Content
- Xiaomi Mi 65W Fast Charger GaN Tech Compact Charger
- Samsung Galaxy S21 sales
- Figures from Gartner
- Conclusion. About travel and reviews on the Internet
Xiaomi Mi 65W Fast Charger GaN Tech Compact Charger
As a working laptop, I collected ThinkPad T14s from Lenovo for a trip to Lake Baikal. It is not for nothing that the company promises that from the tropical jungle to the arctic deserts, ThinkPad guarantees stable operation.
The 1.2 kg laptop comes with a 65 W adapter weighing half a kilo. What a bliss it is – instead of a typical brick, take a light and compact charge. Used Mi 65W Fast Charger GaN Tech for both laptop and smartphone. I would like to have a pair of Type-C connectors on the charger, so that in case of something it would be possible to simultaneously charge either two phones or a laptop with a smartphone.
Samsung Galaxy S21 sales
Samsung said the Galaxy S21 series sold 30% better than the previous generation in the first week of sales in the home market. Interestingly, the most popular is the regular Galaxy S21, which accounts for 40% of sales, with the S21 Ultra accounting for 36% and the S21 + at 24%.
The price of new smartphones in stable currency has dropped by $ 200 compared to the previous generation. It is interesting that although smartphones, in fact, just went on sale, but in the US, Amazon, Best Buy, B&H have already had sales twice, where they gave the opportunity to purchase devices at a discount of $ 100 and $ 200. Below are screenshots from the Best Buy store for example. There the devices are still available at a discount.
For several days I looked at the action in thought. As a result, I decided that the prices are not particularly favorable, since Yandex.Market shows that we can also find offers for a similar price. The stores are gray and white, but they say that smartphones are officially certified for the Russian Federation and the firmware is appropriate.
I read reviews on sites. Western buyers write that Samsung offers a very profitable trade-in. For example, one user tells how he got a $ 4 discount from the Verizon operator for his Pixel 600 on the Samsung Galaxy S21 +. According to him, the new smartphone thus cost him $ 384. Considering the Pixel 4 went on sale back in October 2019, the deal looks like a bargain.
By the way, in Russia, in general, it is also quite an interesting trade-in. So, the site offers a discount of 9 rubles for my Galaxy Note 20. I was especially pleased with the trade-in discount for realme 500 for 6 GB. The discount is no less than 128 16 rubles. It’s funny, since the new realme 400 in white retail, for example, in the MTS online store, costs 6 rubles. So if you are thinking about buying, then do not be too lazy to look at the official website in the appropriate section.
It is difficult to say what is happening – whether the activity from Samsung or the retailers in the US are flaunting discounts, trying to raise sales. I would suggest that after not very successful sales of the Galaxy S20 and Galaxy Note 20 line, Samsung’s management is trying to rehabilitate itself and show good numbers, therefore, it is actively stimulating sales.
This idea is supported by the news that Samsung is extending the support period for devices. Now, the company’s smartphones, starting with those released in 2019, will receive security patch updates for four years. Patches will arrive either once a month or once a quarter (depending on the model). Here, of course, it is important to emphasize that security patches are the most basic level of updates, which does not imply the addition of new features. However, the situation itself is good news. This makes Samsung the longest-serving manufacturer in the Android market. Aside from Pixel smartphones (3 years of support), OnePlus had the longest support for its smartphones before – 2 years of OS updates + 1 year of security patches.
Samsung is doing it right. With the onslaught of Chinese brands and the increase in the overall life of smartphones, the issue of software support is becoming more relevant than ever. Here, of course, we must not forget about Apple, one of the main trump cards of which is the many years of OS updates.
Figures from Gartner
There are many analytical companies in the world that calculate the smartphone market. Someone considers shipments, and Gartner is interesting in what it says about sales. The company recently released sales figures for the last quarter of 2020.
The data is surprising. So, for example, Apple has bypassed Samsung, having sold almost 80 million devices. While Samsung sold only 62 million, the numbers are all the more impressive given that Samsung sells smartphones of all price categories, while Apple only sells devices from the premium and super-premium market segments.
It’s also nice to watch Xiaomi grow actively. According to inner feelings, over the past 2 years the company has improved significantly in terms of the quality and general thoughtfulness of the devices. For me, Xiaomi smartphones are smoothly moving from the category “cool, but I wouldn’t buy myself” to the category “why not?” So, the new Xiaomi Mi 11 for 57 thousand rubles when ordering on AliExpress, for my taste, seems to be a much more profitable option than the Samsung Galaxy S21.
At the end of the year, Samsung, despite a decline of almost 15% year-on-year, still holds first place by a significant margin. And Apple, thanks to a successful last quarter, was able to keep sales from falling. According to Gartner, in 2020 the market sank 12.5%. The year was successful only for Xiaomi, which actively took advantage of Huawei’s retreat.
