Some smartphones are loved by fans, and others utterly disappoint them. These are the latter.
Many would agree that 2016 has been a largely disappointing year for smartphones. While there were innovative products, most companies were stuck in limbo. The market is somewhat saturated, with few phones that really stand out from the crowd.
Even so, there are phones that disappointed us more than others.
The year’s biggest disappointment was, of course, the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. To put it simply, while the Note 7 seemed like a good phone at first, things just got ‘blown’ out of proportion. Samsung had to recall its devices, and when even the “safe” batches of the device started exploding, it finally had to stop production, incurring massive losses. It’ll be interesting to see whether, and how, Samsung comes back from this.
Sony decided to get rid of the Xperia Z line this year, starting instead with the X series of smartphones. The first of these to come to India was the Sony Xperia X. It sports a Snapdragon 650 SoC and a 23MP Sony camera. Somehow, Sony decided that its fans should be paying nearly Rs. 50,000 for this smartphone.
As a result, everyone wanted flagship class performance from the device. Not only is the Xperia X not fast enough, its camera doesn’t stand a chance against the iPhone 7 Plus, Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, or the Google Pixel. While image quality is not bad, the camera as a whole is simply disappointing, making the Xperia X a disappointing product.
When LG announced the LG G5 at MWC, the world erupted with enthusiasm. This turned to disappointment when we finally got to reviewing the device.
The LG G5 turned out to be a poorly executed concept, which didn’t really do justice to the modular future it promised. In fact, even LG realised that its concept hadn’t worked, and it admitted as much as well.
We all waited for two full years for the Xiaomi Mi 5. The company brought forth the Mi 5, and though it is good, it’s a disappointment in India. And that’s because they never brought the top models to India.
In fact, Xiaomi’s Mi 5 ended up outshined by the OnePlus 3, LeEco Le Max 2, and many more.
The Asus Zenfone 2 was a runaway success last year. The Intel SoC inside raised a lot of questions, but the phone came out shining. Somehow, though, Asus seems to have lost the way this year. The Zenfone 3 is priced at nearly Rs. 25,000, and doesn’t deliver the kind of results we hope to find in that range.
While it does have a decent camera, and even good battery life, the phone doesn’t stand a chance when it comes to speed and performance. Asus’ ZenUI is bloated, and the end result is a phone that had us expecting much more than it delivered.
The Zenfone 3 range also includes phones like the Zenfone 3 Laser, Zenfone 3 Max, Zenfone 3 Ultra and the Zenfone 3 Deluxe. In what we imagine is a quest to enter the premium range, Asus disappointed its fans, who were expecting more affordably priced smartphones.
The Nextbit Robin came with the promise of unlimited storage, seemingly solving one of the most important issues with smartphones. However, when it launched in India in May 2016, we found disappointing results. The phone had a sub-par camera, mediocre performance, an average display, and its cloud support didn’t do much that other phones couldn’t do already. Turns out, unlimited storage was a gimmick only.
Where the Moto Z is at the pinnacle of evolution today, the Moto G4 Play is pedestrian at best. The phone pales against its competition, and asks for a premium for Motorola’s brand alone. It has an average display, sub-par performance, and a poor camera. Given the entry of phones like the Xiaomi Redmi 3S Prime, Lenovo Vibe K5 and more, it makes little sense to buy the Moto G4 Play, especially given that its own counterpart, the Moto E3 Power provides higher battery life. The phone doesn’t really belong in today’s market.
The Creo Mark 1 was one of the laggiest smartphones we tested this year. It tried to combine the MediaTek Helio X10 with a QHD display, and the results were disastrous. The phone is slow, doesn’t have good battery life, and has a sub-par camera. Its claim was to provide “a new OS every month”, but that too has turned out to be a gimmick.
Since its launch, the team at Creo has added UI features every month, but nothing that other phones don’t already have.
Call us crazy, but the pricing for the Google Pixel and Pixel XL did disappoint us this year. While we would be the first to commend Google on the two smartphones, the pricing is another question altogether. It also marks the death of Nexus, and we are amongst the many Nexus fans who hate that.
The biggest improvement to the iPhone this year is with the dual-camera, and that’s missing from the iPhone 7. The smaller iPhone is basically an incremental update to the iPhone 6S, with no real noticeable difference, barring the display. It’s sad that Apple has been pushing its best features only to the bigger, Plus devices.
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Prasid Banerjee
Trying to explain technology to my parents. Failing miserably. View Full Profile
