Samsung Explodes, Invisible Pixels
Last week was definitely a busy week in the world of Android. We were introduced, somewhat overwhelmingly, to the Pixel phones along with some more compelling hardware made by Google themselves. We also probably, most likely saw the death of one of the most popular phone models in recent history. It’s that development that I’ll tackle first, because of how important it is.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was introduced to a world of anxious Galaxy Note 4 and Note 5 owners and quickly exploded onto the scene. No, literally. The damn thing blew up. Almost 100 cases of explosions in the US alone. Samsung acted fairly quickly and responsibly, recalling every single Galaxy Note 7. Depending on whether or not recalled phones were given to carriers, retail outlets, or Samsung themselves, owners were offered a choice of Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge units or a full refund. Meanwhile, Samsung promised to find out what issues were causing the malfunctions.
Looks like the cash refund was the way to go.
Samsung’s “fixed” replacement Note 7s (denoted by a black square on the box and a Google-approved green battery indicator in the status bar) are apparently also exploding. With the situation quickly blowing up, Samsung halted production on Note 7s, at least for the time being, and AT&T and T-Mobile have both stopped selling the phone.
The timing of this incident could not have been worse. With no replacement Note 7 units on the way, potentially ever, the Note-faithful will have to choose something else to tide them over until the Note 8… if it ever comes. Apple’s new iPhone 7 is now poised to win back some Samsung customers who originally jumped ship for the Note line years ago. Google’s Pixel phones might even end up benefiting from Samsung’s catastrophe.
This, of course, raises the question: Is Samsung as a company and the Note as a brand ever going to recover from this nightmare? I believe that Samsung will be fine in the long-run; Samsung is a too-big-to-fail giant in the electronics industry and it’s Galaxy S8 and S8 Edge phones have to be perfect (and inert) to win back the trust and confidence of the buying public. But in a few product cycles, we won’t remember any of this.
The Note brand, however… That’s dead. And Samsung would do well to bury it and move on — quickly. Which leads me to the PSA portion of this post: If you have a Samsung Galaxy Note 7, even a replacement unit run, don’t walk, to wherever you bought it from and return it. No amount of underwater stylus drawings are worth the potential risks of ownership.
Speaking of risks of ownership, Nexus is dead — long live Pixel.
I’m not sold on the Pixel name in general yet and the Pixel phones in particular. I keep going back and forth over whether or not I really want one or if I just want the New Shiny Thing. Ultimately, I’ve decided, it’s not a big enough upgrade from my Nexus 6P, the Last Nexus, to justify buying it. And that’s a bad thing.
See, Google double-downed hard here. They took hardware development and brought it in-house (though the phone is manufactured by HTC, Google insists that the HTC is simply the builder of the phones) which means Google has more control over how software and hardware talk to each other. From what I’ve gathered online, the Pixel phones’ battery life should outlast their Nexus 5X and 6P counterparts by a decent margin, despite their similar battery capacities. And DXOMark gave the Pixel it’s highest rating for a phone camera ever (whatever that means). These are the kinds of things possible when a software can be specifically tailored to match hardware.
So the possibility exists that the Pixel will be the definitive be-all, end-all in the world of Android devices. It might very well have the best camera, very good battery life, a very good screen — but what it definitely has is the best Android experience available on the market, ever. Like Nexus devices, the Pixel uses Google’s vision of Android, which is basically the open-source version of Android with a bunch of Google services built-in, the Google Now launcher, and some other proprietary apps that aren’t available (officially) to other Android devices. The Pixel enhances further by having Google’s new Assistant features, specific camera app, and Pixel Launcher as Pixel-only exclusives.
This is the biggest problem with the Pixel. If Pixel’s defining selling point is Assistant, then Assistant needs to be awesome. To be awesome, it needs to have a data mine to pull information from. To create that data mine, it needs users. To have users… well, you get the idea. Google Assistant could be The Next Big Thing, but it’s exclusive to two phones that are priced beyond what Nexus-faithful will pay for them. On top of that, the only carrier that you can buy them from is Verizon. Though you can buy the Pixel unlocked for use on Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile, current ads don’t really make that point clear.
I hope the Pixel is a success. I think there is room at the top for Google to take a place among Samsung and Apple as makers of premium smartphone hardware. But like so many things Google does, it’s possible that their efforts will be half-baked and go unrewarded as a result.
As usual, only time will tell.