Dear Samsung,
You had the golden opportunity to make a lot of sales this season with the no-headphone jack iPhone 7 releasing and the other low-selling flagship phones from other companies, but you blew it up, quite literally, with the Note7.
The Galaxy Note7 is an amazing device, which I had quite some time with when it was first released, and I’m 100% convinced that it’s the best smartphone out there, even until now if only it didn’t have issues, but it does have issues, and mostly everyone who has heard of the exploding issue is going to associate Galaxies, specifically Notes with grenades, and that’s not a good thing for the Note line, and for those who are going to own a Note, since they’ll be mostly joked on by their friends and other people.
“Blew up the opportunity, literally.”
You can build an incredible Galaxy Note 8, but it would be hard to market without bringing up the previous iteration, and everyone would remember the Note 7 — the story that lit up sparking you some controversy, and much more than that when the replacement units you sent also caught fire.
The Galaxy Note has been a great line of smartphones, and it evolved amazingly. It has set the phablet standard, it pushed forth your company’s smartphone design, and it even had the latest specs and the arguably useful S-Pen in tow, but here is a case where all of the good things one has done can easily be covered up with one huge mistake. Remember how several bended iPhone 6 models caused everyone in YouTube to bend test their phone?
Here’s my suggestion.
Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus, both w/ Edge & S-Pen
Now, you have the Galaxy S7 series, divided into the standard model and the larger Edge model. The Note7 came out several months later with an Edge screen and updated internals, and as an S7 user myself, it sparked a little disappointment in me as my smartphone got outdated that easily. I didn’t have that sleek design, the Iris Scanner, and even the smallest software tweaks. On your end, that also leaves you with two flagship phones to constantly update with software pushes and accessories.
Do this: Add the stylus and the Edge into the smaller Galaxy S and the larger Galaxy S Edge. Call them the Galaxy S8 and the S8 Plus / XL as you would, but announce that you’re killing the Note, and add those things and keep the internals similar.
This way:
- The two phones would have the same software.
- All your marketing / innovation efforts would be focused on one flagship lineup for the entire year.
- You would, by default, update this phone constantly increasing customer satisfaction.
- Lessen confusion and buyers holding back for the Note months later, which again, would be hard to market after the Note7.
- You would have a clear set of direct competitors to the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, Google Pixel and Pixel XL, and so forth.
I know how you run things as a business is a lot more complicated than this ‘open letter’, but I’m not writing as a Marketing Graduate anyway. I’m writing as your customer, and as a friend of those who still believe in the Galaxy Note but had to go through chaos having theirs destroyed and replaced with more explosions.
Sorry for being out of topic but when will Battlefield V be released?