Sprint LG v20 still the best

[Greedog]

Would it be suffice to say that the markup is nearly 65% and stop the useless nitpicking?

 

[Itsa_Me_Mario]

Would it be suffice to say that the markup is nearly 65% and stop the useless nitpicking?

Nah, that'd be ignoring the fact that the the article contradicts that, which was already addressed in the "useless nitpicking" - though apparently insufficiently because the reason that figure is wildly inaccurate is addressed multiple times - and that recent years have grossly slimmed the margins on these devices.

It would be sufficient to say that BOM prices have increased by a large amount, especially recently and that BOM prices are nowhere near the total sunk costs that go into production. That's why almost all phone OEMs are losing money on their Hardware divisions. For many years Apple was the only exception to that.

 

[Greedog]

Nah, that'd be ignoring the fact that the the article contradicts that, which was already addressed in the "useless nitpicking" - though apparently insufficiently because the reason that figure is wildly inaccurate is addressed multiple times - and that recent years have grossly slimmed the margins on these devices.

It would be sufficient to say that BOM prices have increased by a large amount, especially recently and that BOM prices are nowhere near the total sunk costs that go into production. That's why almost all phone OEMs are losing money on their Hardware divisions. For many years Apple was the only exception to that.

Ok. Can we agree that given Apple's market share is still under 20% (last I checked) and they still make more money than all others combined. Would that not indicate a huge profit margin?
Apple makes great stuff and their ecosystem is top shelf. I used to buy some Apple products but never fully bought into their stuff totally due to over pricing. Still won't.
You're correct in saying that phone oem's disappear cuz they can't turn a profit sufficient enough to sustain growth. But...
For me and only me I will try to buy products at least a year old to try and keep as much money as I can in my pocket and still have the same amount of thrill. Just delayed and cheaper.
I love my gadgets and would love to try every flagship phone out there but it's all about money.
That's why I just bought the V20 two months ago. Saved a bundle. Still a great phone.

 

[Mike Dee]

Ok. Can we agree that given Apple's market share is still under 20% (last I checked) and they still make more money than all others combined. Would that not indicate a huge profit margin?
Apple makes great stuff and their ecosystem is top shelf. I used to buy some Apple products but never fully bought into their stuff totally due to over pricing. Still won't.
You're correct in saying that phone oem's disappear cuz they can't turn a profit sufficient enough to sustain growth. But...
For me and only me I will try to buy products at least a year old to try and keep as much money as I can in my pocket and still have the same amount of thrill. Just delayed and cheaper.
I love my gadgets and would love to try every flagship phone out there but it's all about money.
That's why I just bought the V20 two months ago. Saved a bundle. Still a great phone.

You could have bought the V20 a year ago and saved a bundle. Some phones devalue quicker than others.

 

[Itsa_Me_Mario]

Ok. Can we agree that given Apple's market share is still under 20% (last I checked) and they still make more money than all others combined. Would that not indicate a huge profit margin?

It doesn't mean a huge margin, it just means that there is a margin. When looking at the 20/80% we have to factor in that most phones sold globally are mid-range/budget devices that typically have no margin on the hardware. If we're looking at flagships, which is the only data available from what was linked for the BOM tables, Apple actually represents much closer to 50% of flagship sales. One a minimum number of sales is met, that number being the sum of all sunk costs divided by the sale price of each device less the BOM of each device, all sales from that point out are profit. Sunk costs include the number of devices planned for RMA processes, marketing of all devices, salaries and wages of all employees in the company, contract rates for all affiliate and partner agreements, cost of all R&D, etc. and they are divided proportionally across all unit sales. According to this post: https://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/ne...it-per-iphone-in-q3-2017-counterpoint-1793083 Apple made about $151 per iPhone made during Q3 of 2017, which they compare to Samsung, who averaged $31 per Samsung phone sold, over the same period. Obviously $151 per device on a lineup with a median price of $833.33 is a profit margin of only about 18%, which is a maximum value, because the real value would be on an aggregate mean price that is smaller due to more cheaper phones selling than the iPhone X.

