Why I will never buy another Samsung device

For example, they take screenshots of what you watch on your Samsung Televisions!

Don't believe me? Take it from them: https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/resources/tv-... and https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/insights/

You're not their customer, you're the product.

Additionally, Samsung have a habit of releasing forced updates that almost-but-not-entirely brick their TVs, slowing them down to molasses. They do this right before the next model becomes available for purchase.

Last but not least, a colleague worked there as a consultant, and his stories of their lax IT security were nearly unbelievable. Even though they spy on you like Google or Facebook, they are not like a FAANG when it comes to protecting your private info! They've been hacked for sure, probably by multiple nation state actors. Whatever you watch or do with their TVs is being relayed to the US, Russians, Chinese, or whomever. Assume that nothing you do with a Samsung device or Samsung software is remotely secure or safe.

They're a slimy company made up of unscrupulous people trying to squeeze every last drop out of every rock.

Don't give them your money. There are many other companies with much better track records.

I know that's not the point of the post, and I'm not blaming the author. It just seems like such a ridiculous concept in the first place. My old flip phone had its own problems, and there wasn't even a display along the seam.

The story of getting it fixed is really why people love Apple and even Amazon.

I've had the Wifi go unreliable on an iPad. I got a Genius appointment for later that day. They confirmed the Wifi module was shot and just gave me a new device on the spot. They even offered to do the transfer for me. This sort of convenience is what gives people confidence in buying Apple products.

Even something as simple as accessory access matters. If my Macbook charger dies, I can walk into any number of stores and buy another. Dell charger? Not so much.

Amazon has pretty accurate shipping estimates. This matters. So does Apple for the record. Just last week I got sent the wrong product. I didn't have to talk to anyone on the phone. I simply went to my order on my phone and clicked "return item" -> "wrong product" and the entire matter was dealt with.

I don't want to deal with support that is deliberately hard to contact that is monetarily motivated to not do anything for you.

I’m sure someone in these companies has made a spreadsheet that shows permissive repair and replacement policies cost $X million a year, but it probably doesn’t take into account that the experience with the iPod directly led to me purchasing multiple iPhones and Macs.

We generally call this "being an early adopter."

https://www.samsungparts.com/

This site truly has to be experienced to be fully appreciated. Try to find a part for one of their appliances (like a latch or hose or something). Here’s a list of some of their model numbers:

https://www.whirlpoolparts.com/PartSearch/ProductBrandAllMod...

You may be wondering why I needed to order replacement parts for one of their appliances during initial installation. Let’s just say I’m not buying any of their crap again either.

If that’s not bad enough to scare you off, their fridges have cameras that use deep learning to translate video into marketing info, then phone it home (joining it with information from local samsung tvs if possible).

I recommend Apple phones to everyone in my family for the specific reason that if you have a broken Apple device, you can walk into an Apple store and get it fixed.

Cynical me says that Samsung is seeing above average warranty claims on these foldable phones. Thus they need to get them down so some manager somewhere decides that they will enforce the policies more strictly with small scratches and dents outright disqualifying claims. Lo and behold this reduces the warranty claims paid out but in the grand scheme of things completely demolishes any customer loyalty.

I wonder if author reached out via twitter or some other social media channel to have Samsung comment.

Also I have to think what Apple or Google would do. I'm pretty sure Apple would just straight up repair the phone with very few questions (that has been my experience). Google you'd have to go through a longer warranty process but my guess is they'd be more lenient and eventually you'd get a new or repaired phone.

Samsung is losing hard here.

This is legally guaranteed, that within the first 6 months any defects are assumed to have existed at the time of delivery [0]. If samsung don't respect the warranty, issue a chargeback. Your bank will back you up and Samsung have no leg to stand on.

(Also, samsung really shouldn't be playing silly-buggers here, but I guess enough people capitulate, that it makes sense for them to do this.)

[0] https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/gua....

> Released 2019, October 22

How is a 2 year old phone aging?

Samsung have removed the Elpis controller from the 980 PRO SSD and replaced it with an unknown one, and also removed any speed reference from the spec sheet.

Take a look here for what's changed on the 980 PRO: https://i.imgur.com/YJShyLR.jpg

Come on, seriously? That phone is at most 2 years old. It's not like the specs of that phone are in any way deficient; I guarantee you there is no app that you needed to run that couldn't run on that phone. Phones are resource intensive to manufacture - we should be aiming to keep them for 1/2 a dozen years or more. This mindset of replace with new and shiny "just because" [you're addicted to spending money] is bad for the planet.

I think it’s silly that they are using these chips and scratches as a reason to refuse replacing a faulty screen though.

Apparently Samsung was using Nickel directly on the skin, and an acrylic alternative called acrylate that also has been known to cause irritation. 2 irritating substances, directly on the skin, in one pair of earbuds. Madness.

https://www.androidcentral.com/samsung-galaxy-buds-pro-ear-i...

Having the seller (instead of the manufacturer) deal with this issue explicitly under the two-year "Gewährleistungsrecht", where the first six months it is up to the seller to prove that you are responsible for the damage (since 2022 it's now 1 year, if bought in 2022), may yield a better result.

I can't imagine having the phone in the pocket together with a grain of sand would qualify as neglectful behavior? My phone has very tiny scratches probably because of sand in the pocket, but this is to be expected and not a problem to the phone, it can handle this without problems. So having phones in the pockets together with a grain of sand should be no issue. Is there such a warning in the manual?

Not only did they never revert/fix it, but they had the audacity to blame their customers for using "software that anyone could modify".

What? aging? It's from late 2019...That's hardly aging at all. I still use a 4a that is smooth as butter and battery lasts 2 days.

