Samsung returns with better and more attractive features
The South Korean tech giant is on a mission to redeem itself after last year’s debacle
AFTER a relatively quiet period following the Galaxy Note 7 battery fiasco, Samsung is back in the limelight with the launch of its highly anticipated Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus devices in New York last week. The company, which is seen by many observers as the only potent competitor to Apple in the smartphone market, is using the launch of the new models to restore its battered pride and huge losses in potential sales.
It was certainly a year to forget for the South Korean tech giant. Everything was going well prior to that. The company had been enjoying strong growth and market acceptance with its smartphone range, which combined style, the latest technology in mind and user-friendly attributes. The latter models, such as the Galaxy Note and the S series, were well-received. The company was giving rival Apple a run for its money in the smartphone market.
It was a short-lived run. The unthinkable happened. The Note 7 was faced with an exploding battery issue. The global recall of 2.5 million units was estimated to have cost the company about US$6 billion (RM26.57 billion). In the last three months of 2016, Samsung smartphone sales fell eight per cent, according to market researcher Gartner. It was Samsung’s second straight quarter of declining sales from the Note 7 issues as well as stronger showing from some competitors in the market.
The new Galaxy S8 launch is, thus, Samsung’s hope to get back on the right track. Making a mistake is unfortunate for every player in a competitive market, but learning from it and emerging stronger is the hallmark of a great company.
Obviously, quality controls and stringent checks are always a priority when it comes to electronics, so every company in the business needs to adhere to strict operational tests and checks.
“This is a journey. We’re rebuilding the brand,” says Samsung Electronics America president Tim Baxter.
“And we feel very confident about the progress we have made to date and we’re very excited about the Galaxy S8 as another major step in that advancement.
“Our goal isn’t necessarily to get back to where we were last fall. We think this is an opportunity to get to a higher and better place.”
Going back to Samsung’s S8 and S8 plus, many tech reviewers are already listing both phones to be positively value-for-money as well as praises for its sleek design and its new Siri-like personal assistant, Bixby. Coupled with a bumped up screen size with sturdy good-looking curved glass on the aluminium phone, the Quad HD edge-to-edge display screen looks quite stunning with vibrant graphics and colours. The physical home button on both phones are gone, and built into the screen, again maximising the screen for users.
Let’s not forget, the new smartphone runs on Snapdragon 835 processors, the latest and fastest technology in the market currently. Other worthy features include iris scanner to unlock the phone, front-facing camera boosted to eight megapixels, and an optional docking station to turn the phone into a desktop computer. Samsung even threw in a free version of Samsung’s new Gear VR headset for users who have preordered. The Android phones are set to storm the United States market first before it arrives in our market, probably in a couple of weeks’ time.
Samsung is doing its best to bounce back. In my opinion, it’s only fair to give the company another chance to prove its worth. It can, nevertheless, take comfort that based on some surveys done following the S7 fiasco, many customers have pledged to remain loyal to the brand.
The technology world is filled with many issues as we progress, and truth be told, the best teacher is often your last mistake. And, indeed, it is a lesson well for the South Korean tech giant.
The writer is editor of BOTs, the weekly tech section in Life&Times. Trained in Maths, he has since traded his problem-solving skills with writing about how tech has helped to transform the world for the better