 

[Almeuit]

You must love conspiracy theory websites lol. You sure do make a lot up.

Here's the thing: Google is a gigantic MONOPOLY. They buy and sell companies like Pokemon cards (Motorola, part of HTC, and many other apps/companies). Their sales for the Pixel was always low, pretending to be "out of stock" to create a false supply and demand, thus creating hype. They pay YouTube reviewers cash to "talk kindly" of their phone, even on this website too. That's called business and advertising. However, their sales are always weak and their products are just Google saying, "Look, we have our own version too!". VR? Not the best, Oculus wins. Chromecast? Weak.. people use Amazon TV. Pixel Chromebook? Overpowered junk, powerful so-called laptop that only can do cloud computing. Google has money, and money equals power.. had they been someone else, they'd be finished or bought out by now. Samsung number of sales are shrinking every year.. the top selling Galaxy phones were the S3 and S4. They make money doing other things, such as selling iPhone parts which they make much more money than their own phones. Samsung also has power too. HTC is on its last legs, literally. Motorola still has Lenovo's computer business keeping them alive. Apple is always number one for reasons unknown. I'm just saying it like it is and what I'm seeing happening right now. This new $300 Xiaomi Pocophone F1, if released to the US, will be a game changer.. extremely competitive Chinese brands can afford this kind of pricing.. let's see if the US will tax the heck out of them or not. Google can do whatever the heck they want and will not suffer losses.. they have play money like Monopoly.

 

[Almeuit]

Exactly. The Google camera is satisfactory.. pictures look good enough. Wired is just more convenient and with the DAC it sounds much better.. I think the obvious choice is people prefer the wired audio cables, they're only using Bluetooth now because they were "forced" to.

I was forced to use Bluetooth? No I wasn't .. I used it for years even when I had a jack lol. No wires is way more convenient for me.

 

[Itsa_Me_Mario]

All of these statements are false:

Google is a gigantic MONOPOLY

Their sales for the Pixel was always low, pretending to be "out of stock" to create a false supply and demand, thus creating hype.

They pay YouTube reviewers cash to "talk kindly" of their phone, even on this website too.

That's called business and advertising.

However, their sales are always weak and their products are just Google saying, "Look, we have our own version too!".

Chromecast? Weak.. people use Amazon TV

Pixel Chromebook? Overpowered junk, powerful so-called laptop that only can do cloud computing.

Google has money, and money equals power.. had they been someone else, they'd be finished or bought out by now

Motorola still has Lenovo's computer business keeping them alive.

Motorola still has Lenovo's computer business keeping them alive.

Apple is always number one for reasons unknown.

This new $300 Xiaomi Pocophone F1, if released to the US, will be a game changer.. extremely competitive Chinese brands can afford this kind of pricing.. let's see if the US will tax the heck out of them or not.

Google can do whatever the heck they want and will not suffer losses.

they have play money like Monopoly.

These ones need more clarification:

Samsung number of sales are shrinking every year.. the top selling Galaxy phones were the S3 and S4.

Source? I couldn't find anything that substantiated either claim except for the telegram article from last year, which was 1) based on erroneous data and 2) didn't consider the fact that smartphones sales, overall, as a market, are shrinking and Samsung is consistently WIDENING their lead in marketshare. In fact, Q4 2017, as an example, the top 6 OEM's ALL increased their marketshare, year over year. That means the smaller OEM's, as a group went down and the top 6 consolidated their lead. During that same period, sales across all OEM's went down by 25 million units year over year.

They make money doing other things, such as selling iPhone parts which they make much more money than their own phones. Samsung also has power too.

I think you're saying that they are more profitable in their hardware component ventures than in their mobile division. That'd be true. As an example, Samsung makes more profit off of every iPhone sold than on their own flagships. Which is a component of why your earlier statements about profit margins are false.

