[box]Warning: Heart risk to loyal fanboy of Samsung with blind love! Others proceed without caution![/box]
While Samsung may have achieved and lured new customers aboard, it has alienated good share of old customers definitely. The satisfaction score with this year’s flagship i.e. Galaxy S4 is not good. When Samsung introduced Galaxy S2, it won the hearts of android community. In fact, I migrated from Galaxy S2 to S4, but with my experience of S4, I can say that I may not like or switch to the upcoming Galaxy S5. Samsung is lost in the sea of egoistic prowess that it possess, in the wheel of wired marketing aggressiveness that it believes. It needs third-party view. It needs to understand the fate of once-Nokia. Fierce competition might not have withstood against Samsung for long this year, but HTC showed Samsung how to make devices, HTC won hearts of all and as a potential phone consumer I too lulled for getting hands on with HTC One launched early this year.
Writing sentimental post like this is not easy especially against the company which you had started to love. Love was still growing but that part hit so sooner, the part which shows true faces rivaled against the charm or fancy of love, the part that explains what-so-not-love. Anyways, sticking to the topic title, here are top 5 reasons why I would hate Galaxy S5 (given the current guess/prediction turns true):
- Low Build quality: I know, in fact, I am pretty certain that build quality of Galaxy S5 will still be one thing to complain about. Samsung is never going to compete with artistic fineness and luxurious jewel feel that you get with iPhone or even this year’s HTC. Either own top-line Samsung phone or medium-segment, your audience won’t find out the difference. That is going to remain the same case. While Samsung works its way into phone’s dimension on every front, it fails to immediate any remarkably appreciable change in design.
- Buggy or Unsatisfactory Samsung optimization on Android : Touchwhiz is good but tasking on hardware, hence even with evolving hardware specs, the difference in performance is not very noticeable for average user. Most of the software gimmicks facilitated by Samsung on its S4 are not use-worthy, thanks to unreliability. The other negative side is that a major portion of hardware resources (RAM, internal storage space, etc) is used up/taken by Samsung’s software customization resulting in lower availability of resources for user tasks. So, even when specifications sound solid on paper, it feels the same as previous generation in experience. Samsung should advertise specifications in terms of user-availability, but that’s not going to happen because none of other companies follow the advised terms. Unpolished software customization, hasty firmware builds have been other problems with Galaxy S4 and given the current Samsung’s route, I expect the same disappointments from Galaxy S5. For example, Galaxy S4 was plagued with Camera issues even after several firmware updates, still has WiFi issues with certain WiFi routers, lag and freezing issues, low internal storage issues, less user-available RAM issues, etc. Samsung should really work on its plan for Galaxy S5 as it should not expect consumers to pay top bucks for mid-level experience. Top bucks should earn top experience.
- Degrading Support service – The support service provided by Samsung has been degrading day by day. There are several instances of poor customer support. One among them is my own experience – Samsung launched Galaxy S4 in India with Free S View Cover redemption scheme (limited time). Even after making several complaints to the so-called “CEO office”, I just received email response that my concern had been forwarded to the concerned department. I’ve not received free S View cover till date and finally, I had to give up my hope of getting one since my complaints fell to deaf ears. This is just one experience. There are several support-related disappointing complaints and experience of customers. In fact, those customers buying premium devices like Galaxy S4 should at least get premium services like effectively timed resolution of complaints. The same might be the case with the upcoming Galaxy S5.
- Lack of Groundbreaking innovation: HTC came up with BoomSound, ultrapixel camera in HTC One. What did Samsung come up with? S4 feels just like assembly of several componenets with plethora of software customizations. Where is that groundbreaking feel? Where is that innovation appeal? I mean I covet for getting feel of HTC One or iPhone’s design and build. I crave for clicking pictures with Nokia Lumia 1020. What’s there is Galaxy S4 that I should crave for? What’s there in S4 that no other competitors offer? Likewise, I hope I would not have to ask the same for S5 when it comes. Samsung has flexible display technology but I bet that it won’t be featured on Galaxy S5 as well. Based on this, my interest and curiosity lies more in HTC than in Samsung for their upcoming flagship android devices for the next year.
- No Dual SIM, No Waterproof: This is more of personal opinion, I’d say, but here in India, users prefer dual sim smartphones but Samsung didn’t release such in India. HTC, on the other hand, released dual-sim variant of HTC One in India. Scenario might remain the same with S5 and this is really disappointing. On another note, Samsung released toned-down variant of galaxy s4 in terms of specifications with waterproof capacity. It didn’t release its flagship device with waterproof charisma like Sony’s xperia z or z1. I do prefer washing my phone with water in front of others just to show off, and believe me, it feels great.
