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I feel you. I reall LOVED my HD2 too. HTC was great at the time. I bought it because I wanted Windows Mobile, but it became shortly after my first Android device, even if modded.

I had the two system dual-booting long time and I was sad the day I had to change it (passing definitely to Android) since I broke the screen, even if it was already an almost 2 year old device..

1 day ago on Innovation loses again

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I would like also to add that it’s obvious HTC can’t think to surpass a giant like Samsung, but there’s no reason why they shouldn’t being able to keep a portion of the market and be successful there, just like Apple made with OSx in a Windows dominated world, many OEMs did in pre-iphone market dominated by Nokia and so on. No need to be the first, but if you want to be there you need to play well.

1 day ago on Innovation loses again

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I will not go so far to say htc deserves it , like others said, but putting all the fault on Samsung (or any other Android OEMs btw) is just plain wrong.

HTC made incredibly good devices, such as the HD2 (a WinMobile phone but one of the best Android-modded phone at the time), the Nexus One and the Desire, but after that they haven’t been in the same league of others, specially Samsung, until the One released this year.

The original SGS came out after the Desire, but was a better device in many ways; then it came the SGS2 still considered today one of the best Android devices ever, leagues better than what HTC was offering at the time. The OneX was already almost on par with the SGS3, but still the majority of reviews agreed the SGS3 was still better; the same reviewers today saying the One is a better phone the SGS4, so we can’t really talk of bias..

HTC was the fastest OEM to deliver updates in 2010, but since then Samsung has taken the lead there too, starting with the SGS2 up today where you have Samsung not only releasing new phones with a newer version of Android OS compared to HTC, but possibly being able to update even older devices to the latest before HTC can do the same with the currently available line.

Add to that Samsung has explored and kept investing in niche market, with devices like the Note and the original galaxy Tab 7inch, or supplied services such as music and movies in market where Google wasn’t able to at the time.. and yes, obviously the marketing power and in-house capabilities to produce their own component has played another big part in their success.

Don’t get me wrong, I always liked HTC, used their products since the time of Windows Mobile and I seriously hope they will not fail, but let’s not play like if they have no faults at all. They have, they badly managed the advantage they had at the beginning of Android life, wasted time and resources supporting many different devices in the same league (Samsung makes even more models, but in the key flagship markets they always had one model only, now two with the Note series), didn’t fix the most complained issue of HTC devices until now (battery life, compared to competitors), they have chosen wrong partnerships such as those with Facebook, choosen materials and design that while beautiful and all caused them delays in production and final delivery…

TL:DR HTC is loosing the war because they made wrong decisions and bad products for a couple of years, in a critical moment when other companies like Samsung were starting to offer their best products with Android. Samsung has simply been a better OEM, capitalizing on the errors and failure of HTC.

1 day ago on Innovation loses again 2 replies 1 recommend

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Agreed. I have both the Galaxy Note 2 and Samsung Slate 7 tablet with Win8.. while the s-pen works nicely and has vastly improved compared to the early releases (specially in handwriting recognition), generally digitizer support is better on Windows and you can gain more from a pen with applications like OneNote, Photoshop etc.. compared to the S-pen apps and generally apps on Android.

I think the pen on the Note 2 makes a lot of sense, because it can be used as a compact and portable notepad always with you (and if you’re a business developer like me travelling a lot and having many short meetings, believe me it’s really useful), but on bigger sized tablets I would consider a Windows option, it works better and offer more, at least in my experience. Not sure about 8’’, but over 10 definitely.

1 day ago on Samsung Note 8.0 or 10.1 Experiences

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I think you are mixing a little bit the things here:

While The Verge had a clear distaste for the S4 design and material choice, they have never consider it a disaster phone, rather a very good flagship coming short in those fields (at least in their opinion) when compared to something like the One.

Regarding the First, they surely praised the phone, but it was more related to the fact it was basically a stock Android phone well performing with a particularly new and innovative skin on it, rather than a specific like about the phone design and qualities compared to other smartphones in the market.

1 day ago on Verge's taste and smartphones 1 reply

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I know this has been discussed ad infinitum… but:

Samsung high end models (S and Note series) have all a good built quality, whereas built quality means how the parts are assembled together and generally the lack of gaps and typical assembly problems. Samsung flaghips models are normally quite well built phones (last 2-3 years at least) and this is reflected also by the increasing average rate in consumer satisfaction, whereas for example HTC phones have been statistically more prone to assembly problems, even if still considered among the best built.

Whereas Samsung isn’t offering the same perceived quality as others is in the case material choice, that is molded polycarbonate, compared to machined polycarbonate (Lumia) and metal (One). That being said, the choice to go with such kind of materials isn’t due to the idea Samsung just doesn’t care about its customers and goes for the cheapest solution, like many here are always trying to think about, but comes due to various reason, price being only one of them:

- choosing a material (polycarbonate) that offers a light product even at considerable phone sizes such as the SGS4 and Note are offering
- choosing a process (molding vs machined) that offers more easily removable parts assembly, to keep as an option removable batteries and sd-card and keeping the design consistent among the different flagships
- choosing a material and process that have wide availability and, being consistent among the current and previous models, avoid possible delays in the supply chain, leading to possible delays in phone construction and distribution (just like happened with the One anodized material..)

