back to article Samsung phones, Apple's iPhones are 'overpriced', says top Huawei exec

Although Huawei phones are getting more expensive, the company still thinks Samsung and Apple phones are "overpriced", a top executive told us this week. As president of Huawei's consumer business for Europe, Walter Ji looks after one of the company's roaring successes. Although Huawei lost its top spot in China last year, it …

  1. AMBxx Silver badge
    WTF?

    reduced the wattage or the current

    OR?

    So they're adjusting resistance and voltage too?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: reduced the wattage or the current

      Yes, doesn't make sense. Also 4.5A 9W implies a 2V battery.

      1. Grunchy Silver badge

        Re: reduced the wattage or the current

        No, 4.5A 9W implies 0.4444 ohms resistance.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: reduced the wattage or the current

          Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. Ohm nevermind, this joke leaves me feeling discharged, empty, flat. Maybe I need more caffeine to jump start my brain? Yeah, that's it, I'll go recharge my brain & spike this current unconductive & unproductive train of thought...

    2. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: reduced the wattage or the current

      The UK charger that comes with the Galaxy S7 does 9v (IIRC) in addition to 5v, over microUSB. Presumably it only supplies 9v if it detects that it is connected to a compatible phone. It may that Huewai are adjusting the voltage too.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    In half a year Android can lose half its speed?

    How's that possible? It isn't like CPUs get slower or RAM gets full, it would have to be storage related. Surely it uses a decent filesystem like ext3/ext4, and not vFAT for the internal storage, right? If it isn't getting fragmented, how could this slowness occur?

    Machine learning to combat Android getting slow with age, that sounds like it might be an alternative fact worthy of the master himself!

    1. Michael B.

      Re: In half a year Android can lose half its speed?

      It sounds like the old Windows cruft idea that the installation of more and more apps that install more and more background processes that cause a gradual slowdown.

      1. sabroni Silver badge

        Re: It sounds like the old Windows cruft idea

        It does sound like that but my old Android had slowed up loads over the course of 2 years and I seldom install apps, or update the ones I have. As well as slowing down the phone is also getting buggier (it keeps dropping the music player from the lock screen now, a feature I've used since I got the phone but which has become flaky in the last 3 months.)

        I've got nothing useful to add about how Android gets in this state, but in my experience (with my phone and the kids phones) Android degrades with use irrespective of how much you install.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: It sounds like the old Windows cruft idea

          Your seldom update OS and Apps are probably full of unpatched security holes and your phone is running slowly as any time it isn't spending sharing your personal details with Russia is used to pump out spam to the rest of us. Why not fucking update?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            @AC, Re: It sounds like the old Windows cruft idea

            It's not my fault the manufacturer hasn't pushed out an OTA to me. So what is a typical John Q. Public supposed to do, write his own patch? Or do you suggest the landfill method & just buying a brand new piece of shit that's two months newer than the one in my hand, just so I can get a model that the manufacturer claims to still support?

            Fuck it. I'll have to run an unpatched version until either the maker creates a patch, some nice third party coder takes it upon themselves to do it for us mere peons, or I finally have to replace the phone.

            We're stuck between a rock & a hard place with very few options. Unless we want to reward the landfill mentality of the makers, we're pretty much stuck with what we've got. And yet for some dumb fucked up reason you seem to think that's OUR fault?

        2. MrT

          Re: It sounds like the old Windows cruft idea

          Android keeps logfiles that build over time. If you've a Samsung device, dial *#9900# and select the second option on the menu that this opens - "Delete dumpstate/logcat" - I tried this on an old Galaxy S2 that had slowed to a crawl and saved well over a gig of internal storage - the phone's now usable again and updates as much as it is able.

          The same trick also worked on an S3, though that has a different memory model and wasn't complaining about running out of storage - it has made it more reliable though, since it was crashing daily when running its TRIM routine on internal RAM, something that hasn't happened since clearing those logfiles.

          YMMV, and AFAIK that code only works for Samsung - worth a try if that's you. It doesn't need root access either.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: It sounds like the old Windows cruft idea

            Well, that's news to me. Never have had any slowdown at all on any of my iPhones. It is obvious why the OEMs like Samsung have little incentive to address this issue, but you would think Google would want to...

            1. GrumpyOldBloke

              Re: It sounds like the old Windows cruft idea

              Google doesn't seem to have the issue - 3 and a bit years on a Nexus 5 and no noticeable performance changes. Could be planned obsolescence, manufacturers cruft or cheap nvram. Might be better for Huawei to identify the actual problem rather than plastering over it with ML.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: It sounds like the old Windows cruft idea

                What's their incentive for educating people about the issue rather than solving it with an exclusive feature?

          2. Youngone Silver badge

            Re: It sounds like the old Windows cruft idea

            Thanks MrT.

            I now pity the fool who doesn't know about dialling *#9900# on their Sammy.

            I've just freed up about a Gig of space on my S4.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: In half a year Android can lose half its speed?

      That will be the cheap crappy flash.

