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    Why is Samsung removing important components from its mid-range and budget devices?

    Opinion
    By 

    Last updated: August 4th, 2015 at 14:00 UTC+02:00

    Samsung is a giant in the tech world and it has a selection of truly amazing devices, but while they made some brilliant decisions in the past they also made poor decisions. One of those decisions is removing certain essential components from their devices for no reason, such as light sensors, auto brightness or proximity sensors.

    They say it's the little things that make something great and this is especially true for smartphones. Small components such as light sensors or notification LEDs can make your experience much better but Samsung has been getting rid of these tiny little components in time, and it seems that their decisions aren't random. An example is the fact that there's no light sensor on the Galaxy E and J series. It's strange that these aren't included by default because they're very cheap to manufacture and they're essential in any smartphone build.

    If you'll take a look at the mid-range market you'll find that Samsung's mid-range devices are becoming quite good these days, so it's a shame to discover that they lack simple things like auto brightness. This feature detects the ambient light and sets your display brightness accordingly which is a big deal in your overall experience. While these devices are quite cheap, it's tiny features like this that make them worse than they should be. Another example is the fact that the Galaxy A8 (and all other Galaxy A devices) has no LED notification light and the Galaxy E5 lost its outdoor mode after the Android L update, plus the J series don't even feature Samsung's own music app.

    But why would Samsung remove these things from mid-tier and budget devices? You don't see lacking sensors in big-league devices like the Galaxy Note 4 or the Galaxy S6/S6 Edge, so why do you see them in lower-tier devices like the Galaxy E series? One possible explanation would be that Samsung is looking to encourage people into buying higher-tier devices. Why do you think Samsung keeps removing small features from lower-tier devices? Let us know by leaving a comment.

    Opinion