HTC is on its last legs, literally.

"On it's last legs" is an idiom, and therefore cannot be literally true. This sentence is false. Also, HTC is not "on it's last legs", aside from the point that it doesn't have legs, it is a company, which is a legal fiction - HTC's mobile division is struggling, but you have no idea if they're going to close tomorrow or next year or 10 years from now or turn it around and continue to be successful for 100 years.

I'm just saying it like it is and what I'm seeing happening right now.

So far you've said 3 true statements and this one is not one of them. I do believe that this is how you "see it", but how you see it and how things actually are seem to have no relationship whatsoever.

I'm really hoping that you noticed the pattern above. You gave one hell of a rant, but almost none of what you said was true in any sense of the concept of facts based on reality. This pattern, the fact that almost everything you say can be easily verified to be false and is almost instantly recognizable as false, is why there is so much resistance to your statements. I'm really hoping that with the "fake news" trend in the world, that people in general start asking for sources and for people to make honest arguments in good faith, backed by evidence and reason rather than just stringing together as many lies as possible, wadding them up and firing them shotgun style into the conversation with the hope that it'll be so overwhelming that people won't even try to sift through all the nonsense. Well, this morning I had the time to sift through it and I have to say, the overall theme of your posts is pretty clear. They're untrue.

Let me know if you need any of the data or simple reasoning to show why the statements I called out are untrue. I think they're all fairly obvious, but if not happy to show you why.

 

[Itsa_Me_Mario]

I was forced to use Bluetooth? No I wasn't .. I used it for years even when I had a jack lol. No wires is way more convenient for me.

Don't worry about it. He was walked through this false choice fallacy in 2016 and again in 2017 and at this point it's painfully obvious to everyone that he knows that he's lying when he says people are "forced" to use BT. I don't like throwing around the claim that others are lying, but it's fair to do so when you know someone is repeating something despite the fact that they know it is untrue. It's also painfully obvious that he's not using any verifiable data to speak on behalf of "people" or "most people".

 

[Mike Dee]

Don't worry about it. He was walked through this false choice fallacy in 2016 and again in 2017 and at this point it's painfully obvious to everyone that he knows that he's lying when he says people are "forced" to use BT. I don't like throwing around the claim that others are lying, but it's fair to do so when you know someone is repeating something despite the fact that they know it is untrue. It's also painfully obvious that he's not using any verifiable data to speak on behalf of "people" or "most people".

Forced to use Bluetooth is just diabolically incorrect diatribe. We all know that all of the phones that eliminated the 3.5 jack provide an adapter and in some cases this actually means better sound. I mostly use wired devices because they usually offer better sound but I have on order the new Sony WH1000 XM3s. Like their prior version they use the LDAC codec which is supported by Oreo and is very close to wired sound. I have no problem going wireless and I'm not being forced to do so.

 

[Itsa_Me_Mario]

Forced to use Bluetooth is just diabolically incorrect diatribe. We all know that all of the phones that eliminated the 3.5 jack provide an adapter and in some cases this actually means better sound. I mostly use wired devices because they usually offer better sound but I have on order the new Sony WH1000 XM3s. Like their prior version they use the LDAC codec which is supported by Oreo and is very close to wired sound. I have no problem going wireless and I'm not being forced to do so.

Here's the choices with an LG V20 and an iPhone X:
1) Device Speakers
2) Wireless Headphones
3) Wired Headphones

The same is true of 100% of smartphone flagships that have been released in the last 8 years.

 

[Mooncatt]

Having read the article about the rumored V40 spec sheet, I still think the V20 is going to be the best total package. Just not enough in that article to excite me, so I'll likely pass on it. At least until it drops way down in price. If my V20 goes out before then and I can't make a claim on my extended warranty for it, then I may look to other phones. Heck, if everyone is going to copy Samsung, I may as well just get a Samsung.

