The War Of The Twins
As the two biggest players in
the smartphone market begin their annual battle, here are a few predictions..
Samsung
may go with a serious powerhouse of a built-in battery and that’ll hit the
iPhone, which still has the problem of slightly poor battery life
It’s right around the
corner. The war of the two giants. Played out like clockwork every year just
about now. The Samsung Note vs the Apple iPhone. It’s about to happen again
with the Note 9 and the next iPhone(s) about to be released. And this war has
an interesting little story behind it.
The first iPhone was
released on 29 June 2007 and was tagged as the first true smartphone ever.
Samsung took exactly two more years to release the Samsung GT-I7500 smartphone
with an Android operating system on 29 June 2009. In 2010, Samsung wanted to go
up the value chain and enter the same premium market that Apple completely
dominated. Thus was born the Samsung Galaxy S. Not satisfied with the success
of the S, Samsung went with an all-out strategy. A two-pronged attack in the
flagship segment with the world’s first phablet with a stylus. The Samsung
Galaxy Note was released in October 2011 and was a runaway hit. Apple’s dates
for the annual iPhone launch stabilised around September and Samsung, wanting
to steal the thunder, changed the Note launch to late August. This year they’ve
brought the date down further. Time to explore what each of them may have up
their sleeves with my predictions.
In this column, I take on
the Note 9.
THE
DESIGN
Don’t get your hopes high
for a radical departure from the last two Note phones. It’s going to be on
those lines. 3D curved surface front and back, colours like black, brown, blue,
purple and gold, with a red coming out two months later. The same dimensions as
before. Not changing the design could be a problem for Samsung though, as
expectations are very high.
STYLUS
The killer feature of the
Note may well be the game changer. There are strong rumours of this being a
bluetooth connected stylus with a speaker and other capabilities built in, but
I’m going to call that hogwash. I don’t think it’ll happen this year. The
stylus will get new colours (matching the colour of the phone), a more angular
look, and add on a serious number of capabilities. Always important for the
Note to take the stylus to the next level. It’s what makes it the most unique
phone.
CAMERA
There isn’t going to be a
360-degree VR camera on the Note. Also, the four cameras on the phone is also
vapourware. What you’ll get is stellar Samsung quality optics that takes
low-light photography, video capability and sensors to a new level.
SPECS
Yes, there will be a
variant with 8GB of RAM and 512GB of inbuilt storage. There will be a MicroSD
card slot to take this even further. Samsung will push that in its message of
‘There can never be enough storage’. There will be a Snapdragon 845 version.
The screen will remain the same size and resolution. It’s already one of the
best screens on any phone.
BATTERY
The last Note wasn’t a
battery beast. Samsung may go with a serious powerhouse of a battery built in.
It’s these two pillars that it will hit out with as the iPhone still has the
problem of slightly poor battery life and no way to add more storage.
FINGERPRINT
SCANNER
People are claiming
they’ve seen the Note 9 with a fingerprint scanner built into the bottom half
of the screen. I have two letters for them. BS. Complete lies. The phone will
have the scanner and it’ll be at the back. They’ll take it away from the camera
and place it where the Galaxy S9 has it, a little lower.
OTHER
BIG FEATURES
The Note has always been
about power users. And thus with a dock it could give you a desktop experience.
To connect a monitor, keyboard, mouse and other stuff, it needed a DeX Pad
dock. With the new Note you may not need anything at all. It’ll have all the
connectivity for all that built in with a USB Type C port that does it all.
Another very interesting thing is a new add-on Protective Silicone Cover to
give it military-grade protection.
The Note 9 will be
launched on August 9 in New York and will be available to buy on the 24th. Yes,
a whole three weeks before the new iPhones are launched. In my next column I
make my predictions on the new iPhones. Double the egg on my face if I get
things wrong!
·
Rajiv Makhni is managing editor, Technology, HTBR5AUG18
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