAT” . You can’t get free android devices to review ($$$$) if you bash them….
A phone reviewer attacking Android is like attacking 90% of his own income.
got a starred android review, remove 2 stars and you might get the correct rating.
remind me again, what’s a xoom?
It’s when you throw up.
lol 😀
I stopped reading Andy Ihnatko right after he made that stupid move.
Remind me again, what’s an Ihnatko?
I’ll bet this is not the reception the Samsung board was hoping to get for their new phones. It confirms that they don’t actually have a clue as to what they are doing wrong. Their business model, copy what someone else did and put our name on it, is starting to collapse.
Not collapsing nearly hard enough, nor fast enough for my tastes. Justice demands a crater so deep that Apple can buy up Samsung’s assets on the cheap and fab its own chips.
WOW……certainly blew a hole in all the other “ignorati reviews”…..guess the s6 is NOT the phone you have been waiting for……
To ShameSkunk,
Dear POS, it’s the ecosystem stupid!
😀
It’s retarded that this thing is given as much attention as it gets. It’s a blatant foreign rip off running subpar OS with no ecosystem. Nobody gives a shit about your cheap puzzle piece that fits with no puzzle.
Hahah, this is amazing.
You guys are such fanboys, I’ve never seen anything like this. The true specimen.
*screenshot*
Hahah, this is REALLY amazing (and yet common place).
Guys like you are such clueless trollboys, I’ve seen your tendentious type all too often brazenly brandishing their rampant ignorance and misanthropic doofusness. The true specimen.
*dipshit*
Wow.. great comeback Peter.
I measure the greatness by the amount of stars It gets, in this case you win by far. Then I use logic and reasoning to determine the level of intelligence this blog accumulates.
The results are in Peter and guess what, you guys are the clueless trollboys! Shocking!
*reddit/fanboys/*
By any empirical measure you wish to choose it only points out your own poor analytical sense and ill-considered choices. Your specious type is profoundly pitied here as your faulty steadfast confidence in conspicuous technology mediocrity and insecure justifications for posting on this site hold clear.
Believe me you are not demonstrating any superior sense or even basic awareness of technology and ecosystems but in fact quite the opposite and exhibit a major failure in evaluation and observation skills, if not character as well. Your troll type is a dime a misguided dozen. And you know something, you are now deservedly IRRELEVANT and a dollar short.
So continue to flail and thrash all you like, your day is doofus done and your protestations fall on deaf & better informed ears.
*reddit/Fandroid mindless troll/*
Michael, I wonder if you at least get a Samsung piece of gold for this, or if you achieve such exalted vacuousness all by yourself.
… and so?…
*IT doofus*
Samsung Pay is hilarious. For a few reasons, besides the obvious one (the name).
It said it will be available in more places than Apple Pay… That’s fine, but the funny part is that it won’t work well – and when it does work, it will be as cumbersome as just taking out your card and paying.
I haven’t seen it in action yet, but c’mon. Who really thinks Samsung is going to nail it as good as Apple has with the Touch ID and you’re done method.
I wish there would be live streaming of the doofuses that designed it along with the doofuses that use it for the first week.
Sh!t is gonna be hilarious.
Samsung’s Loop Pay is a POS out of the gate because it enables. lazy-ass retailers to retain their POS POS (point of sale) devices running Windows XP with customer/victim account data help in-the-clear in RAM, the ENTIRE cause of customer/victim account robbery over the last TWO YEARS.
Apple Pay has nothing to do with this crap olde technology and prevents ANY method of stealing customer accounts. It’s what we call THE FUTURE. Samsung is enabling lazy-ass retailers to remain stuck in the bad olde past. Well done, Scamscum.
Interestingly, Joanna Stern at the WSJ, thinks the iPhone has met its match in the G6 and that its great. Not sure what she’s smoking but she said she isn’t giving up all of her iOS devices or Macbook http://www.wsj.com/articles/samsung-galaxy-s6-review-the-iphone-6-has-met-its-match-1427825674
Usually the New York Times is endlessly bitched about on this site. Note where the article came from.
MDN’s & fanboy source scrutiny only kicks in when a review contains negative material. As long as the article fully slanted pro-Apple, it will be proudly displayed here amongst the annoying ads.
Why would we bash the NY Times on an occasion when it’s actually telling the truth? We’re logical human beings here, not angry fanboys 🙂
Gee I guess you don’t really READ the comments here. Just trolling?
Even biased, bought and blighted FuxNews occasionally provides honest, useful information. It can happen! 😉
I’ve heard also that even a stopped clock is right twice a day. The trick is knowing when that is.
GRRR! Samsung bears are on the attack!!!
Run RUN RUN! Samsung!
U R Soooo Screwed.
More damn dung from Samsung!
I think so.
Michael, I wonder if you at least get a Samsung piece of gold for this, or if you achieve such exalted vacuousness all by yourself.