You guys are simply not going to believe this. There is nothing the Macalope can do to prepare you for… THE ATTACK OF THE 5-INCH PHONE!
Samsung Galaxy Note: Does the World Really Need a 5-Inch Phone With a Stylus?
A 5-inch phone with a stylus?! GET OUT OF THE MACALOPE’S WAY.
(You ever see a stampede of Macalopes? It’s not pretty.)
Surely Apple will have to respond to the dire threat posed by this killer device. After all, we all know that consumers are literally rending their garments (yes, LITERALLY) and crying out for the sweet succor that only smartphones with gigantic screens can provide.
And how do we know that? Because Apple doesn’t make one, that’s how.
The transition to ever larger smartphone displays is a natural byproduct of humankind’s embrace of the mobile lifestyle, DisplaySearch analyst Richard Shim says. Now that more and more people depend on accessing information, videos and websites on the go, we’re discovering that larger screen sizes enhance that experience. Samsung is a leading member of this trend.
Eventually screens will get so large that the “mobile lifestyle” will turn back into a stationary lifestyle. People are kind of dumb that way.
A few weeks back the Macalope spent some time with a friend’s Galaxy S II and wondered if it came with a pair of relaxed-fit jeans. The Galaxy Note, on the other hand, should come with a bag of holding.
“Samsung and AT&T are betting on a market for super-sized smartphones. And they’re smart to market the Note as a phone rather than a tablet,” Forrester senior analyst Sarah Rotman Epps told Wired via email. “If they market it as a tablet, they’re competing directly with Amazon but at a higher price.”
Indeed, you can currently get a 7-inch tablet, the Amazon Kindle Fire, for $100 less than the Note. The Fire is also Wi-Fi only, so you don’t have the monthly costs associated with a 3G or 4G data plan.
You also don’t have a phone. And couldn’t the Galaxy Note be cheaper if Samsung took the phone bits out? (That’s what engineers call them: “The phone bits.”)
It’s kind of astounding to the Macalope how both Epps and Wired’s Christina Bonnington don’t get the real causality here. Competing with Amazon (or Apple) in tablets was never an option for Samsung. It has no way to push them when the carriers and retail stores like Best Buy are its storefront. The carriers want to push contracts, and no one wants a tablet with a contract. Best Buy, meanwhile, is too busy creating a horrible retail experience to push particular products. (“Next on the agenda: How can we flog our customers?”)
This is why you never see anyone with a Galaxy Tab, but you see lots of people with Samsung phones. Samsung’s solution to this is to make freaks of nature like the Galaxy Note. It can’t sell tablets, so it’s trying to sell tablet-sized phones instead.
Yeah, that’ll do the trick.
[Editors’ Note: In addition to being a mythical beast, the Macalope is not an employee of Macworld. As a result, the Macalope is always free to criticize any media organization. Even ours.]