Samsung is trying to sell a Galaxy Note 3 on Black Friday and it should feel ashamed

There are bad deals, and then there are sales that show a disrespect for your customers.

Samsung’s online Black Friday deals kick off on November 20, and it’s always great to get an early look at what products will be available — and at what price — before the sales go live. As is often the case with these kinds of sales there are a couple of great deals out there, surrounded by lots of so-so offerings and a couple of complete head-scratchers.

This year, the biggest head scratcher of them all is Samsung attempting to sell a certified pre-owned Galaxy Note 3 for $249 … yes, in the year 2016.

Alright, the Galaxy Note 3 was one hell of a phone back when it was released in 2013. This was well before big phones were the norm, and it had a great set of specs: Snapdragon 800, 3GB of RAM, a 1080p display and of course the S Pen. Our review was, to say the least, positive:

It’s big and brash and expensive — but it’s also brilliant. And whether you’re a power user looking for bleeding-edge specs or a professional seeking a larger screen with stylus-based productivity features, the Galaxy Note 3 is the best device in its class, and a phone that’s earned itself an enthusiastic recommendation.

But that was October 2013. It is now November 2016. The Note 3 is running Android 5.0 Lollipop, hasn’t been updated since November 2015 and will not receive any future updates. It’s well over 3 years old and will not receive any sort of support or warranty service by Samsung. It’s an old phone, and nobody would recommend that you buy one, especially for $250.

For that kind of money you can buy a Moto G4 Plus, a OnePlus 2 or maybe a ZTE Axon Pro. Heck, you’re not too far off from the likes of the Honor 8 or even stretching for the OnePlus 3T.

It’s the kind of money-grabbing insensitive move that any company should be repulsed by the thought of.

I know this, and most of you know this, but the unsuspecting average consumer looking for a deal on Black Friday may not know this. And because of that, Samsung needs to respect its potential customers and not attempt to sell them a used phone that launched in 2013 and will not be supported from the day they purchase it. That’s the kind of money-grabbing insensitive move that any company should be repulsed by the thought of, particularly a company skating on thin ice when it comes to consumer confidence in its phones.

Considering that the sale is starting and the phones are still listed, it seems as though Samsung is going to sell more than zero Galaxy Note 3s this holiday season. Tell your friends, your family, your coworkers and anyone you see: do not buy a Galaxy Note 3 on Black Friday.

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Samsung is a massive South Korea-based multinational company that makes some of the best-selling phones, tablets and mobile accessories, but also spans industries such as televisions, appliances and semiconductors (like memory and processors). Samsung is the largest Android device manufacturer worldwide.

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Alfa Romeo Stelvio preview: Alfa’s first SUV

At the LA Motor Show – or AutomobilityLA as it’s now known – it felt as though every brand brought a new SUV. From Honda and Mazda, through to Chevrolet, Jaguar and – most surprisingly of all – Alfa Romeo.

Alfa has never made an SUV before, but the demand for these vehicles simply isn’t slowing down, so enter the Stelvio (which is named after a famous Alpine mountain pass).

It’s a Porsche Macan-sized SUV with design language that riffs on the Giulia, the latter Alfa’s new saloon – that feels like it’s been around for some time, but which we’re still waiting to drive in the UK.

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Shown in LA in its range-topping Quadrifoglio Verde form (that’s Cloverleaf in British), the Stelvio is Alfa pushing hard the sports part of Sports Utility Vehicle. The QV model gets the Giulia QV’s 2.9-litre V6, making 510-horsepower and driving through an 8-speed auto box. It’s going to be Porsche Macan Turbo fast, too, this Alfa.

It’s also Macan Turbo-sized, despite perhaps appearances to the contrary. The main response to the Stelvio at the Los Angeles show was how small it was, particularly in height. It bears more of a resemblance to a hatchback on steroids, than a genuine SUV. But it’s not a crossover.

Part of the reason for this is the gargantuan 22-inch wheels the Stelvio QV wears. Bigger wheels have an impact of making you feel that the actual car is smaller than it might seem. But at just 1650mm tall, the Stelvio is low for an SUV. And with the ground clearance on offer, you’ll be better off on the Nurburgring than you will the muddy field of your country fair.

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It’s perhaps no surprise the Stelvio bears a strong resemblance to the Giulia, given they shares the same platform and many components. With rear-wheel drive biased chassis, and a purported focus on driving dynamics, the Stelvio should be great to drive then. That low height and corresponding centre of gravity will probably help out too.

However, despite wearing the Alfa shield, and being painted in an evocative red (which tends to trip critics into automatically stating that a car is beautiful) in the metal we found the Stelvio a little underwhelming. It looks derivative and brings very little new to the SUV party (indeed, flick through the gallery in our LA show round-up, and many of the cars there almost begin to merge into being one and the same).

• LA Motor Show in pictures: The best cars from the AutomobilityLA show floor

In design terms, the Stelvio manages to appear both overly soft, and yet too flat – like the design hasn’t been properly worked through in 3D. Italian car brands traditionally don’t use clay to develop their new models, whereas other brands do – which is seen as the best way to refine surfaces. For Alfa, we think that approach shows. Around the rear three quarters, in particular, the Stelvio looks stodgy and the body ill-connected to the rear wheel.

