Out of the millions of things Samsung throws at a wall each year to see what sticks, they seem to have picked the fake leather on devices. The most recent victim? A Windows 8 laptop – the ATIV Book 9 ‘Style’. This thing joins the phones, tablets, and ChromeBooks Samsung has already tacked the fake leather onto.
Genuine question: is there anyone in the audience here who likes this look? If so, why?
I have no love for Samsung hardware but this is not too bad. At least it’s a different approach than the usual macbook air clone look. I think the faux-leather look works better on the phones than the laptop, but it’s subtle enough to not be too hideous.
I, on the other hand, find it exceedingly hideous and just awkward. It looks like plastic, it feels like plastic, but there’s a pattern so that you might mistake it for leather in poor lighting — for what gain?
Well, I don’t like it, but others might. I may even be in the minority, I dunno. I just see no point in it.
No it looks and feels like leather. It’s not just a pattern. It’s basically the same sort of fake leather you find on a cheap briefcase, they’ve glued it to the top of the laptops shell.
<sarcasm>Because it’s fake, fake, and that is so awesome. It looks like fake leather, but it’s not. It’s even faker then that. In low light at the right angle, it looks like a really expensive laptop, and I didn’t pay that much for it.</sarcasm>
I don’t like it either. It’s tacky and cheap. Samsung should drop the pretense, and embrace the fact they make cheap products who’s only redeeming quality is that they’re cheap.
This is like every electronic device having a clock and several other features that aren’t relevant to it’s purpose. It’s a microwave with a clock, PDA functions, and Tetris.
However, there are enough people with bad taste to make this thing successful. Look at Wal-mart.
Have you played with it in person? They don’t even use a good imitation.
It’d be bad enough if they used pleather, but this is just grooves in a generic case-backing plastic.
The rationale for this is beyond my comprehension – the best I can figure is that it’s the same thing that drives people to cover things in golden bling, but that seems like grasping at straws.
Reminds me of the pre-iOS7 days, when the notes app had to look like a notepad, or the reminders app had to look like a shopping list, or the calendar had to look like a calendar, complete with torn out pages. Making things look like things they’re not, such as moulding plastic to look like leather (really), or the aforementioned iOS skeudomorphism, just makes the product feel horrible and tacky.
When people buy a plastic laptop or phone, you expect it to look like plastic and feel like plastic, not look like leather and feel like plastic. Or even the old trend of silvered plastic imitating brushed steel or aluminium, just look at the S3’s artificial metallic grain. It just feels tacky, cheap, and no-one really wants it.
Look at Apple when Jobs came back. Never once did they say “Let’s make a computer out of plastic but make it look like metal.” No, they made the first iMac out of clear plastic (acrylic?) to show off what could be done with plastic mouldings, as well as to make a fashion statement. Same when they switched over to white polycarbonate. Never once did the product feel cheap, because it never intended to hide itself under a fake veneer.
And that’s where companies such as Samsung have gone wrong. Never make a product look expensive but feel cheap. Either make it look and feel cheap, or look and feel expensive. As soon as you start trying to disguise plastic as something it can never ever imitate, you end up with something horrible to touch, feel and use. And if it’s horrible to touch, feel and use, your customers will end up looking elsewhere.
Its the skeuomorphic chicken come home to roost. They have been long admirers of Apple. It seems that they haven’t kicked their Scott Forstall admiration. Anyone know where he works these days? Its not for a South Korean Electronics Conglomerate, is it?
So, they are imitating faux-leather plastic with a cheaper kind of plastic.
As arstechnica said, it’s not faux-leather, but faux-faux-leather.
Edited 2014-03-09 12:40 UTC
On their phones and tablets, i’d say it’s an improvement over the chintzy plastic, but only just …
On a laptop, it just looks plain tacky.
Haven’t felt it yet, so i’ll reserve judgement until then.
It’ll probably feel the same as the cheap plastic interior of a Ford Ka. But then again, as an entry-model city car, the Ford Ka never tried to hide itself under a tacky leather-textured trim, it just looked and felt cheap because it was.
I dunno, do all of you REALLY spend that much time just staring at the housing of your gadgets/devices?
I just look to see how durable it is. I mean, if it’s horribly ugly–or anything designed by the “Smell us!” Apple crew–then it simply won’t do.
This Samsung thing is innocuous with a slight dollop of bad taste. If you think bad taste in product design is ever going to go away, well, no, it’s not.
Don’t get distracted by design to the point where superior function goes by the wayside.
I think both functionality and aesthetics are important.
If you want to spend money on an ugly pleather laptop, fine. No one is stopping you.
Personally, i don’t feel like buying something that i don’t find attractive.
Let’s put it this way.
I find a big old thinkpad with it’s black featureless design to be beautiful. I find a mbp to be beautiful. Both are very different, but very nice in it’s own way.
