The other day I was having a conversation

with a couple tech YouTubers

and we all had the same realization.

Smartphones are kind of boring now.

The last decade has been absolutely incredible

in terms of smartphones.

I mean in 10 years we've gone from this, to this.

However the issue is that here in 2019

everything's kind of great already,

there's not these huge leaps that we've been accustom

over the last few years.

Now phones being good these days

is certainly not a bad thing,

but for me the wow factors kind of going away.

Now sure, there are absolutely huge designs

that really revolutionized things back in the day,

but in the last couple years?

I mean the last phone that legitimately made say, wow,

was the Oppo Find X.

And with the motorized slider, even though that was cool,

the end of the day it still wasn't

that different than other smart phones.

The formulas already kind of figured out at this point.

So I sat down with Jon Rettinger,

an absolute OG Tech YouTube, who has seen a phone,

or two, or a hundred.

- It's like phones were different.

Blackberry's had physical keyboards.

Windows Mobile had a stylus,

and there were flip phones.

There were very clear, different styles of phones

and there was different phone for different people.

Seems like now we've got, just like,

different versions of a rectangle.

So we're talking before hand and I had a question

that I wanted to ask you. - Uh-oh.

- That I wanted to wait 'til we were on camera to ask you.

- That's not good. - So, do you think

the iPhone killed phone designs?

- Yes.

- 100%, right? - Totally.

It's not even a question

because if you look at phones before the iPhone,

there's like you said, all these different weird shapes.

After the iPhone everything's a rectangle,

everything has screen.

In the last decade the screens have gotten bigger,

the phones have bigger.

But you look at the shape of a phone now

it's just a screen, right?

There's no bezels anymore,

there's generally not a lot of notches anymore.

I mean a lot of companies, there idea of differentiating

the designs is like,

"Oh, it's semi-holographic on the back."

"Oh, we've got some super shiny color."

Which is cool, but it's exciting, it's not fun.

- Nothing.

It killed design because it was so successful

and it's a me too world.

- Let's take the brand new Galaxy Note 10 for example.

I recently got to take a look at it

and there is a lot to like.

It takes the current design language from the Galaxy S10,

brings back the S Pen, stretches the screen out to the edges

and, well, that's pretty much it.

This has become more and more of a problem

for the Note line lately.

Sure, if you're really into the S Pen more power to you,

but for most people, you're probably going to be better off

sticking with the Galaxy S10.

Samsung has made the line-up confusing,

to say the least this year.

If you compare the Galaxy S10+ to the Note 10,

it is a really odd comparison.

So the Note 10 drops the headphone jack,

the standard version of the Note 10 doesn't have

a micro SD card slot and to top it all off,

even though they have very similar screen sizes,

the Note 10 has a lower full HD resolution

compared to QHD on the S10+.

Now all of this means that the Note 10 does come in

at $50 cheaper in theory, however when you actually

take a look at the Galaxy S10+,

while the MRSP is a $1000, you can very easily find it

for significantly less than that.

Which makes that Note 10 a very, very tough sell.

Now there is a brand new, higher end, Note 10+,

which does bring a lot of the major features back.

So you've got that huge 6.7 inch display

with a proper high resolution.

You have the improved DeX experience.

You get the micro SD card slot back,

even though not the headphone jack.

And you do get some other niceties,

such as faster charging,

as well as faster wireless charging.

But all this is to say, that the Note 10+

comes in at over $1,000

before you even get into the 5G model.

This is a problem for the entire smartphone industry,

but especially when you look at Samsung line-up,

it gets very confusing very quickly.

Right now they have seven flagship models,

ranging from the slightly entry priced, Galaxy S10e,

up through the Galaxy S10, the Note 10.

And if you wanna go for the bigger guys,

you have the Note 10+ and the Galaxy S10+.

And then to round it all over,

there's a 5G version of the Galaxy S10+,

as well as a 5G version of the Galaxy S10+ 5G, no sorry,

Note 10+ with 5G.

Yeah, right.

It's the Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ 5G.

I don't want to unfairly single out Samsung here,

lots of other companies do this.

For example Xiaomi sells a number of very similar phones,

in some cases they're nearly identical,

under different brands, in different parts of the world.

And even looking at Apple,

you can see that the line-up has grown

steadily over the years, from one iPhone to two

and now three, and likely four before too much longer.

It is very a case where smartphones have gotten so similar

there only real way of differentiating

is small little tweaks of,

oh, this ones a little bit smaller.

This ones a little bit bigger.

