Slashdot Mirror
Future Samsung Phone Plans Leaked
djgil writes "Looks like Samsung needs to be more careful what they do with their powerpoints. A number of prototype Samsung phones have appeared online including three that used Windows Mobile. One phone uses a 500Mhz processor and other had a 3Gbyte Hard Drive for music."
I long for the days when I used to be able to get a simple cell phone with a simple interface, contact phone book, and good reception -- for less than $25 dollars a month! Cell phones are getting so ridiculous that I finally gave up on them. You have to pay at least $45 a month (after taxes...), and for what? Internet access that I don't use. Games that I don't play. Instant text that costs me even more.
I wonder if a bare-bones plan with simple, easy to use phones (not glorified PDA's/cameras/gaming consoles) would actually do quite well in today's market for people like me that don't need all of the frills. I know people have talked about this before, but why aren't the cell phone companies listening?
I believe in de-evolution. God made the world perfect, man fell, and its been going downhill ever since!
Yet another set of phones that amalgamates more crappy functionality and drives the cost up for the user who simply wants a phone...
...
3GB disk? Too small for most music collections.
Let's not forget the crappy DSP most phones have anyways and 22Khz DAC
Oh and yet another camera with mildly low resolution...
[blah blah blah]
Why doesn't samsung introduce a cell phone that lasts for 6 months on a charge [standby not talk] or that can take a 5 story fall off a balcony or something. Or at least a fall from 6 ft without splitting in half... of the three cell phones I've had the cheapest POS motorola v120c was the toughest. My 300$ flip phone and my current c256 phone both will split open upon the slighest drop...
Those are features people can actually use. Not flimsy cell phones with short battery lives [well that's not entirely the case] and a whole slew of semi-functional additions that are otherwise totally fucking useless.
If I want to carry tunes with me I'll bring my mp3cd player. It's easier to deal with, was a hell of a lot cheaper and has excellent sound quality. If I want to snap pictures I'll bring my PowerShot. It has a much higher [5MP] resolution and is more configurable for actually taking pictures [the average camera phone can't adjust things like exposure, white balance, etc...]
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
And no doubt, Verizon will pick one up, except the hard drive capacity will be reduced to 1GB, and it will have its multimedia features and bluetooth removed. Of course, they'll compensate by branding it with a five Verizon logos on the outside, and 3 Verizon banners in the software that can't be changed/removed, and the clock will spent as much time displaying "Verizon Wireless" as it does the time.
Seriously, I'm impressed by these phones, but they're like auto manufacturers' concept cars. And just like I go to the Detroit Auto Show every year and drool over the amazing concept cars (i.e. last year's Eclipse), when the things finally do hit the road, they're stripped-down, boring, tame, overpriced, and not at all exciting.
The same thing happens with cell phones (especially after Verizon has a hand in crippling them a la the Audiovox CDM-8900). They're exciting now, sure, but when these come out, they'll be advertised at $400, but existing customers will have to pay $800 for them, and half the features will have mysteriously vaporized.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love the idea of having one unit that takes the place of an iPod and a PDA and a cell phone in an elegant design, but it'll be another 3-4 years before we have those, and if Verizon, Sprint and the like have any say in it, they'll never be affordable to the masses.
Er...
*sigh*
2005 is going to be another year of boring, stupid tech crap, isn't it?
500 MHz processor and it will still have the call quality of a tin can and string. Can't wait to see the battery life.
Flying cars. Personal jetpacks. Robot maids. Vacations in space. They promised me those things as a kid. THEY PROMISED, DAMMIT! Martin Landau was supposed to be on the Moon by now!
--- Ban humanity.
Study after study shows that only about 15% of the customers use most of the high end features that their phones provide. I for one find email absurdly difficult to use. I don't have a camera phone but I appreciate the ability to receive a picture someone else sends me - like the exact shape of that curtain rod bracket while I'm in the store for example.
Moreover most people over the age of 15 don't really consume ringtones, wall paper and screen savers.
OK text messaging is ok but again, data entry is a fucking chore even with T9.
But the reason that all these phones come with teleporters and sex aids is because phones are basically loss leaders for the service providers. They give most of them away for free so there is little incentive for phone builders to build better FREE phones. Instead they just pile on more features to justify the extra 50 - 100 - 150 dollars per unit because that is the only way they will actually make any money at all.
But I really don't understand what all the criticism is about. For the stated $25 a month you can get a plain jane prepaid candybar phone that gets calls and makes calls. I had one for over a year no problem - a Nokia 6631 and I could limit the spending by simply prepaying any amount I wished, no bills no problem.
Maybe all the critics should look into that.
In the meantime I think these new Samsungs here are a good fist stab at convergence. If I can get rid of my phone, PDA, camera and MP3 player in one clip and replace them with one device I can insure through the phone company and I can synch it and back it up with my PC I'm pretty far along the way to getting rid of a lot of complexity I'd rather not live with.
Maybe all the specs aren't up to what each of the devices on their own can do (Camera rez, audio codec, battery life) but they will be. The first Palmpilot phones were about $1000 now they are $300.
But what I'd like to see is more business oriented and common sense features and fewer teenage features.
Where's my phone that I can just throw in my pocket, rough it up, and still have it work right? With all of these flip-phones, slide phones and their touch screens, camera lenses and hard drives, they don't seem like they're going to hold up to being bumped, jarred, or just tossed into a cargo pocket for a quick bike ride down to the convenience store. I love little gadgets as much as anyone else, but I'm not always going to be able to attach the device to a belt clip, and I don't always care to, anyways.
Can't they work on a good old phone that I could accidentally mistake for a hockey puck, and still have it work right?
I don't moderate anymore. Karma penalty for 90% fair mods? Can I mod that unfair?
Luddites all of you. You and every moron who modded you up and every frigin' commenter who responded in agreement (which seems to be all of them). Amazing.
Is this not Slashdot? News for Nerds? WTF is this attitude towards new technology? WAKE UP. The mobile phone is in use by 1.5 BILLION people world wide. By the end of the decade that number will have almost doubled and more people on Earth will be using it as their primary computing and communication tool than any other device.
The mobile phone is a PLATFORM now. Get it?
Long gone are the days when it was used for just making phone calls, just like long gone are the days when Linux was used just for servers. Do you bitch every time someone launches a new CPU or adds new stuff to computer OSes just because you don't need anything except VI? "What's with all this multi-threading, multimedia and GUI support? I don't need any of that crap!"
Get used to the fact that mobile phones are now the most important piece of technology in the world. More important than your PC or your television or your iPod.
Bitching about how you want a simple mobile phone with cheap service is like bitching about only wanting a Pentium 3 and basic AOL dial up because all you use your computer for is email and the web. The rest of us who are trying to focus on the future are sick of hearing from you backwards motherfuckers.
-Russ
Me