Despite it being the largest smartphone manufacturer in the world, Samsung has remained rather conservative when it comes to its designs. A new camera housing is being introduced every year, but for the most part, the company is seemingly following the old ‘if it ain't broke, don't fix it‘ adage.
Given Samsung's incredibly rich resource pool, it's somewhat curious to see that the company isn't pursuing unique smartphone designs more often — baring the foldable series, of course. On one hand, this is the natural thing to do when your existing recipe is leading you to success every year, but on the other, we believe that there might be a way for Samsung to explore new creative ideas without the risk of hurting the reputation of the Galaxy brand.
Samsung needs an experimental smartphone offshoot
It's curious to see smaller smartphone OEMs coming up with unique and experimental ideas more often than Samsung does. Lenovo, for example, is far from being the largest smartphone OEM, yet the company didn't shy away from unveiling the uniquely-shaped Legion 2 Pro earlier this month. Other OEMs have experimented with unique pop-up camera designs before Samsung did, and even so, the company might have abandoned the pop-up camera concept already, given that the Galaxy A82 doesn't have one.
Now, while it would be easy to blame Samsung for lacking ingenuity, we don't believe that the company is missing this trait. If it did, the Galaxy Z Fold and Z Flip series wouldn't exist. But the reality of the situation is that smaller companies have less to lose and they have to try and think outside the box if they wish to challenge the bigger players. Meanwhile, Samsung has a very strong reputation already, and because every experimental device has a higher chance of failure, the company may want to avoid losing face.
What the company needs, in our opinion, is an experimental smartphone offshoot similar to C-Labs, except focused on encouraging employees to come up with unique smartphone concepts and designs. Samsung could then pick a winner every one or two years and push said unique concept into production under a different brand to avoid any confusion between its experimental offshoot and the Galaxy brand. These phones don't necessarily have to be manufactured in large quantities either, as they could go on sale as limited-edition products for the truest of fans.
These experimental phones would act as launchpads for new ideas and technologies that have yet to be proven, all the while showing that Samsung can think outside the box without hurting the Galaxy line. Besides, since the offshoot brand wouldn't represent the company's main revenue source, Samsung wouldn't feel pressured to follow a strict launch schedule for these non-Galaxy branded devices.
Creating and sustaining this experimental division could be a costly endeavor so it might not be possible, but the benefits could pay off in the long run, and if someone can afford it, it's probably Samsung. An experimental smartphone offshoot would encourage more unique ideas to be developed in-house, and some of those technologies could trickle down to the more conventional Galaxy smartphone lineup over time.
Do you think Samsung could benefit from an experimental smartphone offshoot, or would this be a waste of resources in your eyes? Join us in the comment section below.
