Hold on tight, we are almost back…
Previously on Lemmy: Sony
Past Discussions:
I thought we should restart the brand discussion with something more popular to give this community relaunch a bit more oomph. So, Samsung it is.
I’ve never really used a Samsung phone much before, despite them being so popular in the States. Have friends who used them, they usually look nice and high quality, and the Galaxy S Active are the only high-end phones I know that doesn’t shatter when you look at them wrong without a case, so, props to Samsung.
There are may reasons I don’t like Samsung phones: Hardware fuse disabling Knox on bootloader unlock, Exynos vs Snapdragon models, the mandatory Bixby button, the Galaxy Note 7 that really blew up. To me, Samsung phones are trying so hard to go against what makes Android good, which is the customizability to do whatever you wanted. Android is everything; Samsung is just Samsung.
Personally, I think Samsung is only worth buying at the very high end for the Galaxy S series. I’ve heard that A series have gotten better, but there always seems to be better choices from Moto/Pixel/Chinese brands on Amazon that it’s not worth considering their low tier offering.
What should we do next week? I’m thinking Microsoft, just to make fun of them for the very idea of making a Surface Duo 2.
FAQ:
Hardware great, software garbage. They really want to be like Apple but aren’t even half as competent (which is more an insult to Samsung than praise to Apple). It comes bloated with all kind of garbage alot of which you can’t uninstall (like Facebook). They have their own app store next to the Google Store which is annoying. It has no reason to be there other than distributing their shitty apps that I don’t want in the first place.
I currently have an S21 and can’t wait to have the spare income to replace it.
Facebook does not come on their unlocked phones. I’ve set up my S8 and S23, as well as Note 9 and Note 22 for family and none of them came with bloatware aside from Samsung’s apps. However I got a used Galaxy tablet on AT&T and it had so much crap on it. At least it’s removable using ADB.
It does however include meta services, meta app manager, and meta app installer which you have to either disable after enabling view of system apps or use adb to remove it.
Fun fact, the Meta installer is a system app so it can quietly install (also system) stuff without your knowledge.
Also, having seen what extensive spying a regular Facebook app does (when it’s a non-system app!) I wouldn’t touch a Samsung phone without root with a ten foot pole.
I bought a Samsung phone years ago and had to return it. I remember feeling really conflicted when I decided to return it. Hardware wise it was the best there was at the time and the phone itself looked beautiful. On paper it was a monster. Yet it dropped frames like crazy and stuttered doing the most basic tasks. I just couldn’t justify spending that much money for a mediocre experience. Such a pity.
Samsung has great hardware but my OG galaxy S2 was peak Samsung for me. I still love their build quality but I don’t like curved screens, lack of sd slots and 3.5mm jack and so on. Neither do I want all the Samsung social etc. apps.
If Samsung made a clean phone like the pixel with their build quality, that would be a game changer.
It would be interesting for the users but it would also undermine Samsung’s position in their war with Google.
The reason Samsung duplicates all the apps etc. is so that they keep Google at arm’s length. Google controls their manufacturers with tightly controlled deals for the Android trademark and access to the Play Store and Services Framework. By duplicating those and the app ecosystem, Samsung is saying “we won’t be so easy to get rid of”.
Granted, Samsung is also the largest Android manufacturer, so all out war would probably mean the fracture of the entire Android landscape.
I’ve once read a comparison between the income percentage that Android represents for Samsung and Google respectively and I seem to recall it would damage Google more than Samsung. But it was years ago so that might have changed, and also the Google side analysis involved guesswork about the impact on their ad and data collection business.
I don’t mind the phone/contacts/dialer etc. They seem pretty functional most of the time. I hate my phone being loaded with AR Emoji, Samsung sync and a bunch of other stuff that should either be opt in or allowed to be uninstalled.
What pisses me off even more is that despite all this junk, they can’t be arsed to develop a proper audio player or Equalizer.
Whatever their position is, I paid more than a reasonable amount of money for this phone and I should be able to use it how I want to. I appreciate the fact that I can install graphene or calyxos on my pixel 5a and resign the bootloader while you can’t touch a single thing without tripping Knox on my note 9.
Samsung social eh? Maybe they should just make their own Lemmy instance. That’d be pretty cool.
Lol, from my limited amount of reading, Samsung seems to be a company that unduly tries to influence the SK government, much more so that Google/Apple in the US. So I have no clue how this will shape up.
P.S The actual app is called Samsung Members or something.
I don’t have much to add to the conversation, but I watched this video and I thought it was a pretty good summary of the history of Samsung and SK.
Samsung phones have great hardware, but all the Samsung bloatware ruins the phone. Good if you can get one with only stock android
The only good thing about Samsung’s software is Dex which unfortunately has no decent replacement.
Samsung phones are the worst android phones you can buy, except for all the others.
As frustrating as Samsung is, I always find myself going back to them. Displays, build quality, cameras, performance, storage capacity, speakers, software features (Dex!), they’re just ahead of the curve across the board.
The only legitimate advantage of Chinese phones is the super fast charging, but I’m in the better safe than sorry camp on that one.
I’ve had the Fold 3 and now Fold 4, and I really don’t see myself getting anything other than a Fold 6 down the line, unless something major changes.
Mixed opinions.
Things I like about Samsung:
- Feature-rich hardware and software
- 4 years of OS updates compared to 3 by Google
- S Pen in Note/Ultra
- Foldables
- Keeping Android tablets and Android-compatible smartwatches alive when Google abandoned them. Huge props for that.
Things I dislike:
- Making fun of Apple and then doing the exact same things they did: removing the headphone jack, display notch, removing the charger in the box.
- They even got rid of expandable storage in the S series despite being a major manufacturer of micro SDs.
- Samsung’s software is notorious for being slow, generally inferior compared to Google’s and not the most well-designed out there.
- I tried both the Galaxy A52 and a Pixel 6a at Best Buy. The A52 was lagging. I bought the 6a.
- They’re edging towards anti-repair.
- Certain Samsung smartwatch features only work if you have a Samsung phone.
