The Weekly Authority: Knowing the Note limits, lucky 888 for Qualcomm, and more

Welcome back to The Weekly Authority, the Android Authority series that rounds up the week’s top Android and tech news and what it means. Tristan Rayner at the pen, and I’ll talk all about the Samsung Galaxy Note series and the S Pen on. But first…

Popular news

Lots of big news this week, nothing more than what you get from the next generation Qualcomm Snapdragon.

• The Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 was announced at a two-day summit, which is now based on a 5nm process, a faster and more efficient CPU and GPU, and an integrated 5G modem. Our deep insight into the technical data dealt with all the details. Here is a list of the Snapdragon 888 phones and brands confirmed so far
• Following this news, Xiaomi seems to be announcing the Snapdragon 888-M11 series as early as this month (Android Authority).
• Apple has been fined $ 10 million by Italian regulators because water differs from laboratory tests in real life. This means that Italy’s regulars think that the actual water resistance of iPhones doesn’t live up to the, um, bubbly marketing. However, Italy’s regulator gives Apple 60 days to react!
• ((Android Authority).
• The Samsung Galaxy S21 may be a lot cheaper than its predecessor, which is a welcome prospect. It still starts at a supposed $ 849 and up to $ 1,299 for the S21 Ultra model, but the S20 Ultra was $ 100 more. Discounts are always welcome! The problem? The iPhone 12 starts at $ 829 for the SIM-free model ($ 879 for 128GB of storage).
• Spotify launched its 2020 Wrapped campaign for the year that exploded on social media. People love to see their music stats and share insights. I would be amazed if Spotify didn’t try to amplify this success in different ways, not just annually.
• And Warner Bros has put its entire 2021 movie schedule on HBO Max, along with cinemas like Dune, Matrix 4, the new Space Jam, and The Suicide Squad, in line with the previously announced Wonder Woman 24.

There are also a few leaks and rumors:

reviews

The busy season for new gadgets isn’t over yet, but as we’re busy putting new gadgets through their paces, you’re getting an easy week of reading.

• Xbox Series X Review: The Xbox Series X is basically brilliant, but you’re betting that the future is full of classic games because it doesn’t exist yet. At least it’s a pretty safe bet – from Ollie Cragg.
• And here’s another one: Nurvv Run Review, Smart Insoles That Might Help You With Your Shape If You Can Tolerate the Slight Oddness of Them – by Jimmy Westenberg. (I have to ask Jiimmy if they can help me get from the laptop to the fridge in better shape …)

Features & opinion

Our feature team has been pretty busy on the Snapdragon 888 front this week:

Immediate authorization: The end of the note

The news out Reuters This week seems to confirm reports from South Korea that have been circulating for some time: Samsung may be discontinuing high-end smartphones with Galaxy Note.

From the report:

Instead, the top of the Galaxy S-series, the S21, will have a stylus and the next version of Samsung’s foldable phone will be compatible with a stylus that will be sold separately, one of the sources said.

A second source said business development efforts that would normally have been directed towards the Note are now being directed into its foldable phone range.

That makes too much sense to argue with. Samsung’s leaflets continue to impress, and the Galaxy S series isn’t doing what the Note is until early this year.

The case of the note:

There was once a statement about owning a Samsung Galaxy Note. It was the anti-Apple device with a huge screen and state of the art technology that carried the specs to the maximum and also increased the limit of your wallet to the maximum.

I owned the Galaxy Note 2, which I bought for A $ 669 in January 2013, or about $ 600 in custody at the 2013 exchange rates.

The grade 2 was a dream. I had an iPhone 3Gs before, but the Note 2 had 4G functions, NFC, what was then a huge 5.5-inch display, a battery life of days, a split-screen function for apps and the S Pen. The S, of course Pen with up to 1,024 sensitivity levels!

But I’ve rarely used the S Pen because … why should anyone? It was a bit of fun scribbling and jotting down notes, and at least I didn’t lose them, but I didn’t make a deep connection with the pen. After that, I didn’t really get into a note anymore.

After that and when checking devices, such as the Nexus 6P just got the right Google feel and I was fed up with TouchWiz. I remember doing lengthy trials with the Galaxy S6 Edge, but when I was about to buy again, the Note 7 happened – inevitably here as one of the few disasters we’ve seen in the smartphone world.

As Samsung has continued to develop the series over the past few years, it seems increasingly just a matter of iterative changes from Note 9 to Note 10 and finally to this year’s Note 20 Ultra. Meanwhile, the S-Series, which once didn’t hold a candle on the note line, felt like the same phone without a pen.

Problems with price and innovation:

Although the Note gradually lost its appeal, Samsung continued to raise prices.

This is how it felt to me, using a hand-drawn diagram of how price and innovation seemed to go in the series. Ironically, I wish I had a note on how to use the S pen:

And while innovations are hard to quantify, for the actual data on these prices, an actual chart provides a full list of note prices starting from the first note in 2011 to today:

The note has reached a natural plateau. Yes, the series is better, brighter, now has 5G, the cameras can do more, DeX is useful, the pen has improved and a lot more. But little is in the realm of true innovation. This is now the Galaxy Fold line. Samsung didn’t try to keep the Note line going with a Note Fold or similar branding. Eric Zeman, our review editor, gave a detailed breakdown of the pros and cons that reads well and makes sense.

In short, the balance has tipped in the direction of the stalled stave. As my colleague C. Scott Brown said in his personal farewell this week, “The Galaxy Note series had its day and that day is over.”

The same plateau also hits other manufacturers, but the Samsung Note vs S vs Fold problem was severe.

What can you expect in 2021?

This means that Samsung has a lot more wood to leave fewer arrows behind.

Instead of the hassle of shopping the Note and Fold at the same time of year, the Fold line gets all the attention, the marketing dollars, and doesn’t have to try to justify where the Note fits compared to the Galaxy S and the Fold. The fold line will reportedly expand to three devices this year, including a lower-cost option that might appeal to those put off by the high price of foldables so far.

And on the S series, the Galaxy S21 could be one of the best new Samsung smartphones in years, with the promising Snapdragon 888 powering the device.

This is good news for Samsung. While rivals don’t have the grade as competition, it won’t be easy to compete with a nifty, more sensible lineup.

deals

A little feedback from us on the deals with a summary of Black Friday! I spoke with our team to find some data on the top devices people bought or were most interested in during the Black Friday / Cyber ​​Monday sales extravaganza. This is all by our own rough data, nothing official.

The The following devices were popular::

• Smartphones: Moto G Power (with a price drop of at least 50%), Pixel 4a, Samsung Galaxy S20 FE and Google Pixel 5. The Galaxy S20 was the best-selling high-end flagship.
• Popular gadgets: Google Nest Wifi router in a 2-pack, Samsung Evo 512 GB microSDXC cards and, interestingly, the Nintendo Switch Pro controller (which I own and love too!).
• Headphones and earphones: Anker Soundcore Liberty Air 2, Sony WH-1000XM4 and Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus.

The good news is that after the deal feast at the end of November, things are not really going to be “normal” again.

Tech tweet of the week

calendar

The next week looks calm, unless you anticipate US states planning to sue Facebook over possible antitrust violations.Reuters).

Give away

We’re giving away three prize packages this month! Take part in the competition in December and win.

That’s it guys! We’ll have more top Android stories for you next week. Stay up to date on all things Android Authority In the meantime, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter using the link below.