 

[Itsa_Me_Mario]

Having read the article about the rumored V40 spec sheet, I still think the V20 is going to be the best total package. Just not enough in that article to excite me, so I'll likely pass on it. At least until it drops way down in price. If my V20 goes out before then and I can't make a claim on my extended warranty for it, then I may look to other phones. Heck, if everyone is going to copy Samsung, I may as well just get a Samsung.

I'd have to agree. I think Samsung does a better job at being Samsung than LG does. The V40 vs the Note 9 I think we have a very obvious comparison. V40 wins on audio quality, # of cameras, probably wins on photo quality in manual mode. In my opinion the front of the V40 looks better than the front of the Note 9 too. The Note 9 then wins on display, probably auto-mode photos and for people that want the pen, it has that. Samsung also provides more consistent updates historically, for those that care about that. Bottom line, unless someone is really into audio and/or is going to get a lot out of the manual camera controls, assuming they're similarly priced, the Note 9 has an edge, but they're basically the same phone in a too many ways.

 

[Itsa_Me_Mario]

Right now the V20 can be bought NIP for around $200 according to a Google search. That vs $800 for the V30 and presumably the V40... I'd probably buy 2 or 3 V20's and use them for a couple years.

 

[flyingkytez]

You must love conspiracy theory websites lol. You sure do make a lot up.

Is this a conspiracy?

"The company reportedly only shipped 3.9 million Pixel phones in 2017, according to IDC research director Francisco Jeronimo. For Google, that's not too shabby for a newcomer -- it's twice the number of Pixels from the year before -- but overall it's still pretty weak, and a sign that there's a long road ahead before the company even comes close to challenging Apple and Samsung.

iPhone and Galaxy phone sales dwarfed Pixel by a massive margin. Apple sold 216.7 million iPhones and Samsung sold 316.4 million Android smartphones last year, according to IDC numbers."

The question at this point is how can they still survive in this competitive market? I'll let you figure that out. Stop saying I'm making this up, I'm not. I'm reading these from multiple sources. Unless you're saying they're all fake?

https://mashable.com/2018/02/13/google-pixel-3-9-million-shipments-weak/

 

[Mike Dee]

Is this a conspiracy?

"The company reportedly only shipped 3.9 million Pixel phones in 2017, according to IDC research director Francisco Jeronimo. For Google, that's not too shabby for a newcomer -- it's twice the number of Pixels from the year before -- but overall it's still pretty weak, and a sign that there's a long road ahead before the company even comes close to challenging Apple and Samsung.

iPhone and Galaxy phone sales dwarfed Pixel by a massive margin. Apple sold 216.7 million iPhones and Samsung sold 316.4 million Android smartphones last year, according to IDC numbers."

The question at this point is how can they still survive in this competitive market? I'll let you figure that out. Stop saying I'm making this up, I'm not. I'm reading these from multiple sources. Unless you're saying they're all fake?

https://mashable.com/2018/02/13/google-pixel-3-9-million-shipments-weak/

So given the sales figures how were they pretending to be out of stock which was one of your conspiracy theories?

 

[flyingkytez]

All of these statements are false:















These ones need more clarification:

Source? I couldn't find anything that substantiated either claim except for the telegram article from last year, which was 1) based on erroneous data and 2) didn't consider the fact that smartphones sales, overall, as a market, are shrinking and Samsung is consistently WIDENING their lead in marketshare. In fact, Q4 2017, as an example, the top 6 OEM's ALL increased their marketshare, year over year. That means the smaller OEM's, as a group went down and the top 6 consolidated their lead. During that same period, sales across all OEM's went down by 25 million units year over year.

I think you're saying that they are more profitable in their hardware component ventures than in their mobile division. That'd be true. As an example, Samsung makes more profit off of every iPhone sold than on their own flagships. Which is a component of why your earlier statements about profit margins are false.

"On it's last legs" is an idiom, and therefore cannot be literally true. This sentence is false. Also, HTC is not "on it's last legs", aside from the point that it doesn't have legs, it is a company, which is a legal fiction - HTC's mobile division is struggling, but you have no idea if they're going to close tomorrow or next year or 10 years from now or turn it around and continue to be successful for 100 years.