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Inside, however, the Stelvio’s cabin is sporting, featuring a similar architecture to the Giulia. That means a rotary control, not touchscreen centre display (should be easier to use on the move), alongside heavily cowled Alfa dials for speed and revs, which flank a digital display.

The start button is on the steering wheel, and the seats grip you tight and feel snug and low. It’s a sporty driving position inside, for sure. We didn’t manage to get into the back seats, but the boot space looks class competitive, which is good news for families.

First Impressions

There’s clear demand for an Alfa-branded SUV, so Alfa Romeo is sure to do well with the Stelvio.

Of course the Alfisti will hate this type of vehicle wearing one its badges, just as Porsche drivers did when the first Cayenne emerged. But it’s SUVs like these that generate the profits for the brands, which enable them to stay alive, and then build the low-volume sports cars that everyone wants to see.

We just wish the Stelvio’s design looked a little more resolved, though we will caveat that by saying, as with the Giulia, we actually think the regular models look better than the QV – and that could be the case here.

So we’ll await full judgement until we’ve seen the Stelvio on smaller wheels, without the body kit and in either the 2.0 petrol or 2.2 diesel versions that people will actually buy.

Jaguar I-Pace preview: More titillating than a Tesla?

It only seemed like 15 minutes ago that we were arguing about whether or not Jaguar should build an SUV. With the I-Pace shown off at the LA Motor Show – or AutomobilityLA as it’s now known – Jag shows us it’s not only thinking about building more SUVs, but making them electrically powered, too.

So what is the I-Pace? It’s smaller than size than the F-Pace SUV, it’s lower and shorter (4680mm long) and the profile is very different too.

Rather than Jag’s traditional long bonnet and rear-wheel drive proportion (“cab backwards” in designer speak) with the I-Pace the British company has made the bonnet short, with a “cab forwards” proportion.

That creates quite a snub nose and a large, spacious passenger cabin. The tail is chopped off and the rear window more of a coupe profile, creating something that looks altogether new and fresh.

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Under the floors, and integral to the structure, is a 90kW, liquid-cooled battery pack. That’s three times the capacity of the battery in, say, a Nissan Leaf. And Jaguar is projecting this means the car can travel around 500km on the official European drive cycle.

However, everyone who’s owned or driven an electric vehicle (EV) knows that measurement to be fallacy, so a better estimate of real-world range is the USA EPA system, on which Jag says the I-Pace will deliver 220 miles range. This sounds much more realistic to us.

Jaguar has also set out to go Tesla baiting, it seems, so the I-Pace makes 400 horsepower and 700nM of torque, and the company is conservatively saying the car will run 0-60mph in around four seconds.

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But as it’s all a concept isn’t this all just powder puff stuff anyway? Well, not so fast because – and having talked to Jag’s team – we’re fairly confident that the design of the I-Pace represents 80-90 per cent of the production design. Lose some of the concept details and you’re almost there.

• LA Motor Show in pictures: The best cars from the AutomobilityLA show floor

And when it comes to the powertrain, this is the real deal. Jag, like many other brands, has been working on its EV technology for some time now. Unusually the battery has been developed in house, whereas other brands primarily use Samsung and LG-chem technology. So the I-Pace will arrive, for real, in 2018. Whether it wears the same name, is up for debate.

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Inside Jaguar has evolved its current interior design language, added some clever design devices to remove mass and developed some thin seats, but overall it’s quite restrained and not as arresting as that exterior. It doesn’t push things to quite the futuristic lengths as a BMW i in terns of materials, or as a Tesla in terms of tech screens and button removal.

Nonetheless, there’s what Jag calls its “flightdeck” control interface, with everything to hand, meaning things like normal indicator stalks, gear selector buttons exist on a high, floating console – which also contains the climate control knobs.

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Combine this tech setup with a 12-inch, TFT driver display, plus a 12-inch centre touchscreen and tertiary 5.5-inch display for the climate. It might not be a Tesla, but there are plenty of screens to hand. The graphics have a much crisper, linear and monochrome design than current Jags, which feels more in-keeping with the I-Pace’s concept overall. It’s something we hope Jag will strive to keep and move forward for production.

First Impressions

In general we sense that EVs are reaching a tipping point. That 200 miles of range feels like the magic, acceptable number for many people. Meanwhile battery prices are falling and battery energy density continuing to increase.

With Tesla already there, and Audi, BMW and Mercedes all planning their own fully electric SUVs between now and 2020, Jaguar won’t have the market to itself when the I-Pace makes its real-world debut.

But what the I-Pace will have – if it’s even 80 per cent of what we see here on the Los Angeles show floor – is a highly appealing, good-looking car that pulls off the neat trick of feeling authentically like a Jaguar and yet advanced and modern enough without being so far out it puts the more conservative buyer off. Roll-on two years’ time.