Maybe the end of useful mobile phones

EarlyMon said:

Or they hope to move customers to another line.

One of past very recent years had Samsung updating a new model line every month, like clockwork - for an entire year.

Or because the S5 didn't sell as expected, maybe they hope people will choose it as still viable.

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I know a few people with S4s, and they've told me that really there wasn't enough difference in the S5 to make them want to upgrade. S6 they might consider, because it does look quite a bit different to typical Samsungs, i.e. white and plastic.

It would have been nice if Samsung had asked their customers what that want, instead of trying to copy something else.
I'm very disappointed in the direction they've taken this.

Not an issue to me personally (although I wouldn't have an S6 purely because of the cost)

Moved from the S3 to the Nexus 5 and was happy then purchased the 64GB OnePlus One. I do have the advantage of unlimited data though and never find myself without a signal, so I've always used the cloud if storage ever became a problem.

I can understand peoples concerns though, replaceable battery and SD storage was always a big deal to me previously.

To the general populace the removal of the SD card option and removable battery is, quite frankly, a non-issue. Samsung did their homework here, and losing the small techno nerd and tech blogger segment of their S6 customer base isn't, apparently, a major concern. What the average consumer will see is a beautiful device with the best camera, design, specs, and feel on the market when it is released. This phone is going to sell well...very well.

Let's be honest here...most phone owners that can replace their batteries now aren't carrying around a spare battery...because they don't actually need one. I was talking to one of our programmers the other day and he couldn't fathom the idea of Samsung taking away the removable back/battery and SD card. I said, "do you use the SD card now, or carry a replaceable battery because you actually need one". His answer to both " no". He told me he has owned the Note 2,3, and 4 but has never needed, not one time, to replace the battery. My question then was "why should Samsung keep a plastic/composite back on their flagship phone if only a small fraction of their consumers actually use it". His answer was " choice".

The simple fact of the matter is, Samsung needed to make a change(s) to compete with other premium devices like the iPhone and M9. The same old...same old just wasn't getting it done.

jdduncan12 said:

Let's be honest here...most phone owners that can replace their batteries now aren't carrying around a spare battery...because they don't actually need one. I was talking to one of our programmers the other day and he couldn't fathom the idea of Samsung taking away the removable back/battery and SD card. I said, "do you use the SD card now, or carry a replaceable battery because you actually need one". His answer to both " no". He told me he has owned the Note 2,3, and 4 but has never needed, not one time, to replace the battery. My question then was "why should Samsung keep a plastic/composite back on their flagship phone if only a small fraction of their consumers actually use it". His answer was " choice".

The simple fact of the matter is, Samsung needed to make a change(s) to compete with other premium devices like the iPhone and M9. The same old...same old just wasn't getting it done.

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Yea well it depends on your needs and situation doesn't it, you can't simply tarnish everyone with the same brush just because you believe its that way.

I think its more of a case that we have or had the option of being able to replace the battery as a last resort/chance in an emergency where you weren't able to charge or there was an issue with device locking up. I've had this happen a few times on holiday and in my job out on business. And to be honest, sometimes its been a life saver. I won't have that option in the future. But yea you're right they have to do it to be more competitive with Apple, whether thats right or a good thing, is something completely different. At the end of the day its all about profits and market share, the customer's needs are secondary.

the reason i like the replaceable battery is that i repurpose my phones. so when the battery takes a dump, for $10 bucks i'm back in business. i have an evo3d that i use as an alarm clock, a note 2 that is in the car for navigation etc. i think the main reason for non replaceable batteries is to kill the used phone market. the reason for no sd cards is easy. they charge you $100usd per 32gb, for storage that costs them pennies.

The only potential problem I could see is how the insurance situation will be handled. I broke my phone a couple times and they replaced it for free but kept the battery from my old phone. That'll certainly be impossible now.

just read this on cnet (http://www.cnet.com/news/the-samsung-galaxy-s6-just-killed-two-of-my-favorite-android-features/)

Couple of points here: From a manufacturers perspective, having no SD slot allows for quality control on the product as well... I've had too many issues with friends using cheap quality (or just failing) cards that blame the phone's performance issues on the phone's manufacturer. Random reboots, app crashes, even speed issues. I just don't trust them, even excellent quality ones.
Also: Am I wrong in thinking it is easier to waterproof (resistant) a nearly sealed device?

It would be easier to waterproof a device without an SD slot, in that it's one fewer opening that needs to be sealed.

However, while the S5 was water-resistant, the S6 is not, so that clearly wasn't the motivation here.

I would not consider myself anywhere remotely near a "techie." Haven't even rooted my S4.

I can deal with the lack of SD card. It hurts, but I can deal. Even the non-water-resistance is something I can deal with.

