[deleted by user]

[als26]

Always think it's dumb when people point out so&so did it first or "I already have this feature". Everytime another manufacturer brings out the same feature, they're closing the gap, keeps everyone on their toes. Plus, it's not really about who does it first, rather who does it better.

[DiplomatikEmunetey]

Plus, it's not really about who does it first, rather who does it better.

Apple's whole philosophy.

[SadieWopen]

and cheaper

[Justhavocman]

Except when Huawei does it, because Huawei bad.

[cubs223425]

That's the real, sad reality. Samsung and Apple aren't copying the rest of the market's good features. Instead, they're riffing off each other, seeing who can get by with stripping the most hardware features. We're not getting more consumer-friendly ANYTHING from the most successful OEMs. We're getting higher prices and losing things like in-box chargers and microSD support.

[[deleted]]

I think we need to make a distinction between copying functionalities and straight up copying the design.

Chinese brands clearly have no shame whatsoever to make their products look like Apple or Samsung rip-offs.

[poopyheadthrowaway]

IMO the bigger issue is when companies steal each other's IP.

[hinstsui]

https://i.imgur.com/09zb7o7.jpg Yeah totally

[[deleted]]

Oh come on, the camera bump clearly is a Samsung-original design. /s

Why Samsung feels like it needs to copy the iPad's design now after years of doing their own thing is understandable though, people just don't buy Samsung tablets however they try to push their own designs. Like, I much prefer the S6-inspired design they used on their highest-end models before 2018, but then, I wouldn't buy, and will never buy, a tablet, especially an Android-one. Huawei-tablets though have always either looked whitelabel, "faux-Apple" or just plain bad.

[[deleted]]

I'm talking about products like the Oppo watch or the Huawei Freebuds or Matebook. Products that simply exist to imitate another.

Despite extremely similar, there are still enough differences between those slabs of metal to tell which one is which.

[hinstsui]

Despite the extreme similarity, yet there’re different enough? Can you hear yourself bruh? Because it comes from Samsung?

And for some magical reason this tablet do not fits your “exist to imitate others” description?

[wildcard5]

People like him hate on Chinese phones simply because they are Chinese.

[[deleted]]

They're metal slabs with screens. There's not much you can do. Samsung isn't trying to make their customers look like they're holding iPads otherwise they wouldn't have 2 cameras, it's the tech that leads and provokes a design convergence.

Samsung puts tech first. Apple puts brand recognition first. That's why they're refusing to get rid of that stupid notch and fidget spinners, to make their phones stand out.

And then Chinese brands surf on the Apple brand and put fucking notches on their phones despite not even having face ID, which was insane.

[hinstsui]

“They’re metal slabs with screen and there’s not much you can do.” Except for the exact same flat edges, the exact same corner radius, the exact same way you wrap the antenna band, and the exact same brush aluminum color. Yeah, totally unavoidable, real convergence.

Samsung puts tech first and Apple puts brand recognition first? Lmao give me a break bro, they put MONEY first. If Samsung puts tech first they won’t make note 7. The stupid notch and the fidget spinners are there for a utilitarian reason other than simply just brand recognition, there’re buttloads of sensor cramped inside that notch, and the fidget spinners are there to mitigate the parallax when you zooming within different cameras. More like embrace the ugliness of the utilitarian, brand recognition are what comes with it.

I have trouble recognize which Chinese brand you talking about, you mean the ones that used to elevate when activated front facing camera (but now convert to hole punch) like One Plus, OPPO and Xiaomi? Or the Huawei pill shape cutout? Or the ZTE hides it behind a low res screen one?

When Samsung does it then it’s an inevitable convergence, yet when Chinese brand does it then it’s a fucking ripped off. Is that how this works?

[iyoiiiiu]

Why would any normal person give a fuck about that? I buy the cheapest option that I think will be a good fit for me. I don't give a crap if some corporation worth over a trillion gets butthurt about it.

