There’s only so much larger a phone can grow, size-wise, before it really becomes unwieldy. With current generation phones – particularly the manufacturer flagship ones – already featuring near bezel-less screens and screen to body ratios of 90% and higher, smartphone manufacturers have been looking into ways to make phones even more interesting, besides the expected yearly iterations of better cameras and optics, faster processors and higher resolution screens. There are the two innovations that I was especially interested in: foldable phones, and displays with higher refresh rates.
The first will be a real game-changer, and there’s been four devices already released from the big manufacturers, some with very interesting takes. They include the Galaxy Fold and Galaxy Z Flip from Samsung, the LG V60 ThinQ, and the Huawei Mate Xs. These foldable phones are very much first generation devices though, and they’ve been grappling with a host of issues. These include fragility – the screens in particular can be scratched easily since their top protective layers are not always gorilla glass (excepting the LG V60 ThinQ which gets round the problem of creating glass that can fold by simply creating a phone that has two, separate discrete flat screens LOL), bulk, hinges, ergonomics, and the fact that the general smartphone user still hasn’t wrapped his head around what additional functionality these foldable phones really bring. And there’s also the problem with their pricing: the Galaxy Z Flip is the most affordable of the lot, but even that sells for a princely SGD1.6K street-price, and offers little additional functionality besides the novelty and that you get a compact if fat little bugger of a phone. The Galaxy Fold is pretty solid for a first gen device from Samsung and around SGD2K street price, but has an ugly camera notch. And some early adopters have already reported how easily the plastic screen layer gets scratched even by just one’s fingernails.
I especially liked the LG V60 ThinQ, in particularly its refreshing approach: it’s not technically a foldable phone, but a phone with two discrete screens – the additional one you can detach if you just want a standard phone. Unfortunately, the phone isn’t distributed in Singapore, and I couldn’t find an online retailer that would ship here too without having to pay a bomb for delivery. And the just released very impressive Huawei Mate Xs is an engineering marvel: but doesn’t run Google Services – limitations I could probably get around with sideloading or even finally live with by using equivalents in Huawei’s App Gallery – and more seriously, costs an eye-watering SGD3.7K. Gosh – no thanks: one could easily buy three flagship phones with that money. So basically, foldable phones at this time of the year just aren’t ready for prime-time consumption and acceptance.
The second innovation though has been getting widespread adoption: displays that support higher refresh rates. Flagship phones from manufacturers have been rapidly pushing out models that support 90 or 120Hz displays – and once you’ve used phones with this feature, it’s very hard to go back to phones with the old 60Hz displays. Aside from the odd Chinese manufacturer pushing out 90Hz phones with mid-range processors and pegging them at bargain bin prices, these flagships unfortunately charge a premium for these phones. They are top-line products from their manufacturers after all, and are thus coupled with all the other cool and newest tech you can find: including very fast processors, sophisticated camera optics, high resolution screens, and premium builds etc.
There were four phones in my shortlist of phone acquisitions this year to replace my Oppo Reno 10x Zoom: the OnePlus 8 Pro, Xiaomi Mi 10 Pro, and either the Samsung S20 Ultra or S20+. The latter two phones have been available in Singapore for several months now – since early March and they were in stores for a week or two before the Covid-19 measures put most of Singapore in lockdown. I tried both devices and came away quite awed by their 120Hz displays. I liked their listed prices less so though: the S20 Ultra was retailing at SGD1,898 while the S20+ was at SGD1,498 – though they can be obtained cheaper from resellers, and the prices of both phones have also since come down quite a bit by a few hundred dollars apiece.
What is more disconcerting though is Samsung sticking their in-house developed processors into them: the Exynos 990 processor, while some of the other country markets – e.g. the US, South Korea – would be equipped with the Qualcomm SM8250 Snapdragon 865 processor. Both are high-end processors and for most users who don’t play games on their phones, the performance differences would really not be very noticeable in normal use. However, the differences between these two variants are a lot more significant thermals-wise and battery efficiency, and well past the point where a discerning owner would casually overlook. Many early adopters observed that the Exynos S20s were heating up quicker and consuming battery faster – and both somewhere in the 10-15% differential. It didn’t take long thereafter for many owners who’d bought the Exynos version of the phones to complain bitterly. There were even reports of the Samsung chip division who were responsible for the Exynos processor feeling humiliated by the decision of their higher-ups to distribute the better performing and competing variant in their own home market. Adding more salt to the wound was the stream of design issues that quickly surfaced with their top-line model: the Ultra. And these included camera focusing issues which some technology sites reported cannot be solved by firmware upgrades, and also protective camera elements that were spontaneously shattering.
Truth be told, if the Exynos S20s are significantly cheaper than the Snapdragon variants, I would be seriously given them some thought. I wasn’t going to get the Ultra, no – I don’t do near distance focusing normally where some of the focusing issues seemed to lie – but the reports of camera glass breaking were really worrying. The S20+ on the other hand seemed free of these issues. Nonetheless, the OnePlus 8 Pro and Xiaomi Mi 10 Pro looked a lot more tempting in comparison when both were announced, and early adopters started reviewing the phones on their YouTube channels.
Continued in the next post!
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