So far you've said 3 true statements and this one is not one of them. I do believe that this is how you "see it", but how you see it and how things actually are seem to have no relationship whatsoever.

I'm really hoping that you noticed the pattern above. You gave one hell of a rant, but almost none of what you said was true in any sense of the concept of facts based on reality. This pattern, the fact that almost everything you say can be easily verified to be false and is almost instantly recognizable as false, is why there is so much resistance to your statements. I'm really hoping that with the "fake news" trend in the world, that people in general start asking for sources and for people to make honest arguments in good faith, backed by evidence and reason rather than just stringing together as many lies as possible, wadding them up and firing them shotgun style into the conversation with the hope that it'll be so overwhelming that people won't even try to sift through all the nonsense. Well, this morning I had the time to sift through it and I have to say, the overall theme of your posts is pretty clear. They're untrue.

Let me know if you need any of the data or simple reasoning to show why the statements I called out are untrue. I think they're all fairly obvious, but if not happy to show you why.

"The company reportedly only shipped ***3.9 million Pixel phones in 2017, according to IDC research director Francisco Jeronimo. For Google, that's not too shabby for a newcomer -- it's twice the number of Pixels from the year before -- but overall it's still pretty weak, and a sign that there's a long road ahead before the company even comes close to challenging Apple and Samsung.

iPhone and Galaxy phone sales dwarfed Pixel by a massive margin. Apple sold ***216.7 million iPhones and Samsung sold ***316.4 million Android smartphones last year, according to IDC numbers."

https://mashable.com/2018/02/13/google-pixel-3-9-million-shipments-weak/

What's keeping Google's smartphone department alive? Even HTC is losing money each year, how is Google still able to survive when a veteran smartphone maker like HTC is barely surviving? The answer is Google itself is a very large company and the losses from their phones is nothing to them. It probably costed them much more money hiring people to design it and create the software for it (and paying manufacturers like LG and HTC to actually produce the hardware), they did not gain profit from it if you consider how much money and time they invested. Even The Essential phone company nearly got bankrupt... Google has a massive backup rainy day fund which is the entire company itself.

Fun fact: Google bought out the internet radio company, Songza, only to completely shut down the service and promote their awful Google music instead. Google also bought out Motorola, kept their patents, then sold it to Lenovo. They are doing the same with HTC as well... Google+ is still running although not a single soul I personally know uses it, Google needs to give up on social media and shut it down. This is not fake, research and fact check it yourself. ***Google did NOT invent Android nor YouTube, they were bought out... typical Monopoly move.

More insight:
Google quietly acquired Android in 2005 for an undisclosed price which has been estimated at $50 million. (Google's annual report for 2005 says the company spent a total of $130 million on acquisitions that year.)

In 2005 the web was in desperate need of a video hub, and Google TRIED to create one with the poorly named Google Videos (a naming concept the company refuses to reinvent). But the site failed to catch on as quickly as YouTube, which had more social features and extremely popular pirated TV clips (try to find a 2006 feature about YouTube that doesn’t mention “Lazy Sunday”). At the time of its acquisition, YouTube was one of the world’s fastest-growing websites, and its executives had a clear understanding of what users wanted out of a video site. As the adage goes: IF YOU CAN’T BEAT THEM, BUY THEM.

During the time they bought out and owned Motorola, their phones were considered budget phones (Moto G) and weren't as popular as Samsung, only making sales due to the company's brand name and history. The Nexus line originally offered power on a budget, which actually was a good move and popular among Android fans but they finally decided to trash it due to that association and replaced it with their Pixel line.

