Samsung Electronics Co’s product showcase on Sunday was notable for what was missing: A new flagship smartphone.
Instead, Samsung is spotlighting new Android and Windows tablets after delaying the Galaxy S8 smartphone — an indirect casualty of the unprecedented September last year recall of the fire-prone Note 7 smartphone.
The new tablets are to carry the Galaxy brand and come with many of the Note 7’s features, including the S Pen stylus and screens with rich colors.
Consumers will have to wait at least a few weeks longer for details on Samsung’s next major smartphone. That is partly so that Samsung would not have to share the stage with its smartphone rivals at the Mobile World Congress trade show, which began yesterday in Barcelona, Spain.
The delay also gives Samsung more time to make sure it has done everything right, given that any minor bug will surely draw outsized attention.
“The microscope is going to be firmly on Samsung,” said Geoff Blaber, an analyst with the research firm CCS Insight.
Samsung said the new tablets will go through extensive safety checks put in place after dozens of Note 7 smartphone overheated and in some cases exploded.
Those incidents prompted aviation authorities to ban them on flights; Samsung eventually killed the product.
Samsung wants everyone to focus on its tablets’ most notable features: The new Galaxy Tab S3, running Google’s Android system, will have a glass back and metal frame, borrowing designs from Samsung’s smartphones.
The screen technology, called AMOLED, offers richer colors and purer blacks than standard LCD screens.
The absence of a new Samsung smartphone gives rivals a chance to shine.
LG PUSHES NEW PHONE
LG Electronics Co, for instance, is pushing a G6 smartphone that is slightly smaller than the Note 7, but matches the doomed phone’s 5.7-inch screen size.
LG is also matching major rivals in offering water and dust resistance, though in doing so, it got rid of an ability to replace the battery with a spare — a feature LG had long cited to set itself apart from rivals.
Meanwhile, Motorola has a new version of its mid-range Moto G phone, while Chinese smartphone maker TCL Corp unveiled a BlackBerry Android smartphone with a physical keyboard after BlackBerry gave up on making hardware itself.
It would be tough, though, for any company to stand out as innovation in smartphones slows down.
The challenges are underscored by that only Apple Inc appears to have benefited from Samsung’s troubles.
According to research firm IDC, worldwide iPhone shipments grew 5 percent in the fourth quarter compared with the previous year.
That is about the same as what Samsung lost.
Even after the Note 7 recall, many consumers decided to stay with Samsung, analysts say.
Switching to the iPhone means learning a new operating system and buying new apps, while Google could not produce enough of a promising Android contender, the Pixel, to meet demand.
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