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Comment by pc86 | Hacker News Reader

I just switched to Android after being an iOS user since the iPhone 4. Honestly the fact that I have this stupid "Bixby" button on the side of the Note 8, almost perfectly in the middle, that I hit by accident maybe every third time I pick the phone up, is infuriating. No way to uninstall it, no way to turn it off, just a ~30% chance of launching some stupid app I don't want to use every time I pick the phone up.

I'm sure it will get better over time but I don't want to have to change the way I pick up my phone to avoid Samsung's garbageware.

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The weird part about people complaining about the Bixby button is the fact they bought it.

Like why buy it? Did you not see the button when you looked at the product? Did you not read any reviews?

So many other phones to select from and users are buying a phone with a button they don't want.

Companies continue to get away with these poor design decisions and forcing this system-wide apps because we continue to buy their products.

> The weird part about people complaining about the Bixby button is the fact they bought it.

If it's the best phone otherwise, why not buy it? It's not a deal-breaker; it's just annoying.

> If it's the best phone otherwise

Is it? I'm not up to date on the latest models, but in the past when I've compared Samsung's flagships to others, there wasn't a really obvious winner. I always found it a little weird that Samsung got such a large share of the market.

I have absolutely no idea if the actual phone in question is objectively the best one, but it might be the best one for pc86 - except for the Bixby button, which might be the price they're willing to pay for everything else.

The Galaxy Note series is, to my knowledge, the only smartphone on the market that comes with a stylus. Some of us really like that (Galaxy Note 4 owner here).

I really wish Apple would ship a phone with a stylus, but we know it's against their religion. His Steveness spake thus: thou shalt not use a stylus with a phone! And it was so in all Appledom.

Is there something special about that particular stylus? Does anything prevent you from getting a third-party one for a different phone? Or does the phone also have a nifty slot for it?

Yes, the phone has a nifty slot, and the phone detects when the stylus is removed and turns the screen on, a nice touch. Also, I think the touchscreen response might have been tuned for the stylus -- I'm not sure it will work as well with other phones (an Android music player I have doesn't detect the stylus at all).

There are other features, like a button on the stylus that the phone can detect a press of, and a small cursor that appears on the screen when the stylus is near but not touching it, but these are less important. Still, I think it's fair to say that the stylus is more useful when integrated into the design.

It's got a full digitiser integrated into the display. The pen can detect 4096 or some such levels of pressure. It can detect hover. The pen and screen work flawlessly underwater. There is literally no other phone with these capability.

LG sells some phones with a stylus and a built in slot for it, but they don't have specs comparable to the Note 8.

> The Galaxy Note series is, to my knowledge, the only smartphone on the market that comes with a stylus.

Not quite, but I think it's the only flagship with an integrated stylus.

It's also the only one with it's monstrously large screen, and it's aspect ratio, which is a nice combo because it gives you a lot of visible screen content while using the on-screen keyboard.

Not the best for everyone's preferences, but there's no obvious substitute for someone who wants Note 8’s distinct features other than Bixby.

Depends on your 'needs' and 'wants'.

For me there's a ~four-way set of compromises: Stock (or near-stock) Android, Headphone Jack, Excellent Battery Capacity, Quality components.

Unfortunately there's nothing that meets all four of those requirements.

The Google Pixel 2 is probably as close as it gets, but has no headphone jack - which is a deal breaker for me.

After that, it's down to either the Samsung Galaxy range (S8, S8+, Note8) which all have the Bixby button, or LG V30/V30+.

Both of these are unfortunately running heavily modded versions of Android that are well out of date, and the LG V30/V30+ have had issues with screen quality and general availability.

So, I have a Galaxy S8+ - not my first choice, and I'm not really happy with it (too much Samsung crapware on it), but it's better than the alternatives.

It does appear that there are third-party ROMs for the S8+. I'm not sure if any of them are stable enough for daily use.

Because every Android phone has annoyances like that. It's not like there's a version of the Note 8 without the button.

> The weird part about people complaining about the Bixby button is the fact they bought it.

Because there's a phone identical to the Note 8 but for the button? Just because the Android ecosystem is more diverse than iOS doesn't mean that there is unlimited variation available in the market. I don't want Bixby, really dislike the button placement (too easy to accidentally activate even if I wanted Bixby), but that's not enough to prefer another phone to the Note 8.

> no way to turn it off

You can turn it off, see https://www.androidauthority.com/disable-bixby-button-samsun...

It makes the button do nothing, which is kind of annoying in its own way, since you can't remap it to something useful but at least you don't have to suffer Clippy 2.0.

I disabled the Bixby button on my S8 and remapped it to open Spotify. It's become way more useful than originally anticipated.

I thought you could only disable it, not remap it. How did you remap it? Through some app?

There's an app on the Play Store called "Bixby Remapper", let's you choose nearly anything you want that button to do.

Honestly it's been extremely useful and I'd recommend it to all S8/Note8 users.

Didn't Samsung add a way to disable that button after user complaints? https://www.google.com/search?q=disable+bixby+button seems to indicate that this is now an option.

You can turn it off IIRC.

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