The latest Samsung
fiasco is incredible for a few reasons. First and foremost, it’s a disaster where, unlike the last one with the exploding batteries, we can make fun of it with ease because people’s lives aren’t in danger. Well, presumably. Second,
of course this device was going to be
a comedic disaster upon launch. Third, how on Earth did Samsung not realize what a disaster this would be given both their very real disaster with the exploding batteries and the fact that they’ve obviously been testing this device for months (years?).
I used to think the Fire Phone was the ultimate example of the gimmicky prototype device
that a company should have kept in prototype phase. But whereas Amazon had an excuse of it being their
first phone, Samsung has no such excuse. Again, they have almost the opposite of that excuse. They’ve shipped millions (billions?) of devices and have had a PR (and real) disaster with one such device in recent memory.
And yet someone at the company decided they were going to not only release this device to the public, but they were going to
charge people $2,000 for the privilege of owning such an experiment.
Prestige? It’s the kind of move that takes the brand trust already badly damaged by an exploding Galaxy Note and kicks it in the nuts.