BUT, just as a regular day-to-day user of this thing, the non-replaceable battery is a deal-breaker. Do I carry a spare battery everwhere I go? Yep. Do I use it? Yep. If I use the phone to navigate myself on a 90-minute drive in the morning and keep the phone on standby over the few couple hours, it won't have enough juice to navigate all the way back. Perhaps it would if I turned off half the features, but I'm pretty sure the point of having a $700 (or whatever) phone is to use it to its full capacity to the extent that it is helpful to you.

And I'm not falling for the whole after-market charger thing, either. It wasn't so long ago that -- for whatever reason -- a system update pushed out to the SGS4 made use of ANY charger other than the OEM charger literally impossible. (It turned off charging for some "safety" reason and told me to use the OEM charger. Yeah, thanks for that. My OEM charger is on my desk at work.) Also (and, clearly, YMMV on this) I've had TWO of those "lipstick" battery-replacement-jobs and both of them crapped out on me. Honestly, a second Samsung-branded battery (which, I note, I bought from Samsung, with a charger -- so, I mean, profit for them) is just as easy to carry and way more reliable.

(Not to mention that, if I have the phone long enough, sooner or later it freaks out to the point where everything freezes and the only way I can bring it back to life is a battery pull. I'm told there's always a key combination that'll work, but, in my experience, there's nothing quite like depriving offending electronic devices of juice as a 100% efficient solution to misbehavior.)

Honestly, I was really excited for the S6 until I read this. Now I'm hoping my S4 will last until ... until someone makes a solid, reliable, next-generation phone with a removable battery.

Who knows it's going to be a hit! Really, change is good but since we're kinda used to enjoying an SD card and having the luxury to replace the battery when needed, it's kind of unwelcome surprise. I for one, was kind of disappointed when Sammy unfold the s6. But then, why not give it a chance. At least for now, my expectations are not too high, I'd be wallowing in a bowl of soup.

Adara said:

If I use the phone to navigate myself on a 90-minute drive in the morning and keep the phone on standby over the few couple hours, it won't have enough juice to navigate all the way back. Perhaps it would if I turned off half the features, but I'm pretty sure the point of having a $700 (or whatever) phone is to use it to its full capacity to the extent that it is helpful to you.

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Have you tried using a car charger and plugging it in while navigating?...

Adara said:

a system update pushed out to the SGS4 made use of ANY charger other than the OEM charger literally impossible. (It turned off charging for some "safety" reason and told me to use the OEM charger. Yeah, thanks for that. My OEM charger is on my desk at work.)

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I'm not sure how exactly that works or what could be wrong with your charger(s), but I've used at least three different non-OEM chargers with my (completely up-to-date) S4 and none have given me issues. (The OEM charger and cable are still in the box, actually.)

Adara said:

(Not to mention that, if I have the phone long enough, sooner or later it freaks out to the point where everything freezes and the only way I can bring it back to life is a battery pull. I'm told there's always a key combination that'll work, but, in my experience, there's nothing quite like depriving offending electronic devices of juice as a 100% efficient solution to misbehavior.)

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There is no key combination. You literally hold the power button until it shuts off. I'm honestly surprised that nobody seems to know this...

Anyways... I honestly won't be missing the removable battery. The SD card, maybe, but I'm sure I'll get over it. The S6 Edge looks really nice and I'd love to get one if I can afford it.

No SD card and replaceable battery is a radical change but if that's the direction Samsung is heading, then either I follow or regress. I like Samsung really, finally they're listening, innovative, yes, sleek design yes..just because there's no SD card and replaceable battery doesn't mean it's not usable.

Hadron said:

I guess that Samsung have calculated that the new designs will appeal to a lot of people, and that the number who will be sufficiently put off by the loss of these features to go elsewhere will be much smaller. Remember that we here are not representative of the average buyers.

Whether they are right, time will tell.

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What they may not be considering is a key marketing value is differentiation. It is statistical marketing fact that if you create a product like the leader's, you lose that differentiation and lose share. The only way you offset that is if the leader has a channel supply weakness in a market, or they have a supply shortage. That is it. Does not matter if the product is great or not. All the majority of consumers see is the same basic thing and go with leader.

Samsung has screwed up and went too far this time. Proof would be about six months from now when sell-though numbers are easier for analysts to track. Samsung are infamous for distorting with sell-in numbers.

Hopefully LG does not fall into the same thing.

Get over the battery 2 of the cores control battery usage which takes head out of the equation. 8 cores use less power because less utilization. New polymer display uses less. Depleting over time won't occur so will not lose actual battery fill. And storage.... Cloud lol be as quick with the cat 7 antenna... Doesn't look as hard for tower connection.... Think about it.

ATTspecialist said:

Get over the battery 2 of the cores control battery usage which takes head out of the equation. 8 cores use less power because less utilization. New polymer display uses less. Depleting over time won't occur so will not lose actual battery fill. And storage.... Cloud lol be as quick with the cat 7 antenna... Doesn't look as hard for tower connection.... Think about it.