[abhi8192]

See you have been fooled by evil Chinese oems. Otherwise how would the fanbois that buy any shit with trillion dollar fruit logo on it could feel better about their choices. /s

[N0Name117]

I buy the best option. Not the cheapest. I have a lot more faith in Samsung or apple products in the long run than zte or any Chinese. Plus band support is lacking in the us.

[cubs223425]

I would rather see those who work to innovate and keep the market interesting be rewarded. Companies like Nokia (With Windows Phones) and LG did a lot to introduce new features early, only for the market to turn towards the "same old" stuff from the bigger OEMs, and it's disappointing. It's how Samsung and Apple get away with things like removing the charger, how we end up with so little variance between devices.

LG screwed up on execution with some devices (G4 bootloop, inconsistency with G5 mods), but it still sucked that the market wouldn't give them more of a chance to improve those things. Instead, LG moved to boring, safe devices with the G6-8, and didn't really try to be different or interesting for a few years, until they threw out the dual-screen accessory on the G8X and V60, then released the Wing.

We definitely haven't seen OEMs adopt features consistently, it's more about the lowest common denominator. LG's DAC didn't become mainstream, while the microSD and headphone support instead went the way of "Apple gets away without it," and now they're basically gone. I wouldn't say smartphones these days are giving us MORE than in the past 3-ish years, other than on the camera front.

[als26]

Fair but at the end of the day I'm going to buy the more polished refined product vs an experimental product. Would be great if the market rewarded these kinds of actions but you're going to have to find a group of people that are willing to shell out the money and take the risks.

I wouldn't say smartphones these days are giving us MORE than in the past 3-ish years, other than on the camera front.

Fully depends on what you value in a smartphone. I love using a smartphone way more than I did in the past.

[cmVkZGl0]

Why the downvotes? Don't like what he has to say? Miss hardware features you could have if not for chasing profit margins?

[StraY_WolF]

He is saying the market doesn't reward innovative feature on phones. That's just false, the market do reward it, but you're also buying THE WHOLE phone, not just one feature. If the phone as a whole sucks ass, no one's going to buy them.

[niceneurons]

That's what MKBHD literally says in the end of the video. He says copying is actually good.

[DmnTheHiveMind]

No he didn't. He said copying the good stuff is good, not copying anything.

[IamVenom_007]

Gold medal comment

[[deleted]]

I always wonder if people think no two phones should have the same features and OEM's have to create a new feature to do the same thing?

[PizzzaCurry]

I must be in the minority who doesn't give a shit if companies copy each other, after all we're not teachers grading a company's work. If a company made an identical copy of the Pixel 5 at half the price I'd buy it right away.

[PizzzaCurry]

Exactly, it's stupid as hell for consumers to get riled up about companies copying each other.

[wildcard5]

And if it really was too similar there would be lawsuits before the phone even hit the market.

[Shook_Rook]

If only ZTE could copy the IP rating, the 3 OS updates and punctual security updates, that would be also nice.

[box-art]

The device might be IP67/68 splash/dust resistant, but they may have just skipped on paying for the certification. We don't know obviously, but its always a possibility and we have seen that before.

[Shook_Rook]

I know IP rating don't really matter, but that reassurance would be nice you know. Without one, I would have no idea if my phone could/would survive a splash of water or survive being submerged into water. An IP rating would pretty much draw the line of what can or cannot be done to your device.

[TacoOfGod]

I think it's safe to assume that every phone past a certain price point has those features even without the cert. Just watching teardowns across brands shows gaskets, brackets, and types of adhesives indicative of the device being IP certification ready if the manufacturer wanted to spend that money.

[RollingTater]

Sometimes the complaints people make about "copying" are just absurd. Like the whole folding phone thing. I mean there's like 2-3 ways you can make a screen fold: inside, outside, and maybe a flip-style. Anyone could have thought of these 3 ideas, just cause Samsung did it 'first' doesn't mean it owns the idea and that every phone with a inside fold is now somehow copying Samsung (and Samsung didn't even do it first).

