"At the opening ceremony of the Rio Olympic Games, the most equipment held by athletes from various countries was either Samsung or apple, and other brands were interspersed sporadically, which can also reflect the seating and ranking of major brands in the global mobile phone industry. However, it should be noted that, as a global partner of the IOC, Samsung Electronics presented 12500 Galaxy S7 edge Olympic versions to all Rio Olympic competitors.
▲ selfie show at the opening ceremony of Rio Olympic Games (source: Twitter)
In addition to mobile devices, Samsung also cooperated with NBC (National Broadcasting Corporation of the United States) to launch the broadcasting of Olympic events for gear VR device users. The official app of powered by Samsung for the Rio Olympics has also been listed in the latest Apple App store boutique recommendation.
▲ Galaxy S7 edge Olympic Edition
The Olympic event held every four years has always been the best show for Samsung products. Four years ago, the Galaxy S III, which created a myth of 20 million sales in 100 days, became the focus of London. Four years later, the prestigious Galaxy S7 edge shines on the Rio Olympic stage.
Once every four years, Samsung's "Galaxy flagship" is returning to its peak
In 2012, Samsung mobile phone is in a period of rapid rise. With the combination of "Galaxy S3 + note 2" on the large screen, Samsung further consolidated its position as the leader in the Android flagship camp. After that, in 2013, it can be regarded as Samsung's peak in the high-end smartphone market. The "Galaxy S4 + note 3" combination swept the world and was close to the iPhone.
▲ Galaxy S4 has sold 40 million units in 6 months since its listing, which is also the best record set by Samsung flagship so far
In the following story, we all know that the "big plastic" Galaxy S5 launched in the first half of 2014 made Samsung's "Galaxy flagship" encounter the biggest setback in recent years. With the entry of iphone6 / 6 plus into the large screen flagship market in September 2014, Samsung's leading position in this market was also replaced by apple. In 2015, Samsung offered the newly designed Galaxy S6 edge / S6 and S6 edge + / Note 5 to reverse the passive situation of the high-end machine market through curved screen technology.
▲Galaxy S6 edge+
In 2015, domestic mobile phone manufacturers rose collectively, and Huawei, oppo, vivo, Xiaomi, Lenovo, TCL and ZTE ranked among the top ten mobile phone manufacturers in the world. With the exception of Samsung and LG, the "Korean giants", other international Android manufacturers have been defeated one after another.
In 2016, LG gradually fell behind, and the global smartphone market has evolved into a "three person turn" of apple, Samsung and domestic mobile phone manufacturers. Make persistent efforts, Samsung has sacrificed Galaxy S7 edge / S7 and note 7 this year. Continuing the overall upward momentum since the release of Galaxy S6 series, Samsung is returning to the top of the global high-end mobile phone market.
▲ Galaxy note 7 and S7 edge (source: Android authority)
According to the latest data from strategy analytics, Samsung Galaxy S7 edge is not only the best-selling Android flagship in the first half of 2016, but also the best-selling Android stand-alone in the first half of 2016.
In the first half of 2016, Samsung sold about 13.3 million Galaxy S7 edges, which also became the sales champion of all models in the Android camp. Samsung's entry-level Galaxy J2 has sold about 13 million units, ranking second in all Android models; Galaxy S7 sold about 11.8 million units, ranking third in the whole Android model. Domestic flagship machines such as oppo R9 / R9 plus and Huawei P9 / P9 plus ranked the second and third sales echelons respectively.
▲ Galaxy S7 edge is the best-selling Android stand-alone model in the first half of 2016
Samsung is the absolute leader in the full range, even though it has significantly reduced its mobile phone product line since last year. According to the latest data from IDC, the total shipment of Samsung smartphones in the second quarter of 2016 was 77 million units, surpassing that of apple and Huawei combined.
▲ ranking of global smartphone shipments in the second quarter of 2016 (source: IDC)
The sales volume of all models ranks first in the global market, the sales volume of flagship machines ranks first in the Android camp, and Samsung's leading position in Android is being re consolidated. Once every four years, Samsung's "Galaxy flagship" is once again in the period of brand rise.