Similar discussion could be held regarding the design choice, that while isn’t a champ of beauty, serves very well the purpose of everyday usge, given the lighter weight and smoother corners, both particularly important when your phone is considerably sized.

Now, I’m not saying the One materials aren’t good, or the design is bad, but I’m frankly speaking tired of listening the same old story about “poorly built” phones from Samsung, when it’s not really the reality.

1 day ago on Verge's taste and smartphones 1 reply

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I don’t want to start a flamewar, but there are advantages in Android too.. I suppose that saying the S4 is as good as the iPhone 5 means both have their strenghts and depending on your needs and preferences they both can be astounding devices and among the best in the mobile market.

2 days ago on Samsung's "record" sales vs Apple's "disappointing" sale. 1 reply

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Agreed, that too and not only in US but in Europe as well.

2 days ago on Samsung's "record" sales vs Apple's "disappointing" sale. 1 reply

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Looking at the sales numbers, you can’t blame Samsung to act this way. HTC is slowly loosing ground in the consumer market, while targeting Apple is a sign of strenght and self confidence in your products and customers attention..

There’s also an article in Apple Core showing a comparison between last year customer satisfaction rates in mobile market and this year.. As much as good the One X could have been, HTC managed to loose 5% of the customer satisfaction rate, while Samsung raised with 7%. Now I’m not necessarily saying Samsung devices are better than HTC’s, but this kind of shift in customer satisfaction can’t be justified only with advertising and marketing.

2 days ago on The GS4 Active, What Is Samsung Trying To Do?

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It’s interesting though to note that the usual slowdown in sales that comes in the second quarter after a new iphone lauch has been quite more sensible this time. This could depend from a tons of reason, including the financial situation, the availability of more competitive devices, etc… still, it’s an interesting deviation from the standard path.

2 days ago on Samsung's "record" sales vs Apple's "disappointing" sale. 2 replies

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While Apple is already at the top of… Typing error

4 days ago on Samsung's "record" sales vs Apple's "disappointing" sale.

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See, your comment is the equivalent of “Apple iPhone only sell mainly because it’s trendy”
While it’s both correct to say Samsung sells also because of huge marketing and iPhone sells also because of the trendy / halo effect, the reason behind their success (both for Samsung and Apple products) go over these blank statements and rely on the inherent quality of the products, too.

On topic, while being the first producer in the worldwide market, Samsung is on a rising path, trying to catch up with Apple undisputed position in consumer mindshare and number of single model sold. While Apple miss already at the top of the pyramid and a flat result (impressive compared to the market but in line with previous results) is easily traced as a negative sign, whereas in reality is only used for click baiting articles trying to depict the evergreen ridiculous story about a supposed Apple’s fall/doom/demise

4 days ago on Samsung's "record" sales vs Apple's "disappointing" sale. 2 replies 2 recommends

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This goes to demonstrate how ridiculous is sometimes to try defining “feeling in hand” and “design” as objective qualities.. They aren’t, if any they are among the most subjective things in every product analysis. Personally I like the plastic warm feeling of the Note 2 and I know this helped to keep the device weight at reasonable and usable levels. I don’t like the plastic due to the general attitude to become easily dirty when you are sweating or the fingerprint magnet thing. As much as I like aluminium bodies though from an aesthetic point of view, the cold feeling and generally sharp edges it comes with are major disadvantages making me prefer at the moment a plastic construction.

But as I said, it all comes to our needs and preferences, it’s just quite silly to think we can apply one choice as an objectively preferable choice.

6 days ago on As good as HTC One is, it is not selling well and that bothers me 2 recommends

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While I don’t think marketing is the only reason for today Samsung success (you can advertise how much you want your product, but If it is a crappy one, people in the long time will not buy, specially not the second time) it’s clear Samsung has an incredibly powerful advertising machine and even more a very well organized and capillary distribution.

One thing that people seems to not understand is that the material and design choice by Samsung is actually an important move when you want to leverage your previous success with a new model. The SGS3 has been the most the most successful to date Samsung smartphone and definitely a very recognizable one. Changing design and materials could have caused more damages than gain advantages to the SGS4, because people buying now into the brand and marketing rather than product specific qualities search for recognizable similarities with existing successful product (plus some additional features easy to marketing), not necessarily for a totally new and revolutionary thing breaking with a successful tradition. It’s Apple marketing style and it has been very successful for Apple and now Samsung.

6 days ago on As good as HTC One is, it is not selling well and that bothers me 1 recommend

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The HTC One is a very good phone, both in aesthetic and performance/hardware. I don’t personally find the design so impressive, after seeing and touching one last week, but it’s clearly one of the best Android flagship smartphones.

