Since the launch of the first GALAXY S device, Samsung’s smartphone sales have been growing. The success of their own GALAXY S line clearly huge, with customers dropping other brands in favour of anything with the word “GALAXY” written on it. This marketing-accomplished feat has seen people moving away from high powered manufacturers such as Apple, in favour of Samsung’s device. It’s hard to deny that the flagship “GALAXY” range has been great until recently, but when Samsung made the decision to water down their flagship “S” range into a dribble of meager and repetitive upgrades.
First, let’s look at the early release of the Galaxy S4. The device was announced in March 2013, and released at the beginning of April, we imagine to contend with flagship offerings from HTC and Sony… but at what cost? Why would Samsung announce the device so early – at this point the GALAXY SIII was less than a year old and still selling well! Furthermore, the GALAXY S4 hardly stands out as being a successor to SIII at all, more a slight upgrade! The only tangible upgrades are to the screen and the camera, and although an impressive software upgrade was released with the GALAXY S4 almost all of these improvements are being released to the GALAXY S III anyway.
The GALAXY S4 was priced much higher than the GALAXY SIII, but there’s very little to distinguish the two in terms of the design language used. There are some subtle changes, sure, but if you are getting something new you want to be able to differentiate with other devices. You want it to be distinctive. When I first took my GALAXY S4 out into the public, I showed my technologically-aware friends, and even they weren't able to immediately identify it as the newer device.
“Oh, which Galaxy is that”
Samsung’s competitors released devices with an aluminium casing, and at the very least a solid and premium feel to the device. The GALAXY S4 is made out of plastic, and although there are advantages to a plastic body, it would be nice to see them considering another direction.
The final issue is that Samsung has released too many devices since 2012, and all of them look exactly the same. There’s one thing to have design recognisability across the board, but all we aren't seeing any evolution here, just stagnation. There’s very little purpose of releasing new products so quickly, when a three-month-old one can do exactly the same thing. All you are doing is devaluing the previously released products!
We hope that Samsung keeps the name of the GALAXY Note brand unique. So far, Samsung have only announced one smartphone ever year under the “GALAXY Note” name, with significant upgrades between the two. We really hope that the GALAXY Note 3 will be a worthy upgrade, and that it will set a trend for Samsung to step back and make sure they get everything right before rushing to the marketplace.
Samsung, please, never announce product which is better than your own one year old flagship device! We are all for innovation, but waiting an extra couple of months can only mean more of it, not less! The unique brand of the GALAXY S has lost its value. This is a sign of weakness to all Samsung GALAXY S owners. In the future, make it better in terms of specifications and worth upgrading to. Please never announce an ‘updated’ version, which will ultimately kill your own trusted GALAXY S brand value.
Also, please stop calling every new high-range GALAXY device a GALAXY S device. Perhaps this is a marketing ploy to ride on the back of the GALAXY S success… if it is, all you are doing is deliberately confusing consumers, angering purchasers of your true flagship devices and diluting the marketplace.