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Yeah, that there cloud works REAL well with 2GB data caps and when traveling wifi is great. Winning! Not

Moonlighting in Samsung marketing, or ATT sales for data commissions?

dpeagle said:

i think the main reason for non replaceable batteries is to kill the used phone market. the reason for no sd cards is easy. they charge you $100usd per 32gb, for storage that costs them pennies.

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iPhones are routinely sold in the used market and retain their value more than Android phones. Are Samsung phones more valuable in the used market than HTC phones? A swappable battery doesn't make any difference in the used market.

And again, if Samsung wanted to squeeze you out of money for memory, they would have made the base model 16gb and almost forced you to upgrade. But the base model is 32gb, which means most buyers won't even need the upgrade. Most of the Samsung owners I know don't even have a extSD installed and get by with the 16gb on board. Will Samsung make more money by selling 64gb and 128gb models? Yes, of course. But with Google pushing them to get rid of extSD, the increased footprint of ART, and encrypted memory right around the corner, it was time to let go of extSD. I predict none of the OEMs will include extSD slots in next years' models -- Samsung is just getting ahead of the curve.

rushmore said:

What they may not be considering is a key marketing value is differentiation. It is statistical marketing fact that if you create a product like the leader's, you lose that differentiation and lose share. The only way you offset that is if the leader has a channel supply weakness in a market, or they have a supply shortage. That is it. Does not matter if the product is great or not. All the majority of consumers see is the same basic thing and go with leader.

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I think Samsung is relying on the assumption that there's enough distinction between iOS and Android, as well as having brand loyalty. Honestly, I think even most laypeople who own Samsung phones would rather stay with a Samsung phone just to avoid change for change's sake. (Because seriously, most people don't need a removable battery or SD card when it can be charged to halfway in just a few minutes, and has 32gb+ of storage.)

I could be wrong though, we won't really know for several months.

kdude63 said:

Have you tried using a car charger and plugging it in while navigating?...

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Since you've asked, yes, I did.

In California, the law is that anything attached to your windshield has to be in the lower left hand corner. Which is, therefore, where I put my car cradle, so I can read the nav when I'm driving. The car charger, however, plugs in the center console. When I tried to do this (needed a cord long enough to make it), the cord was dragged over the steering column, right turns pulled on the wires, and the whole thing was unsafe. Logically, it would make sense to attach the phone to the center of the dash, right above where the charger plugs in, but that's against CA law.

Are there workarounds? Sure. I can buy a different cradle and just sit it on the center of my dashboard, rather than suctioning it to the inside of my windshield. I could buy some little clamps and do a nice, tidy job of running an extra long wire around my dashboard, so that it is always available to plug in the phone while in the car cradle and not being dragged across the steering wheel. I don't like either of those workarounds while I have the perfectly good workaround of "oh, look, a spare battery in my purse." Which is what annoys me about this plan with the GS6, because I'm one of the people who really likes having a removable battery. I understand that's not an issue for everyone. Samsung is betting on it not being a significant issue for most people. With respect, nobody here is going to convince me that it's not an issue FOR ME. I respect that it's not an issue for a lot of you, but I have to confess to a certain amount of annoyance at posts (not necessarily here) that keep saying it's no big deal and we should just get over it. Everyone's usage profile is a little different -- hell, that's the great thing about Android, we can personalize the crap out of these things -- and for me, being able to yank the battery is something that really, really matters. Lots.

At this point, I'm going to just hang on to my GS4 until either (a) a good alternative with a replaceable battery appears; or (b) other advantages of a phone with a non-replaceable battery outweigh the inconvenience of losing that one feature.

The way I see it, Sammy is testing the waters to up their sales. They must have learned a lot from previous sales data,S5 and moved on with these-S6 & S6 Edge. In spite of not having an SD card slot and non-removable battery, S6 edge looked like a sure winner during the 2015 MWC.

dpeagle said:

i think the main reason for non replaceable batteries is to kill the used phone market. the reason for no sd cards is easy. they charge you $100usd per 32gb, for storage that costs them pennies.

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Don't think that's the reason. They actually provide directions on how to change the battery in the manual, that any competent tech should be able to follow. And phone dealers have had enough practise in changing iPhone batteries in the past.

I say it's the beginning of a new age where micro SD and removable battery is a thing of the past

Shoestrings said:

I say it's the beginning of a new age where micro SD and removable battery is a thing of the past

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I think removing SD, can improve customer experience, it means users not trying to use fake SDs from China they bought cheap on Ebay, Alibaba or Amazon. Decent phones seem to be coming with a minimum of 32GB internal storage now, such as the forthcoming S6. After all we do get a lot of posts on this forum, along with many other forums, along the lines of "HELP!, I bought a new 64GB SD card, I copied all my photos and MP3s to it, but they won't work!", and it often turns out it's a fake SD they bought.


I'm still waiting to see the first fake Samsung S6. removable battery, takes SD, and is dual-SIM.