This one has one extra feature.

Just to keep interested and mostly importantly,

keeping people upgrading.

- What's the difference between phones year over year?

Okay, so, you get in-screen fingerprint reader,

that's different. - Yep.

- You've got a face unlock, that's different.

But once you have those things, where do you go from there?

- We're seeing like, I mean, I think the last couple years

kinda felt like it was a accelerated endpoint

for the huge development, right?

So we went from bezels to slightly smaller bezels,

to smaller, to notch, to gone.

- Yeah. - That kind of

disappeared very quickly.

The finger print sensor went from, oh,

it's kinda on the home button to the back

to the side to the screen, right?

Face ID went from this huge thing to smaller to smaller.

We've got pop-up selfie cameras.

A lot of things that kinda felt the end times of like,

okay cool, let's make this thing the purest version

of the rectangle we can.

But now that we've hit it, it's like, okay,

and now you're going to do what?

Bigger battery, you're gonna make it thicker.

You're going to give it brighter screen.

I mean there's obviously innovation and there's iteration,

but the actual smartphone as it exists now,

I can't see it as going that much farther

before you go to folding phones

or you to go something which is completely different

and you tear up the playbook.

And I'm sure that companies

will try. - Yeah.

- I'm sure we'll see some wacky designs every year or two.

It's like, oh, this thing is a half folding, half flat phone

or whatever the case.

But the design as it is right now, is not really changing

and people don't need to upgrade as much.

Which I think is a huge problem for these companies,

as the smartphone space really reaches maturity

and reaches saturation,

that almost everyone who want's a smartphone

has already bought one.

To show just how similar smartphones are,

we're going to play a little game called

guess the smartphone.

I will be blindfolded and Ken will give me

a variety of smartphones, new and old, to see if I can

tell if there's any difference between them.

Spoiler alert, probably not.

All right, smartphone number one.

Well I immediately feel a vertical camera.

I mean, I would say that this is an iPhone.

It's got the same rounded edges.

I'm gonna guess iPhone XS Max.

- Yes. (bell dings)

- Hey!

All right, next?

This one's got a little more heft to it.

Oh, so we've got a headphone jack.

Okay, that's something right there.

No, I'm gonna say it's a Honor phone of some variety.

- [Ken] No. (Buzzer blares)

- What is it?

- [Ken] RedMi Note 7.

- Ah, the Note 7.

Okay, all right,

Fair enough, fair enough.

Oh, okay, this is chunkier.

Glass.

Finger print sensor on the back.

The closest thing I can think is maybe the Nokia 9,

but I'm not really sure.

(buzzer blares)

- [Ken] It is the Nokia, LG G8 ThinQ.

- Wait, what?

This is the G8?

- Yeah. - Why did you say Nokia?

Oh, there's a headphone jack,

I didn't feel the headphone jack.

Ah!

How is Nokia close to LG?

- [Ken] It's not.

- You're just trolling me. - Don't think about it.

- Okay.

Big phone, fairly light.

Ooh, we've got a physical button here.

Wow, I mean, that's a giveaway,

I wonder what phone this might be.

Oh, we've got it, is that finger print sensor right here?

Hmm, this is a Note 8.

I'm gonna say Note 8.

- [Ken] It's a Galaxy Note 7.

- This a 7? (buzzer blares)

(Austin moans) (Austin groans)

Take this back, I don't want this.

Tryna kill me over here.

Oh, this is a big boy.

This has gotta be Razer Phone.

- Yeah. - Definitely Razer Phone.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, the thing, Razer Phone 2 right?

- Yes. - Yeah.

That's a big boy right here.

- Okay, Oh, that's a big boy.

Heavy.

Ooh, I'm feeling like a ridge here.

Ah, this has gotta ROG Phone, right?

- Yeah. (bell dings)

- Yeah, 'cause you can feel like, with the fake vents here.

Man, that's hefty.

Gaming phones, like the Razer Phone,

are a good example of how this should work,

but it kind of doesn't in the mobile space right now.

Now there are some legitimately gaming focused features

which I like on the Razer Phone.

High refresh rate, great audio.

But the underlying processor,

the underlying actual capability,

really isn't all that different than a much thinner,

much lighter, and in some cases, much cheaper smartphone

based on those same specs.

I mean sure, the marketing and the RGB is there

and for some people that's enough.

When it comes to a legitimate, different smartphone,

you're getting almost the exact same experience

as pretty much any other flagship out there.

And that's kind of a problem as far as I'm concerned.