Comment by css771 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by css771 | Hacker News Reader

I think HTC is failing more because they've failed to understand what consumers want. The HTC One X was an incredible phone but they went with a non-removable battery that significantly held it back compared to the Galaxy S3. The locked bootloader on the ATT One X was just too bad. And for all their touting of the camera, the Galaxy S3 has the better one. The silly decision to implement aggressive process killing was just stupid. And for some people, no sdcard option didn't cut it.

And no these aren't just features geeks would want, even if they are, geeks influence buying decisions of a lot of people. So they're definitely important. Especially at a time when HTC wants to build up a strong brand with their One series. And for all their trumpeting that they would release only flagship devices, they keep releasing phones all the time. And they fail to release their devices with a consistent branding across all american carriers, or at the same time.

HTC Sense adds no features (like e.g. a notification power control widget like samsung's touchwiz has.) It's just too bloated.

Plus it's just be the fact that the mobile industry is incredibly competitive right now. I don't imagine HTC will have any better luck with WP7/8.

"And no these aren't just features geeks would want"

Yes they are. By and large no one cares about removable battery, locked bootloader, non-aggressive process killing or SD card option. You know how we know this? Because the iphone doesn't have any of that. The things these phones have that the iphone doesn't that non-Geek consumers care about are LTE, the big beautiful screen and perhaps the price.

The reasons the One isn't selling like the Galaxy S3 are pretty clear:

(1) bigger screen

(2) better battery

(3) walk into a Verizon store and see which phone get's shoved into your face.

The apple comparison can't really be made on the android side because the apple brand is a very strong one. iPhones can sell based on brand alone whereas HTC can't really rely on that.

I think for the first in a series like the HTC One to really take off, it has to appeal to the early adopters and those are the geeks surely. And then if they like it, they'll recommend it to their friends. If you build up some diehard fans, surely it will be better to iterate ensuring the relative success of a HTC One X successor.

I think the whole notion of customers weighing specs carefully and choosing one high end Android phone over the other is overblown. If the salesman really wants to sell you the EVO you'll probably end up with the EVO.

Of course some people do come in with their heart set on something they or a friend had so I'm sure the brand thing you're talking about is real. I don't think it's the reason for the magnitude of what's being claimed for it here. Intending to buy a Samsung phone only works if the store is selling Samsung phones and we saw a nice version of this math play out while the iphone was only on AT&T and at 17% US market share. It's a tribute to Samsung's marketing staff that pretty much every store has a bunch of Samsung phones at all price points in it.

In another post here I demonstrate even if demand were even for the two of them the absence of the HTC One at Verizon would result in a huge sales disparity.

There's an oft cited idea that I don't entirely agree with but seems useful here: the real customers for Android phones are the carriers.

Sorry, but I'm going to strongly disagree with your assertions here.

I owned an HTC One X (AT&T-branded) briefly (about a week) and most of my co-workers have Android phones. One of them had the Galaxy SIII. The screen sizes are almost identical. The actual battery life achieved was roughly the same.

Everyone agreed the One X has the better screen; the blue tinge on the SIII (thanks to pentile) was quite noticeable, especially in flesh tones in photos.

There were only three ways in which the Galaxy SIII was obviously better than the HTC One X:

  * twice the memory (2GB vs 1GB)
  * sdcard expandable
  * camera (SIII's clearly superior)

Customers generally don't see an entire selection of working Android models. They see a plastic card representing the screen for most of them and maybe 1 working one that the salesman is using.

If you walk into Walmart and compare One X and Galaxy 3 the only reference you get for the quality of the screens is that the 4.8 inch Galaxy S3 is a bit bigger then the 4.7 inch HTC One X.

Every Verizon and AT&T store I've been into had an entire selection of working Android models.

The Wal-Mart I last went into didn't have any working phones at all on display, so why anyone would go there to see what they're like, I don't know.

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