  3. Duncan Macdonald

    Still overpriced

    Unless you play a lot of games when the extra graphics power of a high end phone might be justified, there is no point in paying over £200 for a phone. There are a lot of generic Android phones with good displays, lots of storage and micro-SD compatibility for under £200 - only pay more if there is some specific feature that you need or if you like wasting money.

  4. Colin Ritchie
    Windows

    Huawei seem a bit pricey too.

    http://www.phonearena.com/phones/compare/Motorola-Moto-G4-Plus,Huawei-P9/phones/10053%2C10012

    The £200 Moto G4 plus compares very well with the £350 P9. The Moto G5 promises to compete well too, imho.

    1. Chz

      Re: Huawei seem a bit pricey too.

      For general use, I reckon you're right. But the Kirin chip in the Huawei is vastly more powerful than the Moto's 8xA53 setup.

      My main issue with Huawei is that bastard of an "OS" they install. Easily one of the worst Android skins in existence. I'd buy one in a heartbeat if they made an AOSP build available for power users.

  5. DrXym

    Yes Samsung / Apple phones are overpriced

    That doesn't make Huawei phones good though. Hardware wise they're okay but the software, specifically EMUI is just balls.

    Phone customization should take the philosophy, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" whereas Huawei seem to go with the philosophy "we've fixed stuff which didn't need fixing and managed to break it in the process". Things like removing the app drawer so icons are just slapped down in the order that they were installed.

    A Huawei phone running a near-stock vanilla Android might actually be quite nice to use.

    1. Calum Morrison

      Re: Yes Samsung / Apple phones are overpriced

      But Samsung's software (even more expensive) is even worse! I thought Huawei were supposed to have just a light dusting of cruft (crufting?) on their handsets?

      Give me as close to stock as possible, such as Motorola - or preferably my WileyFox's (soon to be MIA) CyanogenMod.

      1. DrXym

        Re: Yes Samsung / Apple phones are overpriced

        I'm not defending Samsung's changes either. Phone makers are too quick to gratuitously alter the phone experience and load the phone up with crapware for no good reason whatsoever. However if it was a Samsung vs Huawei then Samsung would win. But it's not because Samsung's UI is good, but because Huawei's is worse.

    2. Nezumi
      Thumb Up

      Balls...

      I fully agree with you.

      I have no use for UI layers like EMUI. Whilst I'm told that they add value in eastern markets, I don't care.

      I've had very positive experiences with my Huawei watch. I know smartwatches aren't exactly kewl, but a discreet *buzz* on my wrist is quite handy in meetings. I get value, but fully appreciate that others may not.

      I suspect that a lot of this value is that they can't **** with it. Google need to grow a pair on this one.

      In summary, I suspect the kit is good, but ditch the UI crap for the western market. We don't want it and personally it stops me from buying your devices.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They're all mostly overpriced landfill.

    When today's flagship tech drops 50% or more in price to the consumer in less than a year, that's pretty much all the proof you need it was overpriced in the first place.

    As stated by a previous commenter, you can get a cheap-as-chips budget phone that's got a speedy SOC, 2~4GiB of RAM, 32GiB of onboard storeage, an SD slot, a headphone jack, & even a removeable battery if you look.

    The flagship ones offer a (slightly) faster SOC, perhaps a bit more RAM, (slightly) more storeage, & they're increasingly coming with no SD slot, headphone jack, nor removeable battery, all for 5x the price or more.

    So yes Apple, Samsung, & pretty much all the others are overpriced landfill, especially when they build in a planned obsolescence timeframe that won't outlive the permanent battery.

    Fuck that, I'll go buy an ElCheapo budget phone, save myself the hundreds of folding money, & laugh at your whining about lost profits.

    If you offered a good spec phone with an SD card, removeable battery, headphone jack, & no crap overlay UI on top of what's already there, all for a price under the 200Pounds mark, then MAYBE I'd do business with you, but until then I'm voting with my wallet.

    *Double handed, three flippers, a couple of tentacles, a freshly grown appendage just for this, obscene gesture in frustration & disgust*

    1. Gio Ciampa

      Re: They're all mostly overpriced landfill.

      "a good spec phone with an SD card, removeable battery, headphone jack, & no crap overlay UI on top of what's already there, all for a price under the 200Pounds mark"

      (Apart from the battery) I'm seriously considering a Nokia 6 for these very reasons - will wait a few months though just to make sure any launch gremlins are squashed...

    2. WolfFan Silver badge

      Re: They're all mostly overpriced landfill.

      Eh, not so much. I used to have an iPhone 4s; it has been replaced by an iPhone SE. I like the small form-factor. Prior to the 4s I had a cheap Android, a ZTE.

      The ZTE is the reason why I got the 4s.

      The ZTE gave me nothing but trouble. It dropped calls. It ran hot. It was completely unsupported by both ZTE and the cellco. It froze without warning. It was cheap... but it was useless.

