Samsung phones are about 50% bloatware and 50% bad Android Software nowadays.
Here I am, on my first Samsung ever, being happy that stuff just works again. (like it did on my Huawei, long, long ago)
Ymmv.
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I’ve always been a Stock Android fanboi, but I really wanted to buy a foldable, so got myself a Galaxy Fold 4 last year. This is the first Samsung I’ve owned after decades - my last one being a Galaxy S2. I removed all bloat (including crap like Bixby) using Universal Android Debloater, and using a custom launcher, OneUI stays out of the way for the most part. I don’t really miss stock Android. With my current setup, there’s no performance issues, no TouchWiz bugs/annoyances like in the old days, everything’s running pretty smoothly.
In saying that, ideally I’d love to unlock the bootloader and run LineageOS on it, but there’s no build out for it yet (and unlikely there will be one for a long time), also, I’m not sure if I want to play the whole SafteyNet cat-and-mouse game again. Shizuku works great for apps that need higher privileges, I use Droidify and open-source apps where possible, life is good.
I had the Samsung Note 2 back in the day. I installed a custom bootloader and OS that worked fantastically. I had GPS issues, and all the guides I read said I have to reinstall Samsung’s OS, get a GPS fix, then reinstall my custom OS.
I made the mistake of installing a newer version of the Samsung OS which installed Knox and locked down my bootloader. I was now locked into an old, insecure Android version with no possibility of ever upgrading because Samsung abandoned it.
From that day on, I vowed never to buy another Samsung product again. Screw them and their anti-choice bullshit.
Last Samsung I had was the Galaxy s8, it was such a piece of shit I switched to an iPhone and am never going to buy another Samsung product in my life.
I mean, phones hand so much space now. Does it matter?
I know I can root and get rid of stupid apps, but like I just downloaded sent movie or Playlist I needed for a two week trip without any issue on space on my fold 4. So… why does the extra crap layer these days.
Early days, I’d root as my phone degraded over time. Now… why bother
Yeah Samsung sucks. I am never going to leave Android so if I want a decent lower-midrange phone I have to stick with Motorola.
Look at the size the 10% bar is in the 40-49 graph. Then the 6% bars in the 50-59 graph. Then look at the size of the 9% bar in the 60-69 graph. And then the Other bar (8%) in the 70+ graph.
Then go backup and look at the LG and Other bars (8% total) in the top graph. Whoever made this graphic is either intentionally misleading or just plain dumb.
Edit: The 78%, 80%, an 85% bars are also all exactly the same size. It just gets worse the longer you look at it.
Why not both
Yea, it’s strange - top to bottom rows sum up to 94, 100, 92, 94, 100, 100
Young Koreans favor whatever is new and cool from year to year. One year I was there everyone had iDevices, a couple years later it was Samsungs. Trendiness with electronics is a big thing.
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It’s crazy how people just constantly buy the latest and greatest. I can afford it, I just don’t want to. I bought a refurbished iPhone 11 like 8 months ago, works great. Bought a 2021 MacBook Pro that was refurbished, works great. Literally just purchased a refurbished gaming computer with a 2070 that gets here this week, I bet it’ll work just fine. Do most people actually NEED the latest and greatest or is it more of a fashion or financial statement?
Personally I don’t think I could handle the device whiplash that much. I use my phones and laptops until they break or become unbearable. This year, I finally bought a new MSI laptop to replace my 2013 MacBook Pro which, other than battery issues, was still going strong.
I own a lot of different kinds of devices, sure, but I spend a long time getting my phones and PCs set up just right after I get them. Going through that on a yearly basis just seems needlessly stressful, to be honest.
I’m with you 100%. I like to fine tune everything so it works perfectly, in tandem, exactly how I want and need it. I really hate changing devices even though Apple makes it quite easy. I’m sure android does too but I haven’t owned one a while so idk. My girlfriend is the same way BUT she does like to stay with more current phone models due to camera quality. She gets a lot of use out of the camera, whereas I don’t but that reasoning makes some sense to me.
I have friends that are constantly upgrading their phones on these ridiculous payment plans through their carriers and putting their MacBooks or laptops on credit just to stay up with the “latest tech.” It doesn’t make sense, must EVERYTHING be on a payment plan? If you can’t buy a device then and there with cash, and you aren’t in a dire situation where you need to replace something (you should prob consider insuring your devices) then you can wait and save. Consider refurbished as well.
Yeah, although to some extent stuff like app-store lock-in does restrict easily jumping from one ecosphere to another.
If one is an Android user, there is at least some flexibility in switching between different phone vendors and styles, but in many places Samsung is pretty dominant, while others like LG have dropped out of the game entirely.
That’s extremely surprising considering how much Samsung has a hold over SK
My first thought was this was a punk thing, like, if you want to think of yourself as a bit rebellious you can buy the American phone instead of the phone made by the company that owns your nation.
That would make sense
I’ve used samsung for all of my smartphones until my latest (when I switched to oneplus), but it’s still an android phone. No way would I switch to ultra-locked-down apple.