This thing just tries to be different for the sake of being different. It tries too hard. It’s yelling “look at me”. I don’t like it … so i won’t buy it.
Edited 2014-03-08 23:04 UTC
I think this just shows the lie that people supposedly always make informed and reasonable choices and are not affected by mood etc when making purchasing decisions.
Hence, Apple’s success in the last decade.
Sure sure, but lets say two devices are functionally equal but one is aesthetically appealing to you while the other isn’t. You’d pick the first, every time. I guarantee it.
Perhaps, but I just bought a Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4, and if I had sat down and made a list of the top 25 things that were important to me in a device like this (or a phone for that matter), I don’t think aesthetics/cosmetics would’ve made the list. I just really don’t give two shits about what these things look like. In terms of the feel of the ‘faux leather’ back, I find it a HELL of a lot better than the cold, aluminum backs of the various iPads I have held. I don’t think I’m going to have any issues with durability, and although I guess I don’t like the faux leather as much as the ‘rubbery’ texture of my old 2012 Nexus 7, I don’t really have any complaints about how this thing is built. Well, I wish it were a little smaller so I could grip it easier with one hand, but that doesn’t have anything to do with build quality.
Another commenter said that aesthetics are important, but I’m still not convinced. Even as far back as Mac users referring to PCs as ‘beige boxes’, it puzzled and confused me why ANYONE would care about what their desktops looked like, and it still does. And now this idiocy has transferred over to tablets and phones, to where the VERY FIRST THING people care about is what the f**king thing looks like. Somebody needs to write an article or essay and explain to the rest of us why, if it doesn’t have titties, how the ‘sex appeal’ of something should affect our purchasing decision.
In short, I don’t get this obsession over looks. As you said, if ALL other things were equal, then sure. But I haven’t ran into a case where that happened yet. There are ALWAYS more important considerations than looks.
Edited 2014-03-09 08:34 UTC
People have feelings and subjective opinions. Also, if you are not tech savvy all specifications look the same and the only differentiating factor they feel comfortable expressing an opinion about is the looks. And let’s not forget fashion, trends and what’s cool or not. A lot of people are that shallow, they don’t want to be bothered with details and nerdy stuff. It’s a field they know or care nothing about. It marginally touches their lives. I boggles the mind how some can be so ignorant.
But I wouldn’t downplay completely the looks factor. For myself it weighs about 10-20% of the whole decision.
SO, do you have the same attitude about other things in life? Don’t care what your car looks like? Your house? Your clothes? It’s exactly the same. People care more or less about these things. Most people don’t give a rats as about computers (just like how I don’t care about, say , horses) they just need it to do what they want and it certainly doesn’t hurt if it looks good.
There’s nothing wrong with this at all, not everyone have the same interests.
And for those of us who don’t care about even those things, we get something called “peace of mind”. Why would anyone choose to get annoyed at these things is beyond me.
Personally, when I buy something and I’m fairly confident I’m getting value for money, the aesthetics of a product simply become a blind spot for me. Do I have aesthetic preferences? Of course. But you give me something of good value, watch my flimsy principles of aesthetics go out the window.
And let’s not forget everyone’s saint of aesthetics Steve Jobs always wore the same outfit all the time because it saves effort. So does Mark Zuckerberg, and basically anyone who only cares about getting things down.
It’s always an error to be a focus group of one.
It’s clear – given the brands that are iconic in the world – that aesthetic is an important component of human decision making. That’s the OP’s argument: not that this is how it should be, but how it is.
It’s also important to note that a positive aesthetic is not mutual exclusive with function. Apple gear is considered to be the most aesthetically pleasing but it also has the highest satisfaction rating of any consumer electronics company.
Coincidentally, I wear the same brand of jeans, the same brand of black t-shirt and the same brand of shoes about 60% of my time. At the same time, I happen to like nice things, I have nice gadgets, I have a nice car, nice houses, and so on and so forth. The two are not mutually exclusive.
And I wasn’t even arguing against that.
No, not in the least. I DO care about quality… for example, I want a car that’s reliable, is safe to drive, rides smoothly, has plenty of cargo room, etc. Just not cosmetics. As for clothing, I would normally just buy all of my clothes from Wal-mart, but tend to dress a little nicer than I otherwise would, because women and some employers tend to place a high priority on such inane bullshit.
Thanks dude, now I really need to put titties on my computer case!
Yesterday I saw a car with big honking chromed testicles on it. I have to admit that I laughed out loud.
Maybe it had ran over Robocop a little earlier in the day.
There are a few generations of industrial designers who would really like to argue the toss with you over your last statement.
Looks do matter. Study after study has confirmed this fact.
