The Summer of Super Smartphones

Last year saw the Palm Pre, another iteration of the iPhone and later on, the Motorola Droid. This year, it’s a whole new ball game.

The summer of 2009 came in like a lion, with big hype for the Palm Pre and new iPhone, but went out more like a lamb. The Palm Pre fell flat due to a lack of apps and half-baked hardware, and the iPhone 3G S was more about a speed upgrade than anything else. In the fall, the Motorola Droid was a hit but it wasn’t so much revolutionary as it was evolutionary for the Android platform.

Handset enthusiasts rejoice. The summer of 2010 is looking to make up for last year’s mediocrity. All flaws aside, Apple’s redesign of iPhone 4 is on the whole exactly what most users were looking for. The Android offerings on tap are refined and go beyond anything the industry has seen from that camp as of yet. Motorola and HTC are making gains hand over fist, while Samsung appears to be impressing with its Galaxy S line of Super AMOLED devices.

Here’s a look at one stand-out from each major U.S. carrier as we head into August. Judging by the looks of it, if Research In Motion (RIM) decides to tack on a major overhaul of its BlackBerry line in the dog days or a Windows Phone 7 device arrives, 2010 could be remembered as the year the smartphone truly came of age.



HTC Evo 4G for Sprint - Launch Date: June 4

HTC was the first to introduce an over-sized tablet-like smartphone. The company showcased the hot spot-enabled, 4G-capable, media-spewing behemoth in March at CTIA in Las Vegas. The commercial launch happened in early June, with Sprint announcing that the phone had shattered first day records for the carrier. To be sure, the Evo turned heads, but Apple and the rest of the gang weren’t far behind.

Price: $199 with a two-year contract


Apple iPhone 4 for AT&T - Launch Date: June 24

Apple reports having sold 1.7 million iPhone 4 units in the first 72 hours after launch. That’s a lot of phones and enough that it beat analysts’ expectations by a country mile. What percentage of those, if any, will be returned to Apple and AT&T over the phone’s highly publicized antenna issues remains to be seen. Nevertheless, Apple has managed to bring all the pieces together once again for the iPhone 4, and it represents quite a leap over the 3G S. Whether the iPhone 4 can overcome some of its flaws via firmware updates remains to be seen. With so many strong contenders on the market, many are wondering whether Apple CEO Steve Jobs can afford to be so dismissive of customer complaints about the device.

Price: $199 16GB with two-year contract or $299 32GB with two-year contract


Motorola Droid X for Verizon Wireless - Launch Date: July 15

The Droid X follows the Evo with an over-sized 4.3-inch screen. The phone puts more HD muscle behind its media with 720p video capture and HDMI output, as well as a pre-installed Blockbuster app for downloading movies and TV shows. There was some grumbling that the Droid X won’t come with Flash 10.1 and Android 2.2 preloaded. Users who drop $199 for the latest Droid will have to wait until “later in the summer” for the highly anticipated release of Froyo, as well as Flash 10.1.

Price: $199 with two-year contract


Samsung Vibrant for T-Mobile USA - Launch Date: July 15

How many handsets come with a blockbuster movie like Avatar? As far as we know, only the Samsung Vibrant (Galaxy S) from T-Mobile USA. While Samsung has been plagued with product support and quality issues in the past, the latest Galaxy S units appear to be real contenders and have already proliferated in one form or another to every major carrier in the United States.

The Vibrant is a lightweight, speedy little unit that represents a 4-inch happy medium between the 4.3-inch screens of the Evo and Droid X, and the relatively smaller 3.5-inch screen of the iPhone 4. Excellent battery life, a Super AMOLED display that is truly stunning (and no doubt the reason for the inclusion of Avatar) and Samsung’s own 1GHz Hummingbird processor are promising signs for Samsung’s aspirations in the high-end smartphone market. Whether it’s promising enough that the company will succeed in doubling Samsung’s global smartphone market share from 5 percent to 10 percent by the end of 2010 is anyone’s guess, but no one will deny that the Galaxy line is most certainly a step in the right direction.

