Samsung may have the better bottom line compared to HTC, but the Taiwanese smartphone maker has been an overwhelming match to the Korean tech giant when it comes to the design of its flagship smartphones in 2013 and 2014.
Compared to the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the severely criticized Samsung Galaxy S5, the overall design looks of the HTC One M7 and the HTC One M8 of the Taiwanese company were several notches better than their counterparts from the Korean tech giant.
The exterior excellence of its flagship smartphones has in fact earned for HTC the reputation as the undisputed champion of the Android smartphone design, notes Gizmag.
Through the HTC One M7 and the HTC One M8, the Taiwanese tech company showed Apple that it is not the only company that could take a slab of aluminum and turn it into great-looking tech devices ever made. The flagship smartphones of HTC in 2013 and 2014 were considered masterpieces in the mobile communications world.
Ending the run
Samsung has learned its lesson from the design under-achievement that it made on the Samsung Galaxy S5, causing the company to lose its grip on its previous reputation as the world’s No. 1 smartphone manufacturer and also seeing its sales declining for three consecutive quarters last year.
With the emergence of the Samsung Galaxy S6 in March this year, the Korean tech giant has ended the run of HTC as the king of Android smartphone design. The 2015 flagship smartphone of Samsung was certainly way better than the HTC One M9, which only offered a slight design improvement over the HTC One M8.
The Samsung Galaxy S6 showed what Samsung designers can do when they do away with their plastic design and take on premium materials instead. The smartphone features an aluminum frame in between two panes of Gorilla Glass 4, adding to the all-around high-end feel and classy appeal of the HTC M9 One.
But in order to contend with the overwhelming advantage of the Samsung Galaxy S6 design-wise, the HTC One M9 threw in a killer warranty that includes accidental damage coverage that would replace the handset for a broken screen, water damage or even carrier-switching one year after purchase.
Doing away the version with larger storage
Meanwhile, Samsung has discontinued selling the variants of Samsung Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge that feature the 128GB storage option.
The Korean tech company has made available the smartphones in the Indian and Dutch markets featuring three internal storage options – 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB. Samsung has yet to make a statement on its reason why it is discontinuing the 128GB variant of its flagship smartphones in the two markets, but it is likely because of its poor sales in the local markets brought about by the handsets’ astronomical prices, notes the GSM Arena.
However, the 128GB variant of the Samsung Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge are still available in other markets like Canada, Australia, UK, and Singapore. But it could follow suit soon as those are also not doing well in terms of sales.
The new flagship smartphones of Samsung sport groundbreaking features that were an improvement on the iPhones that surely caught the attention of handset enthusiasts.
One of the key upgrades to Samsung Galaxy S6 and the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge that made them look really cool is the redesign of the phones from previous Samsung Galaxy S phones. The smartphones actually have more upsides down downsides.
Samsung’s use of glass cover for the back officially put an end to the era of the replaceable battery for the Korean tech giant’s flagship smartphones. There is also no more microSD card slot for additional memory expansion leaving users content with the internal storage capacities of the handsets coming out of the box.
The Samsung Galaxy S6 and the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge are no longer waterproof devices, which was a key feature of the Samsung Galaxy S5.
Good article. I just brought a Samsung Galaxy S6 and I love it