In the past two years, Apple has become "stable" and Samsung has become more "radical"
Also this year, Apple's "flower day" iPhone suffered its first sales decline since its birth, and this trend has continued for two quarters. ▲iPhone SE
Even in the U.S. market, which is the headquarters of apple, according to the data released by Kantar worldpanel, from March to May this year, the sales of Samsung Galaxy S7 Series in this market also exceeded the iPhone 6S portfolio.
In the third quarter of this year, Apple will launch its next-generation flagship iPhone. This new machine (Series) that may be named iphone7 is also regarded as cook's "life-saving straw". However, according to the current known rumors, the iPhone 7 is likely to focus only on the detailed (local) improvement of the product, but will not bring significant (overall) changes.
▲ spy photos of suspected iPhone 7 engineering machine (source: microblog)
Apple's iPhone 7 series may cancel the 3.5mm headphone hole, slightly improve the appearance (redesign the back antenna strip), add dual cameras, be equipped with a home key with pressure sensing function, support waterproof, dust-proof and wireless fast charging technology, and have a storage capacity of 32GB. Among them, the pressure sensitive home key (which may not be a physical key) and dual camera imaging technology have become the biggest highlights. Coupled with the further expansion of 3D touch pressure sensitive screen applications, the general appearance of iPhone 7 has surfaced.
In contrast, Samsung Galaxy S7 edge and note 7 have these main new features: more mature curved screen design, dual pixel camera technology, iris recognition, gear VR + gear 360 suite, mobile HDR video, waterproof and dustproof (including stylus), etc.
▲ Galaxy Note 7
Obviously, Samsung's "Galaxy S7 edge + note 7" combination of curved OLED screen (flexible screen) and VR suite has more new elements and foresight at the hardware level than a number of mobile phone manufacturers including apple.
On the galaxy note 7, which confronts with the iPhone 7, Samsung has differentiated with its more powerful s pen stylus, iris recognition, maximum 256gb extended memory and other characteristic selling points, so as to minimize the impact of Apple's new flagship. Some South Korean analysts predict that the shipment of Galaxy note 7 will reach 12 million units this year. According to Reuters, Gao Dongzhen, head of Samsung's mobile business, revealed that the sales volume of Galaxy note 7 is expected to exceed that of the previous generation note 5.
▲Galaxy Note 7
To sum up, "Galaxy S7 edge + note 7" has the powerful strength of "iPhone 6S + iPhone 7" combination in product design, hardware technology, characteristic functions and so on. In terms of the application and exploration of emerging and forward-looking technologies, Samsung mobile phones have a better performance than iPhone.
1、 The future of curved OLED screen is flexible borderless screen. Samsung has become a pioneer in screen technology innovation. Even apple is likely to equip its flagship iPhone with OLED display in the future; Recently, there are rumors that galaxy S8, which will debut next year, will only push the curved screen version like note 7.
2、 Equipping a tablet phone with a stylus has been regarded as a joke by many people, but under the background that the tablet spokesman iPad has been equipped with a stylus, the dream of turning a super large screen mobile phone into a smart Sketchpad is coming true, and Galaxy note 7 has also made more attempts in this regard.
▲ new s pen (source: sammobile)
3、 In addition to fingerprint recognition, Samsung is exploring and applying more forms of biometric security technology. Galaxy note 7 is not the first mobile phone to use iris recognition technology, but the first mobile phone product to bring it to consumers on a large scale.
4、 The VR field is very hot. Almost all Android mobile phone manufacturers have launched mobile VR devices (boxes), and the gear VR jointly built by Samsung and oculus has the strongest comprehensive strength and the best user experience; Not only VR viewing equipment, Samsung also launched the supporting panoramic camera gear 360, with the intention of creating a complete user experience of VR video production, video output and video viewing; Samsung is at the forefront of all manufacturers in the exploration of mobile VR ecosystem（ More details: click here)
▲ Samsung mobile VR "family bucket"
5、 Mobile payment is becoming an important new scenario for mobile applications. After Apple pay, Samsung also launched Samsung pay; Compared with apple pay, which only supports contactless POS machines, Samsung pay is also compatible with traditional magnetic stripe POS machines through MST technology; Therefore, before the traditional magnetic stripe POS machine completely withdrew from the historical stage, Samsung pay was enough to kill Apple pay, Huawei pay, MI pay, etc. in terms of availability（ More details: click here)
▲ Samsung "mocks" Apple advertisement: Samsung pay is here
Compared with apple, which has become more "stable" in the past two years, Samsung is becoming more "radical".