Price: $199 with two-year contract


WILDCARDS
While the summer has started out hot, it could get even hotter if a couple of key players get busy in August, namely RIM and Microsoft. While RIM consistently has put out mostly solid financials, it’s lagged in the innovation department. Rumors are swirling that the company is rolling out a major hardware revamp to complement the release of BlackBerry 6.0. Most are looking for the company to offer up a consumerfocused touchscreen competitor to the iPhone that improves on the disappointing Storm.

If RIM can’t offer anything until fall, then maybe any number of OEMs will break the seal on the highly anticipated Windows Phone 7 OS from Microsoft. After killing the KIN project, Microsoft appears to be dumping all its available resources into Windows Phone 7. Sure, Microsoft has lost a lot of its gusto due to some blunders over the past couple years, but many believe that early glimpses of Windows Phone 7 foretell a reawakening of Windows on the mobile.

ANALYSIS: HTC IMPRESSES
Avi Greengart, research director of consumer devices for Current Analysis, says that nearly all the OEMs in our summer picks have made big gains over the past year. “If I had to choose one that has made the biggest leap over the past year, it would be HTC, but there are so many possibilities,” he says.

Apple gets points for going from “mindshare leader to a legitimate sales leader,” he says. Motorola has leveraged Android to bring its handset division back from the dead, and Samsung finally has a competitive smartphone.

But it’s HTC that most impresses Greengart. “HTC has gone from being primarily a Windows Mobile shop to being one of the top global smartphone providers on the back of Android and its own Sense software,” he says.

When asked whether RIM can play catch up on the consumer side of things with BlackBerry 6.0 and some new hardware, Greengart says it’s definitely possible but he still laments RIM’s dropping margins. “RIM’s sales volumes have held up despite much stronger competition from Apple and Google, but its margins are dropping as consumers can get 90 percent of the BlackBerry experience on a $49 Curve rather than paying $199 for a Bold.”

As for Microsoft and Windows Phone 7, Greengart looks to the fall. “LG, HTC and Samsung will all be backing the new OS, and we’ll see if Microsoft can actually deliver on all of its promises, if application developers can be enticed to support the platform, and if consumers care.”

MOTOROLA CARRIES MOMENTUM
Ross Rubin, senior analyst at NPD Group, says that his pick for most improved this summer is Motorola, hedging out HTC for the strong momentum that the original Droid carried into early 2010. HTC’s original Windows Mobile business will need a complete overhaul as Microsoft brings out Windows Phone 7, he says.

Rubin also has positive things to say about the Samsung Galaxy S line, which he says benefits from being available on all the major carriers. “We may not see the carriers promoting the various versions of the Galaxy S with equal vigor. T-Mobile will likely be one of the stronger channels for the Galaxy with the Vibrant, because it doesn’t have another leading high-end Androidbased device,” he says, noting that Sprint too may be a good outlet for the Samsung Epic, also a Galaxy phone. The Epic is Sprint’s second 4G-capable device and will offer some differentiation between the Evo 4G.

When asked whether the 4.3-inch screens on the Evo and Droid X are blurring the lines between smartphone and tablet, Rubin seems to think that’s about as big as you get before you’re taking on the iPad. “I haven’t really seen so much of that slate pitch with the Evo and Droid X, rather the focus remains on the iPhone and out-specing the iPhone. The Evo and Droid X are still pocket-able devices. Once you move to 5 inches, like the Dell Streak, you see things venture further into that zone between smartphone and tablet device.”

KING FOR A DAY
Regardless of how big the screens get or how fast the processors run, a bevy of top-notch devices are available to choose from this summer. And it’s probably not wise to proclaim a clear winner anytime soon.

“It is worth noting that this industry now moves so fast that the competitive situation can change overnight,” Greengart says. “Over the next few months, I expect to see additional high-end Android phones hitting the market from LG, Motorola, HTC and Sony Ericsson, and budget models from Dell and Kyocera.”

In other words, summer is just the beginning and there’s always the fall line-up to look forward to. By Andrew BergSunday, July 18, 2010


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