Positronic @ Positronic @lemdro.id Posts 13Comments 52Joined 2 yr. ago
Not... Really... Sure it makes some difference, but the much more constraining factor is the money. Cameras arent that big, but they're one of the priciest pieces of hardware in the device.
There's isn't enough physical space for three sensors on a smaller phone especially if it's the size of the iPhone mini. They can fit them on a 6.1-6.2 inch device, that's why the S24 and iPhone 15 Pro have them. However the 16 Pro is supposedly getting larger because it's getting a larger sensor for 5x optical zoom. If you look at a periscope lens, it needs a substantial amount of extra width as well. A teardown of any recent flagship reveals that camera modules occupy more space than they did if you look at tearsowns from three or four years back. This makes sense because the sensor itself is increasing in size and the size needs to go up both length and width wise to maintain the aspect ratio of the sensor. Heck in some cases like the Xiaomi 14 Ultra and Oppo Find X7 Ultra, the camera modules occupy more space than the rest of the motherboard.
The problem is more that they keep trying to sell small phones at cheaper price points.
The iPhone mini was cheaper but it had pretty much the same specs as the regular iPhone except for wireless charging speed iirc. Sales were much lower than the regular model despite that (around or less than 5% of total iPhone 12 and 13 sales). If Apple couldn't make a smaller phone sell particularly well, I doubt anyone else could.
Yeah it's strange some of them expect the exact same specs as the Pro or Ultra phone in a smaller form factor. Some sacrifices have to be made to fit components in a smaller form factor as you cannot overcome the laws of physics. I've seen many ridiculous comments saying manufacturers can fit the same cameras and all the sensors along with a bigger battery if they made the phone thicker. It's almost as if they expect the bigger phone to get neutered to maintain parity.
Flexible OLED panels have smaller bezels, better viewing angles and are less prone to exhibiting a rainbow effect. You can check Dylan Raga's review of the Pixel 6, 7 and 8 to see why the 8's display is an upgrade over the 6 and 7.
Yeah that's a fair point. I don't like the output of the primary sensor and the 3x on the S24. Feels like they oversharpen and oversaturate colours way too much. Also feel the hardware is lacking compared to the Pixel 8 and iPhone 15 Pro's sensor as they're physically bigger and don't have as much of a problem with shutter lag.
I'm not a fan of the cameras on the S24 and base iPhone 15. Samsung have recycled the same cameras for three generations now, I think they can put a larger primary sensor in there.
To be honest looking at the teardowns it's impressive what Apple and Samsung have managed to fit in their phones, I think the Xiamoi 14 Ultra isn't doing itself any favours with that camera placement though, seems inefficient having the modules in the middle of the phone?
Idk, Apple does a better job with the Pro as compared to the regular model. Google, Xiaomi and Asus managed to fit bigger batteries on the Pixel 8, Xiaomi 14 and Zenfone 10 without increasing the size too much. Here's a teardown of the Xiaomi 14 Ultra. It seems like they're using space pretty efficiently in there.
I don't think they're going to be able to put the same cameras on a smaller phone, especially if you look at something like the Xiaomi 14 Ultra or the Oppo Find X7 Ultra. The sensors are massive and require a lot of space. You may be able to fit two of those sensors on a 6.1 inch phone without compromising on other things like the battery, haptics, antennae for example. They could probably fit a bigger battery by making the phone thicker but it seems like manufacturers like a uniform thickness for most of their models or somewhere thereabouts probably because it's easier to machine the frame.
Yeah they're regular sized, you could consider the iPhone 15 and 15 Pro as regular sized as well. I think they could probably do a smaller phone about the size of the iPhone 12/13 mini as well if they wanted to. However I'm not sure if they'll do it since the S22 is their smallest phones since the S10e and they haven't gone smaller than that unless you go all the way back to the S4 (which itself has a similar width to the S10e). I understand why they wouldn't do it because it seems the people who want an iPhone 5S to iPhone mini sized phone are extremely vocal but that doesn't seem to translate to numbers in real life.
It probably is if the rumour about them switching to a 19.5:9 resolution is true. It'll still be larger than the S24 and Pixel 8 because of the top and bottom bezel but height should decrease by a couple of mm.
Seems like an overclocked version of the 7+Gen 3, interesting they didn't release that chip with this one.
