How do you recognize the next "flagship" phone

[Duard]

More than one suggestion has been made in this forum that if you want good service and competently administered upgrades, you should not be buying an obscure model like the Infuse and should buy a "flagship" instead. When I bought this phone I was really careful to do just that and I thought I had it right. The Infuse had the primetime, professional-looking ads, the star-studded launch party and most importantly, news reports of a commitment to ship GB in a month or two. Despite all that, here I am half a year later listening to AT&T tell me to hang in there.

So I'm here to ask the wise and seasoned Samsung fans, how to you recognize a new "flagship"? I've heard it's anything with "Galaxy" in the name. I've heard it's anything with "Nexus" in the name. I've heard it's anything with primetime ads on TV (that one did not work for Infuse).

Your thoughts?

 

[JakeRoux]

I've given that some thought myslef in light of our recent predicament. Perhaps rather than trying to divine ATT/Samsung's future level of phone support for a particular model, we should limit ourselves only to devices that have the most recent OS installed when we buy it. For example, I would never purchase a PC running XP wth the promise of a free future Vista or 7 upgrade. And, just like with Windows OS, a little Googling can readlily tell you where an Adroid OS is in its life cycle.

 

[btc0526]

Flagship phone are anything that is plastered all over the place and are heavily endorsed by the carrier. Tons of commercials, ads on the news, etc. (Droid RAZR for example) the infuse had some exposure but not enough to be AT&T's baby

 

[yohannie]

You have to look beyond the States.

Flagship phones by companies that are international are phones that are sold everywhere.
The biggest red flag that the Infuse was NOT a flagship phone was that it was sold only in the U.S. and Canada. No such model exists in Samsung's motherland (Korea) or anywhere else.

Plus, if you are about to buy a phone, I would make sure you screen through tech sites like Engadget. When the Galaxy SII came out (in Korea and UK), literally every single tech site was raving on how this is the best phone of 2011 and how it is Samsung's flagship. I guarantee there was no such parade for the Infuse, other than "It was a gorgeous Super AMOLED+ screen!".

Think about it. Samsung has its market on a global domination level. Believe it or not, the U.S. is not the only country in the world where mobile tech market share matters (Korea, Japan, China, UK, etc.).

So you know there's something off when Samsung decides to release a single core phone in the States only (along with Canada), MONTHS after the Galaxy SII was released. That there should have been the second red flag. Why, when Samsung (along with HTC) set the new bar as their prime phones having dual-cores with 1 GB rams, would a phone be released in the U.S. 3 months later with a single core and half the RAM size? That was definitely fishy (a lot of people were saying the Galaxy SII could have been released in the States a lot earlier but Samsung was having a tough time negotiating with AT&T and them carrier friends).

So actually, it's not hard to spot a flagship phone.

The original Samsung Galaxy (AT&T's version was the Captivate) was a flagship because it (despite the American adjustments) was an international phone. That phone (again, in slightly different form factors) was released as a global project by Samsung. Same goes for the Galaxy SII (despite the utterly pathetic delay of 6+ months it took for the U.S. carriers to finally agree on selling it), and the same for the Galaxy Nexus.

So next time you want to buy a flagship phone, you have to look beyond just what's the mobile lineup in the States. These companies are all international, so you know that unless they're selling that phone and promoting it in all of their major markets, it's not a flagship. I mean, that's what a flagship is supposed to be anyways. It wouldn't be a flagship phone if it was only sold to one of their markets (and on top of that, the # of Infuse owners is tiny compared to owners for the Captivate, Galaxy SII, etc. even in just the U.S.).

 

[fox0137]

Its really easy if it's a Samsung phone. Look for either Galaxy or Nexus in the name.

 

[ep1963]

More than one suggestion has been made in this forum that if you want good service and competently administered upgrades, you should not be buying an obscure model like the Infuse and should buy a "flagship" instead. When I bought this phone I was really careful to do just that and I thought I had it right. The Infuse had the primetime, professional-looking ads, the star-studded launch party and most importantly, news reports of a commitment to ship GB in a month or two. Despite all that, here I am half a year later listening to AT&T tell me to hang in there.

So I'm here to ask the wise and seasoned Samsung fans, how to you recognize a new "flagship"? I've heard it's anything with "Galaxy" in the name. I've heard it's anything with "Nexus" in the name. I've heard it's anything with primetime ads on TV (that one did not work for Infuse).

Your thoughts?

I understand your anguish, but I have to say that having the infuse since June last year, I am extremely pleased with it. Very few if any that I would rather have. I love the large screen. Processing power has been sufficient for my needs. After upgrading to ZEUS instead of the stock upgrade, I feel new life has been pumped into my phone. I have absolutely no regrets about owning this device. My brother in law has a SII which is also nice, but really doesn't make me jealous at all.

 

[yangstyle]

I understand your anguish, but I have to say that having the infuse since June last year, I am extremely pleased with it. Very few if any that I would rather have. I love the large screen. Processing power has been sufficient for my needs. After upgrading to ZEUS instead of the stock upgrade, I feel new life has been pumped into my phone. I have absolutely no regrets about owning this device. My brother in law has a SII which is also nice, but really doesn't make me jealous at all.

I second that. Basically, for me, if the phone can meet my requirements until next upgrade, I'm happy. I'm getting excellent battery life, I stream movies and music from my server, text my friends, open the occasional Office document, use the GPS and...oh yeah...make phone calls.

I'm good for two years.

 

[reefrunway]

I second that. Basically, for me, if the phone can meet my requirements until next upgrade, I'm happy. I'm getting excellent battery life, I stream movies and music from my server, text my friends, open the occasional Office document, use the GPS and...oh yeah...make phone calls.

I'm good for two years.

I "third" all of that, too!

My wanting of a new phone stems from my want of a new toy to play with. Nothing wrong with the Infuse for my needs, but my personality tends to gravitate toward "NEW! BETTER! FUN! I WANT IT! NOW!" I'm the same with my laptop. Totally functional, reliable, suits my needs, etc., -- but within 6 months of getting one, my eyes start wandering and I find myself checking out newegg.com for the latest and greatest. What can I say, I'm a red-blooded American consumer to the core, baby!

 

[ldpalm]

One way to see if it's not a Flagship phone is to see if it says Infuse on the device

 

[Duard]

Thanks to all of you with helpful hints, especially the idea of watching what's heavily promoted and selling well in Asia.

To those of you singing the praises of the Infuse, I agree. It's a great phone and I'm pretty happy with it. Just two problems: (1) video calls on Skype using back-facing camera display upsidedown at the recipient. (2) Googleplus hangout not supported. I understand both problems are fixed on GB.

Maybe I should just bite the bullet and root the phone and install Zeus. I'm an inveterate hacker with an OCD problem: once I start tweaking my toys I have a real hard time stopping until I've tried everything and got it cleaned up and working nicely. I was out of action for about a month after getting the phone and finally with some help from my wife, was able to set it aside and go on with my life. I can envision myself installing an ATT/Samsung distribution of GB without getting sucked back into hacking. I've never rooted a phone and I feel pretty sure that I will loose another month if and when I take that step. So for now, I'm just hanging in, like AT&T said to, waiting for the GB OTA