It is a well-known fact that Samsung is the market leader when it comes to smartphones. The manufacturer has held the number one position for a number of years now. It can be said that Samsung is to smartphone what Maruti is to cars, that is the penetration that Samsung has enjoyed. Coming in behind Nokia which was then the market leader and making a place for itself wasn’t very easy for the Korean Giant. Being among the first manufacturers to adopt Android did help them immensely but here are 5 of their smartphones that changed the way we look at Samsung today.
The first Galaxy flagship was also among the most powerful smartphone during its time. The device had a 4 inch Super AMOLED display and was light for its size. It stood out thanks to its punchy contrast and deep blacks. The Samsung Wave which ran on Samsung’s own BADA OS had the same tech but it was the Galaxy S and Android that made it a desirable combination.
The Galaxy S came with Samsung’s own TouchWiz UI 3.0 and like other manufacturers was more focused towards Social networking. The phone had a 5-megapixel camera at the back was on par with other Android devices and lacked a flash. The phone had a 1GHz Humming Bird processor which was marginally better than the Snapdragon chips in competitors like the Xperia X10. The trust Samsung built over the years bundled with the good offering that the Galaxy S was lead to the Galaxy S series we now look forward to. Even its successor the Galaxy SII helped Samsung cement its position in the high-end segment of the market. The Galaxy SII still has an active developer community that has managed to keep the old phone running on recent Android builds.
Samsung Galaxy Note
When Samsung first launched the Galaxy Note everyone was talking about the size of the device. The phone has a then huge 5.3-inch display with a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels. The Note became the link between the tablet and the smartphone and was perfect for people who wanted a smaller tablet that could do much more than a smartphone. This was the first powerful phablet from Samsung and featured a stylus which has now become the identity of the Samsung Note series. The device had 1GB of RAM which was abundant back then along with a big 2500mAh battery that could power the phone for over a day. While the phabet was big, it did find a lot of takers. The stylus was marketed to boost productivity with the ability to take down notes quickly. But it wasn’t all that serious, doodliing in your free time was fun as well. With the Note, Samsung gave its customers a powerful device, a bigger screen estate to see more and a stylus to take quick notes and memos.
Samsung Galaxy S3
To say that the Galaxy S3 was one of the first major commercial success stories for Samsung in mobile phone space, would not be wrong. After its launch in 2012, at its peak, Samsung was selling about 190,000 units of the phone every day. About 9 million pre-orders were received in just two weeks, giving a very tough fight to the likes of iPhone 4s at the time. The phone was was one of the most sold smartphones of all time; To the point that there are still people out there who use the Galaxy S3 or a variant of it and like it. The Galaxy S3 was the device that pretty much made having an HD screen on a mobile phone, a trend. It was the success of the phone that pretty much popularised the plastic design of the phone so much that several Samsung devices were based on it. In terms of specifications, the phone came with a 4.8 inch AMOLED panel and was powered by Snapdragon S4. Incidentally, the success of S3 not just was a good news for Samsung but also thrust Qualcomm into the limelight.
Samsung Galaxy Alpha
The Samsung Galaxy Alpha on the list might come as a surprise for some. The Alpha was a small phone in the time when Samsung was making bigger phones with the Galaxy and the Note series. There was something special with the Galaxy Alpha and it had to do with the way the device was built. The Alpha was Samsung’s first all metal phone. Samsung did make a lot of smatphones before the Alpha and almost all were criticized for having a poor plasticky built. The Alpha was the answer and the first step for Samsung towards building phones with premium materials. The Alpha wasn’t the best as a device, the tiny battery and a powerful processor meant that it needed to be plugged in often in comparison to others. But ask someone what they love about the Alpha and the answer would be the build quality and the feel in the hand. The phone was discontinued but the essence still lives on in the form of the A series.
Samsung Galaxy S6/ S6 Edge
The Galaxy S5 didn’t do really well for Samsung, it just fell flat on its face after it was launched and the competition wasn’t easy either. Being the successor this phone had a lot of weight on its shoulders already, and perhaps the Galaxy S7 will feel the same as it is set to be announced at the MWC 2015 as the successor to the S6. The time this smartphone was launched wasn’t the best time in the industry. The majority of the flagships that were coming out had to reply on the Snapdragon 810 chipset, which wasn’t perfect in the first place but was the only good flagship chip around. Samsung went ahead with its own Exynos 7420 Chipset while the others tried to tame the Snapdragon Chip. The Exynos chipset worked beautifully on the phone without any heating issue and was really fast. The Galaxy S6 Edge also deserves a special mention here thanks to its dual edge display. The phone managed to turn a lot of heads around with its unique design.
Which Samsung device has been your favorite? Let us know in the section below.
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