What’s interesting is that there is evidence in the design of an intellectual tension between safety and pushing the boundaries. Samsung engineers designed out all of the margin in the thickness of the battery, which is the direction where you get the most capacity gain for each unit of volume. But, the battery also sits within a CNC-machined pocket – a costly choice likely made to protect it from being poked by other internal components. Looking at the design, Samsung engineers were clearly trying to balance the risk of a super-aggressive manufacturing process to maximize capacity, while attempting to protect it internally.
Fascinating look – with photos – at the (possible) cause of the Galaxy Note 7 fires.
This is probably another case of confusing industrial designers (like James Dyson) with engineers.
Industrial designers (and architects) are usually people with insufficient talent to be artists and not smart enough to be engineers.
If real engineers were designing flagship phones they would probably be twice as thick, have high impact polymer cases, virtually unbreakable screens and triple the battery life.
Edited 2016-12-07 10:04 UTC
More often than not, the marketing department rules the show. That’s simply how it works.
I worked for a guy who was known for saying, “If you want to ship a product, eventually you’ll have to shoot the engineer.”
Basically, engineers always see ways they could improve a product, and if it were up to them products would often not be ‘done’ enough to ‘ship’.
We have the same issues in software development. How good is ‘good enough’?
bryanv,
Haha, you are right! An engineer will say these flaws are not acceptable, a businessman may say we’ll take the money now and then deal with repercussions later. It effectively makes customers beta testers. Software companies tend to get away with it because software fixes are easier than hardware ones, but I think this is the reason many consumers think software companies are erring in the wrong direction with regards to quality control.
Not even Shoes work, as should. That’s Neolithic Technology. Maybe We humans are just plain stupid.
“Industrial designers (and architects) are usually people with insufficient talent to be artists and not smart enough to be engineers.”
Yes, this is it, and clearly not because some people want to do industrial design and draw buildings. It’s because they’re losers.
Why would you want to make a building impacting a skyline when you can be an engineer! Or an artist that have Nothing to do with buildings!
Engineers design and build buildings. Architects just provide the initial concept.
This is false. Architects are doing a lot more than the initial render of a building, and are responsible for a big part of the technical aspect of the building. And their job is very different than the engineers involved in a project. You have obviously no idea how a big construction site, from start to finish, works.
Last word used to belong to Engineering. Now Engineering is Low, Low in The Madness Chain. I don’t trust Today’s Tech. Specifically Consumer’s Tech.
Blackview BV6000 ?
I don’t mind really. And make it removable while at it.
So a refurbished Note 4 under 200US$ might just be the best deal today… This is just what I had on Ebay, deliciously cheap, and it has not exploded yet 😉