Is there only one IOS left between Samsung and apple?
In addition to the hardware products themselves, Samsung mobile phones have also made great progress in software aspects such as operating system, UI interface, application ecology and user experience in the past two years. However, the biggest short board of Samsung mobile phone is still the system and software, and Galaxy S7 edge and note 7 are no exception. Of course, the new UI interface pre installed by the latter is more "beautiful".
Based on the actual experience of using the galaxy S7 edge of BOC in the past month, the main problems of Samsung mobile phone in system and software include:
1、 The Samsung app store pre installed on the machine is too weak. Not only can not find many applications and games, but also many applications come from domestic third-party app stores; I also installed several third-party app stores, but the experience is very general, and there is a lot of promotion (advertising) information.
2、 The overall quality of Android Applications (especially domestic Android Applications) still lags behind that of IOS applications; There are also some problems in the adaptation of some applications to the machine. Of course, this is also the difference between Android and IOS application ecology. Even if you install Google play app store, it is difficult to avoid it fundamentally.
3、 Samsung's UI interface is still "ugly", so I installed the Nova launcher on the galaxy S7 edge and replaced the native app icon; The biggest feature of the Android system is a high degree of DIY customization. After making major changes to the mobile phone interface and adding a variety of custom content, I also felt the Caton of individual scenes and the occasional lack of fluency in operation on S7 edge; However, on the whole, after one month of use, my S7 edge still has a fast response, and I don't feel obvious and continuous jamming in daily operation and use.
4、 The MIS touch problem on the galaxy S7 edge is really prominent, especially if you don't equip it with a rear shell. This problem can be solved more or less from the system level, but until now Samsung has not given a good solution; Similarly, there is the application of curved screen. At present, the curved screen is still like a "vase" -- it looks useless. If Apple makes it, will there be more ways to play it? At least apple can call on third-party developers to develop more applications for it, and the number of Samsung curved screen applications is still very small.
To sum up, as far as the galaxy S7 edge of BOC is concerned, while it ranks first in the Android camp at the hardware level, it still lags behind some domestic android flagship machines with outstanding performance at the software level such as system software and user experience, especially apple. In view of the obvious improvement in hardware and technology in the Android camp in the past two years, many people believe that there is only one IOS left between the Android flagship led by Galaxy S7 edge / Note 7 and the flagship iPhone.
▲ iPhone 6S plus pre installed with IOS 9 system
Over time, when Google and Samsung work together to better solve the disadvantages and problems on Android and touchwiz, Samsung's flagship may really not lose to iPhone in terms of software and hardware, so as to counter attack it in terms of comprehensive strength and user experience.
However, when it comes to the Chinese market, the problem is not so simple. A core issue is how the advanced Android standard and guarantee system advocated by Google can affect the "sinicized" Android phones (including the Android models of BOC launched by foreign brands such as Samsung), Or can the "sinicized" Android mobile phone ecology better abide by the "basic law"?
▲ "equipped with" Galaxy S7 edge of IOS 9 system (source: yeki_ Chung ）
IPhone 6S series is still the smartphone with the strongest comprehensive strength and the best user experience, especially in the domestic market. But apple can't sit back and watch the Android flagship camp headed by the "Galaxy S7 edge + note 7" combination rush up. For cook, the iPhone 7 launched in September this year and the iPhone's 10th anniversary update next year are crucial. IPhone 7 is probably what rumors and revelations say. It is still a stable upgrade type, so Apple's market prospect in the first half of next year is still not optimistic.
According to many rumors and revelations, cook is likely to push the 10th anniversary update of the iPhone next year
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