'There is No Credit for Trying'

Gabe at Macdrifter thinks we should commend Samsung for not copying Apple with the Galaxy Note:

If we want Samsung to start innovating with their own products and stop copying Apple, this is them doing it. Sure, I would not buy or use a Samsung Note, I have an iPhone and iPad, which I think are superior. However, I’m glad Samsung has some R&D work going on and I hope they keep throwing ideas at the wall. This one did not stick, but they deserve some credit for finally trying to be original in the mobile space.

A five inch “tabletphone” from Samsung? OK, so they didn’t copy Apple. They copied Dell, whose similar product was dead in the water before it was released.

It’s also strange to me that such a large number of people buy and praise the Cosmonaut stylus for iPad but also criticize Samsung for having a stylus.

An iPad stylus is a third party accessory. You don’t need a stylus to use the iPad. The Galaxy Note, however, comes with a stylus because its screen is too small for a finger to jot notes on. No one wants to carry around an easily-losable pen with his phone. Bottom line: a five inch screen is too big for a phone and too small for a tablet - this device has no place in modern society.

Customers don’t want phones from a company that “throws things against the wall and sees what sticks,” they want a great device that’s as good or better than what they’re getting from Apple. If the only differentiators among Android phones now are five inch screens and styli, then that speaks volumes about the state of iPhone and Windows Phone competitors today. Time to axe the gimmicks and just put out great phones.

Yes, Samsung has some ideas that don’t center around copying Apple. Unfortunately, none of them are original or any good. I defer to Gruber in his commentary on David Pogue’s review of the Samsung Chromebook from June of last year. The last line says it all.