Should I continue? Which giant buys out more companies than Google? Is it a monopoly? Yes. Google sucks at their own creations and they lack innovation so much, they rely on buying other companies which is embarrassing. Google is known to create "their own version" of something that was already invented or created, just so they can say, "hey look, we have one too!" Failed Google products: Google glasses, Google self driving car... Wannabe Google products: Google+ vs. Facebook & Twitter, Google Assistant vs. Apple's Siri & Samsung's S-Voice, Google Home vs. Amazon Alexa, Google Cardboard VR vs. Oculus. Again, no innovation, only power and money. Do you get my point? I'm not exactly saying Google sucks entirely because I use their products and services too, just pointing out the fact that they are a monopoly and have so much power. I am however disappointed with the lack of original ideas, despite their employees being extremely spoiled with sleeping pods, colorful bikes, and free food, they still can't invent a single product themselves without buying out a startup company or re-creating something that's already made.

 

[Mike Dee]

Is this a conspiracy?

"The company reportedly only shipped 3.9 million Pixel phones in 2017, according to IDC research director Francisco Jeronimo. For Google, that's not too shabby for a newcomer -- it's twice the number of Pixels from the year before -- but overall it's still pretty weak, and a sign that there's a long road ahead before the company even comes close to challenging Apple and Samsung.

iPhone and Galaxy phone sales dwarfed Pixel by a massive margin. Apple sold 216.7 million iPhones and Samsung sold 316.4 million Android smartphones last year, according to IDC numbers."

The question at this point is how can they still survive in this competitive market? I'll let you figure that out. Stop saying I'm making this up, I'm not. I'm reading these from multiple sources. Unless you're saying they're all fake?

https://mashable.com/2018/02/13/google-pixel-3-9-million-shipments-weak/

So if they only sold 3.9 million does that mean they lost money?

 

[LuvMusic]

A slightly different perspective on replacing my V20...........

I think about replacing my V20 and was almost caught-up in the Note 9 hype....never used an S pen and was a big fan of the stylus in the Palm Pilot days. But resisted.

My V20 works for me and I don't feel like I'm sacrificing much compared to today's flagships. My biggest complaint with my V20 is the screen....it just doesn't work well in bright sunlight.

So when it comes to looking at replacements for my V20, I read about upcoming in-screen finger print scanners, folding screens, more cameras, and notches. Sorry, these features just don't move me and I'm not sure they will improve my user experience enough to justly a $1000.00 or more expenditure!

What will improve my user experience and potentially justify a $1000.00 expenditure is 5G and it is not that far away. I bet we see many current Samsung and Apple phones (Apple rarely mentions 5G) come up for sale if the 5G hype matches real world experience, and I suspect it will. When 4G replaced 3G it was a MAJOR improvement in performance.

The only phone that has me curious right now is the Oneplus 6T because of it's price point. But, if the new rumors about a January release a true that will reduce its attractiveness to me, unless it happens to be 5G which is doubtful.

I will wait and keep enjoying the great sound quality and good performance of my V20 for now. It is a great time to be following smartphone technology.

 

[flyingkytez]

So given the sales figures how were they pretending to be out of stock which was one of your conspiracy theories?

Pixel and Pixel 2 sold worse last year than one quarter of 2015 Windows Phones. WOW! A now dead product beats Google's phones?

https://appleinsider.com/articles/1...xposed-a-larger-problem-googles-ads-dont-work

They are creating hype and trying to have creative ways to market their phones because apparently, their ads don't work for their phones. What else could they do? Bribe YouTube and tech reviewers? Pretend to be out of stock for a week to create excitement? Maybe. I cannot prove much but only speculate because of something called non-disclosure agreements, they cannot say anything about it otherwise Google will go after them. Marques Brownlee was hilariously slammed for making false positive reviews on HTC phones, people were upset he was biased when he reviewed the phone without saying 1 bad thing and they unsubscribed. LG paid for JerryRigEverything's flight to LG's headquarters to do a durability test on their V30 (his name is actually Zack).. is there bribing going on? I'll let you decide. To them, it's not bribing but actually "marketing", which is also true. Again, non-disclosure agreements means nobody is going to say anything.