With every upgrade, Samsung is removing a new feature:
heart rate and oxygen sensors,
pressure sensor,
iris sensor,
MST transactions,
SD card slot,
IR blaster,
Earphones,
and now S Pen Bluetooth capabilities.
Let me ask Samsung's R&D group, what features have you added to phones recently that make them "ultra"? What is the one specific feature that separates non-ultra phones from ultra phones?
Except camera there is no difference between your cheaper and expensive phone. Adding a word AI doesn't make phone ultra.
MST Magnectric Secure Transmission was Samsung tech that until the Note 20 allowed Samsung phones to mimic the credit card strip on older CC machines, allowing for digital payments. It was cool walking into a store and pull I ng out your phone and tapping the top of the strip **bleep**g out the cashier because they didn't even know it existed.
It is not there because NFC is the new tech, Samsung again the first with its employment.
So yeah, that taunt as you call it addressed part of his question.
Shall I go through the whole list.
Heart and O2 sensors were not accurate. That is what watches and the like are for. You don't need a flagship phone anymore. A $200 phone paired with $200 watch will do the same thing as a $850 phone did.
MST answered. Not used anymore anymore.
SD card slots were for when phones came with 32gb of storage and cloud storage wasn't popular yet. Who needs to walk around with 512gb of pictures and videos on their phones? That is what thumb drives are for.
IR blaster, most TVs now are moving away from infrared and using bluetooth. Why does one need an IR bladder on a phone.
Headphone jack, use a dongle.
The only one that had me pause was no Bluetooth in the Spen which 99% of people didn't use.
Samsung had to forego some things to keep the price the same, the cost of the Snapdragon chip went up (according to industry insiders) close to 30% because of 3nm TSMC chip on the Snapdragon 8 Elite, the 40% larger vapor chamber etc. Bluetooth Spen also interferes with the use of Magsafe style cases and accessories.
Samsungs own TVs still use IR. They still haven't fixed the issue with The Frame blocking the IR receiver on the TV when you put the accent frame on it.
Some of these removals, like the HR sensor, are justifiable because legitimately it was a bad experience and watches fix most of the problems by the inherent benefits of the form factor. The MST reader was only useful in the US, and most US stores upgraded to NFC sale systems in the last few years, so it was useless in most of the world and only a backup in the US.
Others, like the IR blaster, SD card slot, headphone jack and removed bluetooth S-Pen, are not so easily justified because they offered a good experience and were removed because samsung wants to push the user into the hardware ecosystem.
No IR blaster? Just get a Samsung TV and hook it into smarthings. No SD slot? Just make sure you pre-order your new phone before the reviews are out so you can get a free storage upgrade. No headphone jack? Galaxy buds start at about a hundred bucks and they constantly give bonus credit towards them in pre-order deals. No more remote shutter built directly into the ultra? Just buy a watch or ring, conveniently on its first ever sale right now.
Running defense for these removals is why samsung is comfortable stripping away new features every year.