That said, the low worldwide availability has been a major problem. HTC released the phone early enough to gain some ground against Samsung, but they messed up making the phone actually difficult to find and buy, while the SGS4 has been widely available since the early daysafter worldwide launch.
This is certainly due to a quite better distribution chain Samsung has, but also due to the choices of design and materials.
As much as hated could be the plastic and design Samsung choose, this iterative approach rather than revolutionary let them to be more production efficient, while the materials choose en by HTC could have caused major problems due to the necessity of quality control a new kind of assembly and production, compared to the previous and still actively made models.

While I’m an happy Note 2 owner and generally I like Samsung products, I would really like to see HTC and others succeed, I always preferred Android to iOS due to the multiple hardware OEM choice, I wouldn’t be happy to live in a Samsung Android only world.. And HTC was the one to make me jump to android, I really want them to keep going.

6 days ago on As good as HTC One is, it is not selling well and that bothers me 3 replies 1 recommend

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I definitely agree the request to shutdown is legit due to the implementation of features prohibited by the TOS. It’s clear this has been a provocative move by MS.

That said MS already stated they would comply with ads requirement (and remove the download feature too I’m sure) if Google is going to give them the instruments to do so. It’s difficult in my opinion now for Google to avoid working with MS without appearing anticompetitive.. Obviously Microsoft should first comply with the TOS and shutdown the app, but basically the move is in Google side now.

7 days ago on I'm think Microsoft is trying to get onto something with Google by creating the youtube app. 2 recommends

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And btw I’m an happy Android user and Google services user since long time, as my posts history could even easily show. I never used WP and I have no interest at the moment, even if I’m an happy windows user too.

But that doesn’t mean I should discount Android or Google if they do something I believe is wrong, just like I never discounted MS for what they did with the browser debacle/trial

7 days ago on I'm think Microsoft is trying to get onto something with Google by creating the youtube app. 1 recommend

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YouTube.com on desktop is fine and even more featured than any dedicated app.
But we are talking about mobile market here and mobile website of YouTube isn’t comparable to a dedicated app neither is trying to use the full website.

So while an app, isn’t required, not having one is a going to provide a lower service to the customers of the platform deprived of. This is the entire point.

Regarding MS and the browser trial, bundling IE was just one of the problem. Manipulating windows api’s to favor IE over netscape and Opera was another of the offenses MS was accounted for, just go back to read the story if you don’t believe.

That said, even the fact alone that MS bundled IE with windows is calling similarities with this case. MS never prohibited the installation of other browsers, much like Google isn’t blocking completely the access to WP users to YouTube service (leaving the mobile website access). That wasn’t and isn’t the issue.
The issue is to leverage a dominant position (windows, youtube) to provide a worse service to a competing platform in a different market (browsers, mobile OS). What could be discussed is if YouTube is such in a dominant position, but aside from that the situation is quite similar.

7 days ago on I'm think Microsoft is trying to get onto something with Google by creating the youtube app. 1 reply 1 recommend

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Sure, but given it’s basically revenues for free (MS has developed the app already, Google efforts at this point would be minimal) it’s hard to understand why they wouldn’t want it, if the only reason to oppose it is a low ROI. Also, if ever the WP market share would increase,they would just get more money still without any effort.

Honestly it’s hard to see any reason behind such a decision, rather than a willingly move to provide a worst service on a competing platform (monopoly discussion aside, something Google could also be entitled to do, this is business, but they shouldn’t try to justify with silly reasoning about missed revenues, marketshare etc.. And obviously this attitude would be somehow in contrast with some of their mantra and statements)

7 days ago on I'm think Microsoft is trying to get onto something with Google by creating the youtube app.

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While Google has its rights to ask for removal of TOS infringing apps, YouTube has a de-facto monopoly in online video content and this complicate the situation.

It’s not allowed in fact to leverage your monopoly ina sector to indirectly damage a competing platform. Even more when such platform is considerably smaller.

To draw a comparison, Microsoft was found guilty to use their windows dominance to push their own Internet browser market, conceding solely to their own browser the access to software features in windows in a way competing browsers (that were anyway allowed by MS on Windows) couldn’t fairly compete in terms of, for example, performance. If Google keeps refusing to provide a solution to WP that is comparable to what they provide for themselves and iOS, they could be found infringing in a similar way. It’s obvious in fact than mobile website specially on smartphones isn’t at all a comparable solution to a dedicated native app and given the YouTube dominance this could be seen as a way to leverage their monopoly in video streaming content to downplay a competing platform in mobile market.

The fact Google is already providing a solution to others platforms, if any, is even aggravating the situation because it increases the idea Google is specifically targeting WP, a clear competitor much more than iOS (since both Android and WP work with same OEMs) or PS3,xbox wii etc (that aren’t direct competitors being in totally different markets).

Aggravating even more the situation, Google has tried to justify the shutdown in this case citinga lack of rrevenue (instead of just referring to TOS conditions), in a way to spin positively their letter, but this is in direct conflict with what they have always stated, that WP revenues are too low at the moment for them to consider and that the mobile website is enough, whereas the website isn’t producing revenues at all!

7 days ago on I'm think Microsoft is trying to get onto something with Google by creating the youtube app. 1 reply