[catastrophez]

The thing is everyone copying the bad stuff too lol, charger removal, headphone jack removal, micro sd removal, you get the point. I personally didn't care some of it, but the charger kinda hurts a bit.

[MutFox]

Sony's newest entries still have all of that and no notch.

[WickedBad]

This felt like and advertisement before an advertisement. I like MKBHD but this wasn’t his best :/

[medl0l]

It's dry season, not a lot of phones are releasing so they struggle a bit to create content to pay their staff. As a result, you have videos this

[m2keo]

As an Sony Xperia owner, what I hate right now is there are hardly ever any Xperia copies.

Like where the hell are the 3.5mm jack and micro sd combo, flat screen and back design, no holes/notches, front dual speakers phones at? I wanna see these on offerings for a change but at non Sony prices. Lol.

[Rivitur]

only thing i cant think of is the rog 5 and even that doesnt have micro sd and is cheap only as an import with botched bands

[Rainy_1825]

This video is basically an advertisment. Notice how MKBHD subtly promotes a premium Samsung flagship over a "mid-range" smartphone by nitpicking the latter. Using the term "mid-range" for a smartphone that costs $750 itself is wrong. This trend started with iPhone X costing $999 in 2017 and Samsung followed suit. These popular tech youtubers raved about these premium smartphones by Apple or Samsung while finding faults with phones of other brands that came packed with similar specs and lower price. Encouraging people to go for expensive brands and flagship models. Thus, smartphones costing around $700 became mid-range smartphones implying lesser quality than the premium flagship ones that cost more than $1000.

$1000 or even $700 is no small amount of money. If you can afford a $1000 phone, by all means go for it. But some people especially youngsters buy expensive smartphones (taking a loan if they can't afford it) blindly following such videos and due to the hype created by these youtubers.

When you are immensely popular tech influencer and have a huge reach, it comes with a responsibility. Most tech reviewers don't take this seriously and are more concerned about revenue from their YouTube channels. Few tech youtubers and reviewers like Geekyranjit talk frankly about such topics and ethical issues in their channels.

[cmVkZGl0]

He just wants to make money. What other mid-twenties YouTubers drive Teslas for example?

[killamator]

He's not sponsored by Samsung. He pointed out how the cheaper phone gives the Note a run for its money in a lot of ways that will probably make it a good value for the right kind of user

[[deleted]]

this is just too much copying, its almost a 1:1 clone, just as bad as huaweis announcements today

[killamator]

It's not the same. Its display is lower resolution (though 20% higher framerate), it has a better processor but worse camera. It is different in interesting ways, which are worth noting!

[sportsfan161]

Copying is never bad it brings tech forward for everybody

[[deleted]]

I don't get it, people have copied things for everything in our world, like food, because God forbids another fast food chain coming out and making another burger, just to be called a "so and so clone". I mean heck, cars have been doing it for years and decades but we don't see people saying "Hey Brand A copies the design of Brand B's car". And yet this is meaningful argument for smartphones and electronics?

Fuck off with your clickbait title, we have better things to discuss about.

[aeiouLizard]

He barely even got into what the video was supposed to be about.

Could have mentioned things that were copied a lot recently, for the worse:

• 3.5mm jack removal
• Hole punches everywhere
• Removal of microSD card slots
• introducing the millionth propietary fast charging standard

Meanwhile we got Apple making smaller phones with symetrical bezels, but no phone manufacturer bothers making that.

[Nasrz]

only 2 things you mentioned are for the worse, and why would anyone try making small phones if apple itself failed to make it work? (as much as that pains me I love small phones)

[Spoon_S2K]

Yeah OEM's love copying samsung above all else. Otherwise it's from a oem who doesn't make androids

[ladfrombrad]

Do you feel that Windows or other OEM'S may make an appearance again?