Apple and Samsung phones face sameness and resource recycling

Differentiating smartphones is an increasingly difficult task. Not because they became more complex or because the consumer knows less, but because they hardly change from one year to the next.

Apple and Samsung, leading brands in the market, launched models this year with little change from previous generations.

The American launched the iPhone 14, which begins to be distributed in Brazil this Friday (14). The South Korean, the Galaxy S22 and the folding Z Fold 4 and Z Flip 4, already available on the market.

When compared to previous versions, the four models offer either chip and feature recycling or just one-off improvements. No transforming the use of technology.

In tests carried out by Sheet, iPhone 14 and Galaxy Z Flip 4 are, with their own qualities of each brand, phones that work without stuttering or problems. While the former offers better screen, photos and videos, the latter takes advantage of battery life, portability and integration with other devices.

They fulfill with excellence what is expected of a smartphone priced above R$5,000. Using social media, taking pictures, playing games and watching movies are trivial tasks for devices like these. But this has been going on for years.

Foldables even work as an engineering curiosity, but not as trend setters for years to come. The Flip, which folds vertically, is comfortable. The Fold, which folds horizontally, becomes a handy mini-tablet for productivity.

The iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus are almost identical to last year’s iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max. There are occasional hardware and software improvements, but nothing that explains the difference between the two generations.

The four devices have 12 MP cameras and use the same processor, the A15 Bionic. The new version, A16, only appears on the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max models.

These phones, the most expensive of the line, still have 48 MP cameras and Dynamic Island, a way that Apple found to take advantage of the part of the screen that is covered by the front camera. The feature is a creative solution that integrates well with native apps, and is likely to appear in next year’s baseline.

Apple’s usual flaws are also present, such as the lack of connectors, insistence on its own power standard and limited customization, issues in which Samsung’s Z Flip 4 is better.

For example, now the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max allow the user to configure a low energy sleep screen for the locked cell phone, a feature that Androids under R$ 2 thousand have had for years.

In the future, it will be difficult to understand what has changed since 2019’s iPhone 11. The iPhone 5s introduced the biometric reader; iPhone X eliminated the button and adopted facial recognition; the 11 adopted the biggest and most protruding cameras – and the standard is still present today.

The advantages of a device like the iPhone 14 is being cohesive and integrating the Apple ecosystem, with the watch, headphones, computers and tablets. It is a cell phone that efficiently serves an average of all audiences.

However, that means there are also better options. Competing brands, which run Android, are able to offer products to consumers with specific needs, as they do not need to stick to an average audience or the strength of the brand.

For professional athletes of games like Free Fire, playing on the iPhone is unthinkable in a market with devices focused on graphics processing. There are also battery-intensive options, portability – like Samsung’s Z Flip – and even more professional lenses, at which point iPhones naturally excel.

Samsung or Apple, comparing devices from these brands to previous generations shows that repackaging older versions with natural improvements is a good deal, at least for now.

Whether it’s because the pandemic has affected global supply chains and the supply of microchips, or because Moore’s Law, which said that every two years the power of a chip would double at lower costs, may be failing, cell phones seem to have come to a head. an innovation plateau.