      The 4s simply worked from the start. I had good battery life. The 4s rarely dropped calls. It did not, ever, freeze. It ran cool, except when charging. It warmed up but did not run hot when charging. Apple supported it for 5 years. I was able to sell it, after 5 years, for $100 which I applied against the price of the SE is bought to replace it. The SE is my current main phone. Again, it runs cool, it does not drop calls, it is fully supported, it has good battery life. I have 64 GB storage on it, and that's more than I need (55 GB left after Apple puts in their stuff; 43 left right now) so I don't care about SD cards. I can get two days use out of a single charge. And it does what I want it to, when I want it to. All of that is worth money to me. I will gladly pay to NOT HAVE TO FIDDLE WITH THE DAMN PHONE ALL THE TIME, which was one of the things I had to do with the ZTE. I will gladly pay for a phone which will reliably, well, make and receive phone calls. The ZTE was extremely unreliable. I will gladly pay for a phone which is supported. So far as I can tell, ZTE shoveled the phone I had out the door and promptly forgot it existed.

      YMMV.

      1. Calum Morrison

        Re: They're all mostly overpriced landfill.

        Fair play to the above; I'm too cheap to buy Apple (and don't like the iOS even if I wasn't) but accept that the price I pay for my parsimony is a lack of support and the odd wee (and sometimes not so wee) Android niggle. Being a clumsy bugger, I'm unlikely to get more than a couple of years out of a handset so can't work the increased purchase cost against depreciation/sell on value like you can, but recognise your experience to be as good a reason for buying Apple as I've seen.

      2. Grunchy Silver badge

        Re: They're all mostly overpriced landfill.

        I scooped up a 4S for free out of the Staples recycling bin!

        It has an excellent accelerometer & GPS. Maybe one day I'll get a SIM card for it.

        1. Dave 126 Silver badge

          Re: They're all mostly overpriced landfill.

          I've just switched from a low-end (but very usable Huwaei) to a Nexus 5 (after fitting a new battery). Huewai was bought news half price for £45, has 4G, never annoyingly slow for basic tasks, poor camera - good value though. Nexus 5 feels fast, can't immediately imagine what anything faster could do. I knew that anyway, because it shares he same generation of Qualcom SoC as my broken-screened Xperia Z3C.

          Downsides?

          Huewai overlay subtly annoying for some operations. Stock Android on Nexus 5 has to be told not to bring up irrelevant notifications (related to Play Store and Google Maps) the whole damned time. Grrr. Nexus battery life not great (2300mAh), especially compared to my smaller-screened Z3C (a proper 2-dayer, a treat!)

          The process of switching handsets was not as smooth as Apple, either. Numbers transferred fine (if you avoided Huwaei default of not saving to Google), but not SMSs ( could be done with an app though) or WiFi passwords ((Grr!).

          It seems that if some has the money to avoid the Grr, I wouldn't blame them.

    3. tiggity Silver badge

      Re: They're all mostly overpriced landfill.

      What AC said, plus many OK spec cheap as chips phones that are Dual SIM too, which can be useful in not spot areas

      Had a variety of Androids, only one that I had problems with was the most expensive (a Google Nexus) that developed nasty hardware problem & the (relatively) huge quoted repair cost led me to a cheapo instead and cheapo route has served me well. Only replacements since have been when I needed better spec phone (use some apps a lot that have requirements "creep" - initially work on one hardware spec but periodically min hardware requirements increased until new phone needed to run, though same "creep" also applies to Apple equivalent of those apps so buying Apple would not be a solution)

  7. Duffaboy
    Thumb Down

    APPLE- Never knowingly

    Oversold £££££££

  8. Gio Ciampa

    "Samsung. They spend a lot on marketing"

    Funniest advert on right now... Samsung's "Quality Assurance"

    Do they think everyone has forgotten the Note 7 already...?

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Down not across

      Re: "Samsung. They spend a lot on marketing"

      Do they think everyone has forgotten the Note 7 already...?

      Of course they don't. Why do you think they're running that advert?

      They'll bang that drum for a month or so at least until the Unpacked 2017.

  9. andy 103

    WhoAreWe?

    It's all about business.

    It's hard to take the piss out of Samsung and Apple when you work for a company that sounds, aptly, like "who are we".

    It doesn't matter if Apple charged 2 grand for a phone, they'd still sell them. Same for Samsung.

    People don't seem to understand that there's not an exact correlation between how technically good/bad something is, and how popular it is, or how well it sells.

    Once you understand that mindset, you might be more profitable than those you are taking the piss out of. See also - people who slate Microsoft. Well, they've done pretty well financially, so maybe they have some idea of how to run a business.

    Maybe some companies understand marketing and branding better than others. You can ignore this if you want, but nobody's even going to know that much about you to care, if you ever come up with something "good".

  10. Gis Bun

    Not really surprised an executive from a competing company would whine that the competitors are more expensive.

    But at least Samsung phones will drop in price fast enough. With a promo, I paid nothing for my S7 a month after it came out [actually my provider owed me money].

    Apple on the other hand doesn't drop prices much [excluding Xmas, etc.] and will only drop as a new model comes in.

    That said, the iPhone 8 may hit $1000US.

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