‘First Impressions’ count for a lot when people are choosing pretty well everything in life. Even a grump of sod like myself can see that and yes it even has an effect on me and my purchases in life.
Sure, functionality counts for a lot but looks count for more (IMHO)
Samsung are really shooting themselves in the foot with this tacky finish. I can’t help but wonder if it was put there simple to hide something equally as bad on the finish of the case itself.
mind you Samsung branded kit is not allowed in my house because of the batch of crappy 1TB disk drives I had to endure. They really baulked at replacing clearly faulty devices.
I don’t think the question is whether looks matter (as they obviously do), but SHOULD they? For example, should you judge a person by the way they dress? Similarly, should you judge a device purely on cosmetics, esp one durable enough that it can take a direct hit with a hammer and not even crack (see 0:50 of this vdie):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD-nzHy2DdU
And if so, why? The Galaxy Tab 8.4 was the tablet that met all of my requirements more than any other tablet currently on the market, and I’m supposed to choose another one because, what… society has decided that the faux leather on the back is tacky? Please help me out with the logic behind this line of thinking. I can’t imagine anyone in their right mind going, ‘Gee, ya know… I REALLY want this phone/tablet, but it’s just too damn ugly, so I’m going to buy this shiny one over here that doesn’t meet all of my needs instead….’
Edited 2014-03-10 18:21 UTC
Sadly, the people who frequent these forums are NOT the population in general. For them looks do matter.
Just go and read up on the marketing disaster of the EDSEL. The car itself was not that bad but to look at it was ‘fugly’.
A long time ago I did some courses on Industrial Design and this was all at the core of the 101 module.
I very much liked the leather on the Psion Series 7, it adds a certain ‘warmth’ to holding it, makes it look more friendly somehow, and less like a disposable bit of plastic and electronics.
I’ve never used the Samsung faux-leather devices, so can’t comment on whether they’d have the same effect.
I do think that leather, wood and other organic materials can certainly make devices look less sterile and add some class.
Looks at some classic cameras, their use of leather, wood etc. can add a real beauty.
Fake leather on top of cheap plastic may not work so well though.
I don’t know – they kind of remind me of old faux-briefcase Powerbooks (eg http://lowendmac.com/1999/lombard-powerbook-g3-bronze-keyboard/), which I thought were lovely. They definitely aren’t in line with the currently-fashionable clean, minimalist, modern look, but they were classy in their own way. I don’t know how Samsung’s have turned out, but I can at least imagine liking them.
To me, it looks like a slim plastic binder.
Why not? I wouldn’t buy it but it doesn’t look nearly as tacky as I thought it would. Some people are sure to like it.
Nothing wrong with trying new things.
Plastic molded with wood or leather grain is usually just tacky!
However the Asus Nexus 7 (2012) got it right. The back cover has a dark brown, soft, leathery finish. However instead of imitating leather grain they used a dimple pattern, which gives a nice tactile feel and actually looks classy.
An excellent designer will use the materials to their best, instead of trying to make them look like some other material. Plastic is not a bad material in itself.
I know it to be true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but on the other hand some peoples taste is all in their mouth.
This might be the case here. Different nationalities different tastes.
If it really used some of the more durable types of fake leather, I’d find it OK, though personally, it’s not my thing. It has some boring, old-schoolish vibe.
In European Spanish, maybe the most accurate translation would be “cutre”. It’s too close to the bags that are offered in the middle of the streets.
I have a note 3, a fine piece of equipment, but one of the reasons that I quickly bought a cover was to avoid the sight of this absurd imitation of leather.
Ok, it seems that Apple still dominate the nowadays’ taste for Americans and therefore the rest of the world follow. But metal is heavier than reinforced plastic, even aluminium.
Policarbonate is quite sturdy and lighter than aluminium. One of my thinkpads went to the floor from more than 1m, but policarbonate resisted the shock perfectly. I really would appreciate policarbonate in both laptops, tablets and smartphones even if the final result is less thin. My devices would be better protected without needing a case
Perhaps they are trying to match the ugly UI with an equally ugly case design? If so, they failed, the UI is way uglier still.
Samsung stuff always looks cheap and gimmicky, to me, and it’s pretty obvious Samsung is an engineering company first and foremost. They might have a couple of guys who might have taken an art class in college to do styling, but they’re clueless overall.
Maybe it’s a cultural thing, and I, as an American, don’t get it. This could be the most super, awesome thing in some other part of the world.
Yeah.
Here is the pinnacle of Samsung’s cheap and clueless design: http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/09/samsung-digital-picture-frame-st…
Anything that looks like that is equally cheap and gimmicky, unlike any of the products from Apple.
I’d have to see this and feel it in real life to make a judgement about this specific device. But in general I like a bit of texture, rather than slippery-smooth surfaces. I’d especially appreciate a rubberized ‘grippy’ surface.