Samsung forsakes the middle market of mobile

It would be nice if we could get a Pixel Tablet. Maybe that would kick Samsung out of their complacency.

My guess is that Samsung is taking a cue from Apple; their "budget" devices are the flagship devices from the previous year (or year before that). Since most people in Canada and the US simply get whatever Samsung or Apple device is free or cheap from their carrier when they renew their contract for another two years, it means there's not a lot of incentive for the carriers to sell a mid-range device.

I'm not sure I understand your point. They're targeting the S23 FE at the high end of midrange and the A35 at the low end of midrange

Isn't the S23 FE a midrange phone? I see it listed for $599 -> $549. The previous A54 5G was a $449 phone, so yes it's $100 more, but that still seems a midrange phone to me. If you want the performance you pay for the S23 FE and if you don't need the performance you keep your existing A53 or buy the A35, I guess.

Both the A55 and A35 have Cortex A78 CPUs and is a low performing part today, considering it's performance in 2020:

The midrange is hard to compete in. If there's any non-Samsung Android vendor, they cluster around the midrange and that notch between mid- and flagship is the only real place to be if you're not doing flagships. As noted currently that's the S23 FE for Samsung.

I've said it many times-- figure out how to get into the flagship game once and you'll never need to do it again with major carrier deals and pre-order deals. For ~$200 I'd much rather upgrade my old flagship for a new flagship every ~3 years than buy a midrange phone outright for $500 and then never have anything faster than midrange. That's where the market in the US has coalesced. The really low end stuff makes sense for emergency/2nd phones or people with really limited budgets or bad credit, but then there's a dip in the market until you get to the flagship killers and flagships.

Looking at the lack of hardware differences, I can see why. If Samsung still has enough US spec A54's that haven't sold through why launch a replacement with similar spec and have to mark down the A54.

The A54 and A55 have (on paper) similar cameras, SoC, and screens. The 8GB in the base A55 vs the 6GB in the US spec A54, seems to be the only major difference.

Yeah, I imagine they will skip this year since sales have been slumping a bit for everything this last year. They might have a new model next year or maybe an S24FE or something like it. I've had an S20FE from basically launch day (trade in of an S8 Active and the early order got me like $200 off) and it still works great. Plenty fast, battery life is still easily more than 24 hours of use and the screen is perfect. I'd like a new phone but I really don't need one. None of the newer ones are so different in daily use that it would make it worth buying one.

Since I get my cell service paid for by my employer I don't have the option to 'finance' a phone via a contract (and I wouldn't anyway). If that were not the case, I would simply get service from Mint or something for $16 a month and still use my same phone. If it breaks/wears out any time in the coming years, I'll probably switch to a refurb S23 or S23FE. I've looked pretty hard at Asus, OnePlus, Google and some of the Chinese ones with names that escape me at the moment. None of them seem good enough to motivate my interest unless they come well under the price of the S23FE or something similar.

OrangeCream said:

Both the A55 and A35 have Cortex A78 CPUs and is a low performing part today, considering it's performance in 2020

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A78 is powerful enough for 90+% of people and has good power efficiency (unlike ARM's X-cores). It's clock for clock more powerful than Zen 2.

OrangeCream said:

Isn't the S23 FE a midrange phone? I see it listed for $599 -> $549. The previous A54 5G was a $449 phone, so yes it's $100 more, but that still seems a midrange phone to me

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$100 is a huge difference in price. Many entire phones cost that much.

The differentiation between S23 FE and A55 makes a huge amount of sense in many global markets. Not in the US any more because of reasons other people mentioned (contract pricing), which is why Samsung is dropping the lower end SKU in that market, I guess. It's still being offered globally though because it's a SKU that makes a lot of sense, especially in markets where people pay outright for their phone.

MadMac_5 said:

My guess is that Samsung is taking a cue from Apple; their "budget" devices are the flagship devices from the previous year (or year before that).

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Samsung has never done that, and they don't seem to be starting. They've always offered a full product line for all budgets, starting at the J-series and going all the way up to the Z Fold series. They're still continuing to offer the A-series in the US, just the lower end A3x. This is one of the reasons I like Samsung compared to Apple; if you're not ultra rich, you don't end up feeling like you getting warmed over leftover scraps from what the rich couldn't finish last year. There's a brand new model every year made just for you.

Since most people in Canada and the US simply get whatever Samsung or Apple device is free or cheap from their carrier when they renew their contract for another two years, it means there's not a lot of incentive for the carriers to sell a mid-range device.

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I don't know about the US, but in Canada, the latest flagship Samsung is typically $20-$25/month on premium plans, last year's flagship is $10-$15/month on premium plans or free on midrange plans, and something like the A-series or J-series is free on budget plans. There is an incentive to sell midrange and budget phones, because they're the freebie phone that comes with the cheapest service contract.

This is a sales model of the carriers though, Samsung continues to make models for all budgets.

Demento said:

A78 is powerful enough for 90+% of people and has good power efficiency (unlike ARM's X-cores). It's clock for clock more powerful than Zen 2.

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Yes but I’m not talking about efficiency nor about whether it is good enough.

Deathmonkey said:

The 8GB in the base A55 vs the 6GB in the US spec A54, seems to be the only major difference.

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To be fair, by the metric of having unused apps closing in the background and needing to be re-opened vs. staying resident in memory and therefore snappy-- there's some non-trivial difference between 6 and 8 GB. 6 GB is still decent, and it's not like the phone will constantly be memory starved, but it's probably enough of a limitation to notice if you use lots of apps or lots of browser tabs.

(But the S23 FE with 8 GB of RAM still is available in the US market if you still want that mid to mid+ phone experience.)

hestermofet said:

$100 is a huge difference in price. Many entire phones cost that much.

The differentiation between S23 FE and A55 makes a huge amount of sense in many global markets. Not in the US any more because of reasons other people mentioned (contract pricing), which is why Samsung is dropping the lower end SKU in that market, I guess. It's still being offered globally though because it's a SKU that makes a lot of sense, especially in markets where people pay outright for their phone.

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Small point; the US hasn't had contract pricing on cell phones since... 2017? Around that time. Phone price is a separate line item that is directly paid with the retail cost split across some number of months (20, 24, 30; depends on the carrier and customer selection) and drops when the phone is paid off. There might be promotions by carriers, but those are bill credits to offset the installment plan on the phone hardware.

Deathmonkey said: The 8GB in the base A55 vs the 6GB in the US spec A54, seems to be the only major difference.

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Nevarre said:

To be fair, by the metric of having unused apps closing in the background and needing to be re-opened vs. staying resident in memory and therefore snappy-- there's some non-trivial difference between 6 and 8 GB. 6 GB is still decent, and it's not like the phone will constantly be memory starved, but it's probably enough of a limitation to notice if you use lots of apps or lots of browser tabs.

(But the S23 FE with 8 GB of RAM still is available in the US market if you still want that mid to mid+ phone experience.)

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The ram is meaningful more so because Samsung dramatically increased the base spec. The A54 can be had with anywhere between 4 and 8 GB depending on the market. The A55 is either 8 or 12 GB. Samsung asking mid-range money for a 4GB phone in 2023 isn't great.

It's a good development considering there are really no other hardware differences between the models.

Glad I bought my wife an A54 for Christmas. Only cost $350 from Amazon and a case with screen protector was just another $10, so $381.54 all in including tax and shipping. It came with 6GB RAM and 128GB storage which is plenty for her. Works great at 5G on her $25/month Verizon pre-paid plan.