Ye oneplus is great you just need a dns to block those chinese queries over vpn for example because it wont allow you to change the dns manually. (op8)
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I’m an Apple person, but for customizability you can’t beat a google pixel with an unlocked boot loader. You can literally run anything you want.
There was a time where Samsung flagships had features that iPhone didn’t. Samsung slowly stripped their phones of these features.
If you don’t need an android platform, and aren’t after a foldable, there’s a lot less of an argument to be made to be on Samsung these days.
I’ve had Samsung for around nine years. The thing that kept me married to them was the SD card slot. Now that it’s gone, after my Note 10+ stops getting updates, I’ll be looking at something else. I have the Samsung watch, buds and tablet but I’m assuming they’ll work with a pixle if that’s what I land on. I like the Samsung nearby share but that’s such a small thing and doesn’t keep brand loyalty. Otherwise, what do they offer that say the pixle doesn’t?
It’s basically the reason I’m using a mid-range Samsung. But they got rid of the headphone jack on the last generation A-series and it’s only a matter of time before the SD card disappears too. Gonna look elsewhere for me next upgrade
I’m just hoping either Fairphone irons out it’s kinks or legislation catches up with removable batteries and locked-down operating systems. I’m tired of feeling like I’m owning a device just until the manufacturer decides to turn it into e-waste.
I agree with you. One thing that keeps me with Samsung though is Dex. Everything else is replaceable with a time adjustment, but Dex is pretty big for me and other phones don’t have it… Yet.
A bit weird to see LG in the charts (given that they’re out of the smartphone industry now) and yet none of the other big manufacturers (Xiaomi, Huawei, Google).
The brands you mentioned aren’t widely available in Korea. Since LG left the market, all the carriers, to my knowledge, only offer Apple or Samsung devices.
Source: I’ve lived in SoKo for a long time.
Thanks for the insight. Is what you’re saying that there you can only buy a phone through a carrier?
You can buy unlocked phones of other brands like Google or Xiaomi on the Korean equivalent of Amazon (Coupang), but they’re substantially more expensive. I’d bet you can get Chinese brands at the little mom and pop shops that cater to Chinese students and immigrants.
I’ve dealt with Samsung as the developer of a large app. They will pre-install your app on new phones if you pay them, which I think is pretty seedy. It’s also not very good for the dev because who knows if anyone will ever launch your preinstalled app. Samsung even claimed not to know. So we had no idea what we’d be paying for. Samsung’s Galaxy app store is also a totally laughable mess, far inferior to Google Play and AppStore in functionality. It even has spelling mistakes 😖
However I’ll keep doing business with Samsung. They’re just janky and it’s not surprising that users think they’re just as janky as I do.
Now Huawei…fuck Huawei. They created a big work mess for me by networking their way to a high ranking executive at our company and then telling them our app was “broken on millions of Huawei phones.” They made it sound like a bug in our code. But here’s what it actually was:
Trump banned Huawei from doing business in the US due to their ties to the Chinese Communist Party. This meant Huawei had to stop using some very core Android code libraries, since Google is an American company and couldn’t allow use of those libraries. So Huawei whipped up their own replacements to these libraries, but developers basically need to customize and republish their app specially for Huawei.
So because they got in trouble with Trump, Huawei needed all devs to rewrite their apps for Huawei phones. Instead of being honest about this, they got me in trouble, convincing an executive that something was wrong with our app. They generously offered to meet with our tech team and “help us fix it.”
I met with them, and once I understood what they were doing, I told them to get fucked. Then I wrote up a memo about what happened and let our executive leaders know that we wouldn’t be on Huawei phones ever again, going forward.
Samsung’s not THAT bad. Not even close.
Not much of a surprise, at least to me. Granted, my knowledge of the place is limited, but from what I’ve heard they really care about symbols of status (Fancy watches, jewelry, and, of course, expensive phones). Add that to the fact that kids nowdays aren’t as patriotic (a good thing imo) and care less about local brands and the fact that tech literacy is not great either… Well it puts thing in perspective.
You seem to be pretty judgmental of something you admit you know little about.
Yeah, sorry if I came out harsh. In all honesty I am just frustrated by the incredible growth of Apple. It really confuses me how with such a tight ecosystem and anti-consumer practices they have managed to attain such mindshare that it’s not even funny. And I am saying all that despite this very comment being sent out of an iPhone.
Ouch… isn’t Samsung based in Korea?? How did they fuck that up
Shit software and OS
If you can’t uninstall the bloatware, just disable it in settings. I have been doing that and works perfectly fine. And then I put all the bloatware into a single folder in the launcher and voila, it’s a clean experience. Stock android is the best, the next best thing is OneUI in my experience.
2 months ago I bought a regular samsung galaxy s23 and it’s been running great so far. I expected MIUI levels of bloat, but surprisingly it is not that bad.
I had to disable a few samsung apps and for the most part, the phone stays out of my way and lets me do whatever i want.
I wish the s23 lineup gets good custom rom support. Would love to run a lean LineageOS / any AOSP based rom with MicroG on this phone.
I’m 50, and I switched to an iPhone SE 2020 2 years ago, I’m never going back. It cost me 119$ and it’s worth every penny.
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