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00:00Alright, so this is a conversation I've wanted to have with you guys about flagship killers in 2020.
00:05So, the company we're most familiar with in terms of flagship killers is probably OnePlus.
00:10They were a company that came with the OnePlus One, fantastic phone,
00:13and when they came with the OnePlus Two, they marketed that phone specifically as the 2016 flagship killer.
00:19And the whole idea is that you take a phone, and you fill it up with great hardware,
00:23and you price it at this inexpensive price point that competes with premium smartphone brands.
00:28And that's what they did. They did a really good job at disrupting the smartphone market with their inexpensive phones.
00:33And it wasn't just OnePlus, right? You have companies like Xiaomi, and Oppo, and Vivo,
00:37and even companies that didn't classify themselves as flagship killers, they did the same kind of thing.
00:42Disrupting the market with inexpensive priced phones.
00:45And I'm not talking about cheap budget phones, right?
00:47I'm specifically talking about phones that were designed to compete with flagship products from premium brands.
00:54If you look at these flagship killer companies, a lot of them have changed how they're even pushing out phones.
00:59They're no longer making $400 flagship killers, they're pushing out $600, $700, $800 phones that are flagships themselves.
01:07If you look at OnePlus, they're rumored OnePlus 8 is a full-blown flagship phone.
01:11It's supposed to have wireless charging, IP rated water resistance, and it's rumored to have an $800 price tag.
01:17Which is a far cry from the $350, $400 flagship killers that they used to put out.
01:23And even companies like Xiaomi, like their Redmi Note 10, Note 10 Pro, those are so much more expensive than they have been in the past.
01:30It really feels like the whole notion of flagship killer phones are no longer part of the equation.
01:36And I think the reason is, well, there's two things.
01:39Number one, and this applies to basically any kind of flagship killing company like OnePlus,
01:44their end goal was always to be in that premium segment, right?
01:47The strategy was like, you make these cheap phones that don't make a lot of money,
01:51but you build a brand, you build a fan base, and when you have a large enough audience,
01:55then you make the premium stuff because that's where the money is, and that's what OnePlus is doing.
01:59And it's great, it's working out for them.
02:01But the other reason, and this is the big reason,
02:03I think the entire smartphone market has matured to the point where companies struggle to deliver features that customers actually want.
02:12Like we're seeing features like 12 gigs of RAM on phones, we're seeing 108 megapixel cameras,
02:17we're seeing 30x zooms, 50x zooms, 100x zooms.
02:21And it's not that this stuff is not cool, right? It's neat.
02:24But when you pump out phones this frequently, with this little innovation in between them,
02:30you inevitably get phones that become obsolete really quickly.
02:34And what happens is that phones drop in price super fast.
02:38Like this is a barely one-year-old phone, the Samsung Galaxy S10+, and this is now half price.
02:45It's barely 12 months old, and you get the S10 phone starting at $450 on Amazon right now.
02:50The price is incredible.
02:52And this is a great phone, it's got Snapdragon 855, an OLED screen with a hole-punch camera,
02:57it's got 8 gigs of RAM, a headphone jack, like there's so much good stuff going on in this thing, and it's $450.
03:04The Pixel 3, that thing is $250.
03:06And I think these phones, these previous years of phones, are the new flagship killers.
03:11Like these are the phones that are almost cannibalizing the sales of the current stuff,
03:15because these are so good, and so cheap, and most importantly, they're so close in feature set to the newest stuff.
03:23Like let's say you're in the market right now for a new phone, and you're looking at the Galaxy S20 from Samsung,
03:27and I'm not trying to single out Samsung here, this applies to basically every Android premium flagship phone in the market right now,
03:33but you have to really value the few features that distinguish this phone from the S20.
03:38Like you really have to love the whole idea of a 120Hz screen.
03:41You have to really dig that 30x camera zoom to spend the extra $400 or $500 on the S20 over the S10.
03:48And this whole thing also applies to companies right now that are trying to be flagship killers.
03:52Like if you look at Realme, they have a phone, the X2 Pro, it's a great phone, but that thing is also $450.
03:59And if you're a prospective buyer, would you rather spend your money on that,
04:02or something like the S10 that has a proven camera system, proven software, and I'm assuming a way better international warranty?
04:09It's difficult for the traditional flagship killing model to succeed right now.
04:14Like there's no- I actually feel like if OnePlus came out today, and they were trying to do what they did 5-6 years ago,
04:20I don't think it would work, because these phones, these 1-year-old phones, have shaped the market in a way that
04:27it makes it really difficult for the flagship killer to be exactly that.
04:32These are the new flagship killers. I really feel like the 1-year-old phones,
04:35they've gotten so cheap and so fast, like they've gotten so cheap so quickly,
04:40that they've now become the things that actually hurt the company when they're trying to sell their new stuff.
04:46Okay, hope you guys enjoyed this video. Thumbs if you liked it, subs if you loved it.
04:49See you guys next time.