It is easy to assume that 2021 will be successful for Xiaomi too. There is a need in the market for inexpensive 5G smartphones. One of these days, a review of just such a device will be released – Redmi Note 9T (unfortunately, 5G is not yet relevant for Russia), which, at a price of less than $ 300, has a 5G modem from MediaTek. By the way, MediaTek itself benefits from the growing demand for 5G chipsets. Recently I have already cited this chart and said that MediaTek has become the market leader in chipsets. Here, of course, you should understand that, first of all, victory is due to inexpensive chipsets for the Indian and Chinese markets. If we take only the 5G market, then Qualcomm is in first place. 39% of 5G smartphones were powered by Qualcomm chipsets. It is likely that in 2021 there will be a similar picture. However, it must be admitted that the 5G chipsets of the Dimensity line are a powerful proposition for creating inexpensive 5G devices.
Conclusion. About travel and reviews on the Internet
With great pleasure I went to Irkutsk and Baikal. I expected a lot from the trip. I really wanted, as they say, to change the view outside the window. And these expectations were met. To some extent tired of the fact that, looking through the lists of attractions around Moscow, I saw offers to see churches and cathedrals. Despite the fact that in Irkutsk in the first place for visiting are the same religious buildings, visually the city and its surroundings are very different from the typical Russian suburbs. The so-called 130th quarter in the city center looks very curious. This is a small cluster of wooden houses of the 2010th-XNUMXth centuries, which were in a dilapidated state, until in XNUMX the city, together with patrons and investors, invested in reconstruction, turning the area into a pedestrian zone with pretty cafes.
In general, Irkutsk is a very pleasant city with its own special sincere flavor, in which rickety wooden houses often coexist with stylish business centers. As I understand it, some of the wooden houses do not even have running water, because I watched residents pour water from a water pump on the street. I wanted to take a picture of the process, but my grandfather, filling the canisters, amicably promised to carry out the operation to implant the phone wherever I would not like.
And outside the city mountains, hills and steppes leave their mark. While driving to Lake Baikal, I watched herds of horses and cows, which, despite the 30-degree frost, grazed and even lay on the meadows covered with snow. And very friendly shaggy bulls and cows roamed the streets on Olkhon.
When it comes to the landscape outside the window, to be honest, to some extent I envy the relative compactness of the geographical location of the United States. A year and a half ago, a video came out of a group of friends who decided to recreate all the main types of wallpapers that they saw on MacBooks. It turned out that the matter is small. We bought water, food, camping equipment, loaded it all into the car and drove off. First, they went to shoot the desert in Death Valley for macOS Mojave, followed by snow-capped mountain peaks for macOS Sierra and High Sierra, and so on, until at the end they came to the ocean to shoot a wave for Mavericks.
What struck me most in that video was that everything turned out to be within the reach of the day’s moving by car, that is, here’s a desert with a terrible heat, but mountains with snow caps. In Russia, in this regard, it is more difficult, here you can go for days, and the landscape outside the window will be unchanged. By the way, near Lake Baikal there is a desert of its own – Charsky Sands. Only 1 km by car. Well, in the classic form of the desert we have on the border with Kazakhstan.
Along the way, I noticed that cash seems to have completely outlived its own. Almost everywhere there is the Internet, and when there is no terminal, you can always transfer to Sberbank.Online. And if earlier, even if there was a payment by card, many still preferred cash, now everyone has tried the convenience of online transfers. And even in the market, buying pine nuts, he paid with a transfer. So the cash taken with me came in handy a couple of times when it was necessary to leave a tip (although here, too, most of the waiters preferred a transfer, and there were corresponding QR codes in the checks of the establishments).
I expected that after the trip there would be something to share, to tell about the quality of the Internet, about the local peculiarities of communication, but everything turned out like everywhere else. The Internet is not the fastest, but you can also watch Netflix on Olkhon Island, people like to buy gadgets from Xiaomi and pay with smartphones at the checkout and in the market.
Perhaps the biggest observation is that locals have felt the power of reviews on Google and Booking. So, when checking into a hotel in Listvyanka, we were strongly asked to say if something is not pleasant, and not to leave a negative review. And then a story followed, how a certain madam, having come to breakfast an hour earlier and logically not receiving it, left a negative review. We were assured that we only need to ask, and if necessary, breakfast will be made at least at 2 am. And when the girl after one excursion called and said that the excursion was somehow not very good, the guide brought a bottle of sparkling wine the next day as an apology (because a review is important!). Probably, the locals are in a permanent state of shock when they are constantly poked with their noses for the lack of the proper level of service, to which snickering tourists are used to. On the other hand, tourists can also be understood, since my calculations showed that for the price of 7 days of Lake Baikal it was possible to fly to Bali for 2 weeks.
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