China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018 • Hacker News Board

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#161

Post by larkeith » Sat, May 05, 2018, 9:01 AM UTC

Eyght wrote: post #25

bruceb wrote: post #15

Almost any $200+ phone made since 2015 has a pretty good camera, screen, speed for most people. Why upgrade when what you have is good enough? One used to check out gizmodo/engadget when a new phone came out but seems not anymore as "the new" is only incremental.

I've been using the same phone for almost 4 years now (oneplus one). It came with 3gb ram and 64gb storage and cost about $300, vat included. There are two tells that I'm using an old phone. The camera is really bad compared to the current ones, and it doesn't have any biometric unlock.

I'm still running my Galaxy S5 from when it first came out, and I've not found any problems with it yet - the camera is good enough for anything I need it for, and the battery can still run a good 4-6 hours active use.

While it doesn't have biometric unlock, I would avoid any new phone that did like the plague regardless - I like having a minimal amount of security, thank you very much.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#162

Post by distances » Sat, May 05, 2018, 9:02 AM UTC

larkeith wrote: post #159

supertrope wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They just need to add automatic chat log pruning. 16GB of 32GB of storage fills quickly.

What the heck kind of group chats are you in that has ~2 billion words in the history?

Videos and gifs?

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#163

Post by larkeith » Sat, May 05, 2018, 9:06 AM UTC

digi_owl wrote: post #87

bruceb wrote: post #15

Almost any $200+ phone made since 2015 has a pretty good camera, screen, speed for most people. Why upgrade when what you have is good enough? One used to check out gizmodo/engadget when a new phone came out but seems not anymore as "the new" is only incremental.

It really makes this "old" guy miss the days when Nokia et al would bring out all kinds of wacky attempts at phones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_3650 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens_SX1 These days they all seems to be some variant of a glass slab. Damn it, the most used apps are "variants" of SMS and MMS in HD...

It's rather remarkable how well the PalmPilot [1] proved the design for touchscreen devices to come. If only modern phone keyboards had any input methods approaching the quality of Graffiti.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PalmPilot

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#164

Post by larkeith » Sat, May 05, 2018, 9:14 AM UTC

DenisM wrote: post #89

nopinsight wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's clear that the US is much stronger from the asset point of view. If one looks at real economy, however, China can basically produce almost anything they need, except oil and some advanced electronics (which they are catching up fast and might become self-sufficient within 10 years). The US can do the same in the medium term but it will take time to reestablish its manufacturing industry to cover all needs. Both…

I don't see how self-sufficiency matters (unless war). In a globalized economy you want to keep the high-margin business and offload low-margin business to someone else.

I'm not an expert, but my understanding is that heavy reliance on imports increases the riskiness of debt, as external pressures and events can impact the debtor without recourse (whereas even in the event of a local industry failure, imports remain a stabilizing secondary option).

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#165

Post by larkeith » Sat, May 05, 2018, 9:17 AM UTC

distances wrote: post #162

larkeith wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the heck kind of group chats are you in that has ~2 billion words in the history?

Videos and gifs?

Fair.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#166

Post by distances » Sat, May 05, 2018, 9:20 AM UTC

supertrope wrote: post #76

gd2 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also apps do get updated, and when they do they sometimes grow by almost a 100 MB. Repeat that X times, and the RAM on the phone turns out to be insufficient for larger apps of the new now.

I wonder if developers targeting emerging markets curb storage bloat.

I think Instant Apps have a good potential to curb the APK sizes, having a size limit of 4MB.

Then again, many companies will probably just give up without even trying.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#167

Post by distances » Sat, May 05, 2018, 9:23 AM UTC

ddalex wrote: post #41

Eyght wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using the same phone for almost 4 years now (oneplus one). It came with 3gb ram and 64gb storage and cost about $300, vat included. There are two tells that I'm using an old phone. The camera is really bad compared to the current ones, and it doesn't have any biometric unlock.

I am still rocking the original OnePlus one, too. I appreciate the lack of a biometric sensor, and camera is actually better than a lot of newer phone cameras - the only cameras that outshine it are iPhones, top of the line Samsung's and OP5T. So pretty decent for a 4 year old phone?

> camera is actually better than a lot of newer phone cameras

I had OPO too. The camera was perhaps better than some of the current new phone cameras. In today's terms the camera is really, really bad though, and clearly loses to most new models.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#168

Post by distances » Sat, May 05, 2018, 9:33 AM UTC

tboughen wrote: post #91

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't give them away free, they build the cost into your contract. If there's sufficient competition in your local market you'll be able to buy a sim-only deal that costs less and returns that money to you and let's you upgrade on your own schedule to a phone of your own choosing.

I thought that too. However last Black Friday I found the best deal on an iPhone X was to pay £450 up front and then pay £29 per month for 2 years (totalling £1147 or £6.13 per month above the phone’s list price). The data and minutes I get would cost me at least £15 per month, making my deal absurdly good value!

In UK? My expectation nowadays for a phone bill is 10€ per month, with data, calls and SMS included. Doesn't leave much room for subsidied phones

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#169

Post by IkmoIkmo » Sat, May 05, 2018, 10:05 AM UTC

anilshanbhag wrote: post #10

It sometimes amazes me that people switch their phones so often. I tend to have a phone for 3 years. Many of my friends change every year ! One step to towards reducing global warming is reducing consumption.

Well the average replacement rate is approaching 3 years, so you shouldn't be too amazed.

But you should also consider that those who switch don't throw their product in the garbage. The resale value of flagship phones, particularly Apple, is really solid.

For example, Apple today sells a 3 year old model (6s) for 65% of the price of its latest model. Even if you sell it second hand, you can usually get >30% on a 3y old Apple model. You can usually get like 75% on a 1 year old model.

I know a guy who buys a new phone every year and sells his old one. Say he buys every year the latest and greatest flagship for say $1000, sells it for around $750 a year later and buys a new phone. He consistently spends about $20 a month on the latest phone. It's not as crazy as you'd think, $20 a month for the very best tech in your pocket is pretty trivial to most people on HN. The numbers may be a bit different for everyone.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#170

Post by IkmoIkmo » Sat, May 05, 2018, 10:09 AM UTC

bitmapbrother wrote: post #98

reaperducer wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Razor thin" may be something of an exaggeration. Apple's margin on iPhones is 59-64%[1]. Samsung is 17%[0]. "Razor thin" would be the grocery industry, which is usually under 3%. [0]: http://fortune.com/2016/08/23/apple-samsung-smartphone-profi... [1]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-iphone/apples-iphon...

Your second link is broken. Your first link, from 2016, indicates that Apple made a 38% margin. >Apple's margin on iPhones is 59-64%. Samsung is 17% Apple does not make 59-64% margin on their phones. This highly inaccurate figure was likely extrapolated by taking the retail price of the phone and subtracting the cost of its parts. The real profit margin which is likely around 30-40%. As for Samsung, their flag ship p…

Indeed, and Apple's EBIT margin is around 30%. It's an important figure because unlike say an LG, I don't think you can really see Apple phones separate from the rest of the company. Would we buy as many phones at these prices if we didn't have the App Store, OS X Macs, iCloud, Apple Music, Beats, Watches, Tablets, etc etc, in short, the ecosystem. All of that needs a company with massive overhead to work.