I definitely think Apple and Samsung can do a smaller premium phone if they want to as Apple makes the lion's share of profits in the industry and Samsung is the only other manufacturer that makes a significant amount of profit. Heck Samsung can probably do a smaller midrange phone as well. I do not think it makes sense for other manufacturers as they make 3% profit and targeting a very vocal but demanding minority isn't going to help them improve that.
Small phone users should also temper their expectation, I saw a lot of comments from people saying they didn't get the iPhone mini because they expected the Pro Max's specs in the mini form factor. They have to understand that the cameras on the biggest flagships occupy a lot of space and it isn't feasible to bring it to a smaller form factor. Increasing the thickness might help with the battery but that's about the only component that benefits with an increase in one dimension.
I feel the cameras are better than the majority of the competition at that price if the Pixel 7a is excluded. I agree they're nothing special but Xiaomi's shots are overexposed and they insist on throwing a rubbish 8 MP ultrawide on everything that's not their flagship number series.
I also am not a fan of Samsung's image processing, feel they oversharpen too much. Pixel is probably the safest option if still images are the most important thing unless one is willing to go through some hassle to get the Vivo X100 Pro, Oppo Find X7 Ultra or Xiaomi 14 Ultra. I feel those cameras are the best purely because of the hardware that is in them. For video, Apple are still the best with Samsung a distant second.
Really depends on the location. In North America and Western Europe, it costs about as much as a OnePlus 12R which has a better chip, bigger battery and will get updates for longer. In the US, that's after discounts. There were times you could get an S23 for the same price which isn't a good comparison for the Phone 2 unless the bigger display,better battery life and unlockable bootloader are more important than IP68 water and dust resistance, a faster chip and an offline presence.
I don't think it will be a loss leader because phones at this price are specced the same or better.
They might have one or two better specs but the package at that price is pretty good. The Redmi Note 13 Pro+ is more expensive, has a fuck ton of bloatware and launched with Android 13 out of the box. Also has that idiotic curved display and terrible auxiliary cameras. The Poco X6 Pro has a much faster SoC but the cameras are not as good as HyperOS is essentially a more refined version of MIUI.
I agree the 2 was too expensive. It got a drastic price increase compared to the 1 without upgrading too much. What they should have done is released a 2 around the same price as the 1 and released a Pro version if they wanted to sell a phone with a bigger profit margin.
Yeah it's actually infuriating to read some of these threads. Some of the small phone users expect Oppo Find X7 Ultra cameras with a 5000 mAh battery and headphone jack in an iPhone 5S form factor and the only argument they make is the phone can be thicker. Thickness is only one dimension, all these components need space in other dimensions too.
Is there a noticeable difference between the Titanium on the Ultra and the aluminium on the other models? I'm guessing it's the colours on the Ultra that stand out more.
GSMarena is saying South Korea gets the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 variant. If that's true, it's a safe indicator the Exynos is dogshit. Wouldn't be surprised if performance/watt is worse than the 865 since no Samsung fabbed SoC has beaten that one yet.
Edit: seems like South Korea are getting Exynos for the S24 and S24+. Looks like GSMarena are wrong. Hope it isn't a shit show like the 990 and 2200 but I don't expect much.
Maybe design award, he talks about how everything is the same but was impressed with the Magic V2 because of it's thinness and how it manages to cram a larger battery than other foldables. While that's impressive, I don't really think it's groundbreaking. I feel repairability should also be a consideration for design since most slabs and foldables look identical to each other and the Fairphone is miles ahead of everything else in that regard.
8+2 MP rubbish on a phone that's surely going to cost $600 or more at launch is honestly infuriating. This won't make sense in any market other than India.
Unfortunately both chips were fabbed by Samsung Foundry. Tensor is also fabbed by then which explains the overheating, poor efficiency and throttling. I really hope Samsung can catch up with TSMC with 3nm but would be wary of a Samsung fabbed SoC until they prove they've caught up. Qualcomm moved from Samsung to TSMC for the 8+ Gen 1 because Samsung weren't meeting their targets as they had low yield. The yield issue seems to be fixed according to some media outlets but doesn't seem like the fab itself has improved.
How many people are going to read that properly? We're not just talking about enthusiasts, regular users will do it if they get the option and think they can store their apps on there.