Another good question to ask to assess the potential success of consumer products trends is "has Apple produced any of these yet?"

Every iPhone I’ve had has succumbed to either the home button failing (which requires a completely new main board to fix) or the lithium battery swelling to the point the case bursts open. My current model has no home button and has lasted the longest, and is a few months away from its third battery - I have no intention of replacing it until Apple brings back Touch ID or eliminates the notch.

My wife has had the same Samsung phone for almost fifteen years, but it fails consistently every year and she has it replaced under warranty (how many of those things did they make that there is a two decade supply of replacements?) She gets a fresh unit with a fresh battery every year and runs it until it fails, then she spends about four hours on the phone with clueless support techs from Samsung and Tmobile, they point fingers at each other for a while, then finally agree to replace the unit. Usually it is the screen that fails but once she lost a bunch of irreplaceable photos when the encryption key corrupted, leaving her with nothing but a memory card full of encrypted blobs. Otherwise she has become really good at migrating to new phones when they arrive.

Why is "shininess" an attribute at all that people are willing to trade off for the hassle of dealing with mechanical failure? Probably because, at the time when they make their purchasing decision, they are too willing to take it on faith that a manufacturer makes sane choices around tradeoffs between looks and likeliness of mechanical failure.

Well: They don't. Stories like the above just show how easy it is for manufacturers to extricate themselves from liability. I had that experience some 15 years ago, when I was dealing with a phone that came down with a bad case of cracked-screen after two weeks of normal use. They just made a blanket statement that a cracked screen is always the customer's fault. And when I say they, I don't even mean a repair technician tasked with making those sorts of determinations all day long, but the process seemingly was just a pimply-faced kid in a retail outlet just saying that to any customer who came in with a cracked screen.

I never bought a Samsung product after that; But that TV still works :).

As for phones, i am still using iphone SE 1st gen. Simplicity, beauty, and absolutely perfect one handed operation on this phone has not been matched still. Which tells you everything you need to know about phone 'innovation'.

"What they’re doing currently is forcing their early-adopter customers to bear the risks of the new technology. With a device like this the policy should be leaning much more towards the customer’s side. A foldable warranty repair should be rejected only when it is extremely obvious that there was damage caused by the user."

I "upgraded" to a google pixel, with less ram, and a slower CPU. Felt WAY faster, more responsive, the home button was MUCH faster, and generally much nicer to use. No extra ads, no notifications of streaming NFL games, no partnerships with cell phone companies with value added services, etc.

The pixels by contrast are clean, simple, and don't show ads other than using various apps/browsers (by choice) that show ads. I pay for youtube red/premium/music, so no ads there. Netflix is also excellent at showing what you want, when you want, with no extra trailers, ads, etc.

Samsung wants me to try a factory reset as solution but I have too much of data to do that. Might move to pixel next.

It’s not just Samsung. Basically everyone has craptacular customer service. CS is like tech: extremely useful towards keeping people around, and the first thing to get gutted by corporate budget.

For anything not Apple, I can’t recommend third-party warranty enough. Shit breaks? Insurer pays up if OEM doesn’t play ball. Not your problem.

We got a home remodel, with Samsung appliances because they looked decent and were priced reasonably enough for what we wanted. Mainly, a Samsung Refrigerator, Microwave, Stove and Dishwasher. Around the same time we also bought a Galaxy Note9 smartphone.

2 years later, only the Refrigerator and Microwave have survived. The Dishwasher broke after a year, and was replaced with a new Samsung which also broke in a year, and we replaced it with Bosch. The Stove's burners just stopped working and couldn't be fixed by the repairman, so that was replaced (with a non-Samsung one).

As for the surviving appliances, Samsung had the ingenuity to build the Microwave's control electronics inside the microwave door, the thing most likely to get slammed, so we're babying the microwave or otherwise that would have almost certainly died from that idiotic decision. Even though the refrigerator is still standing, the "stainless steel" is apparently so thin it's covered in dents from when children left drawers open next to it, something stainless steel should be resistant to.

Lastly, the Note9 after a year became slower than a snail crawling up a rock (crashed constantly opening even basic apps like Outlook) and no battery replacement or factory reset could revive it. Also began dropping calls randomly and constantly, and apparently it was a botched firmware update that randomly affected people with absolutely no fix. Replaced with iPhone 13 Pro.

Never again.

As a company I can only conclude they have poor quality control or do not do rigorous long term testing.

I’d be angry if it were a €100 budget model, but this would make me livid.

The phone was a large glass-sandwich (AFAICT all their flagships still are), and within a week the glass on the side and a little on the back had cracked, just through being carried around in my pocket, in its official case the whole time.

I had a hell of time getting a refund out of Amazon ("We'll see what the manufacturer's warranty says" "no, this is your issue, you are the retailer and you'll give me a full refund because you sold me something that's clearly not fit for purpose")

Why are they selling things which are so expensive and so fragile?

I've gone over to the dark side now (iPhone 12 pro) for the first time, and while the software stack is not markedly superior on either side (IMHO), the hardware is far better designed and much more robust.

It's not just phones. I've had their TVs (old CRT and flat panels) fail within a year of purchase. A camera with a zoom lens that didn't work out of the box. A microwave which only displayed 99:99 on the display and wouldn't turn on. A washing machine where the hoses to the outflow pump came loose and flooded our kitchen. Luckily I didn't have to deal with Samsung directly and sent all that stuff back to the retailer to sort out, but I did learn a lesson.

As for their phones, they just seem to be a little bit more delicate than other brands. Things like the glass seemingly being easier to break, charging ports getting loose and not allowing for a good connection and physical buttons that just fail.

I know other peoples experiences will be different, but for me I have decided to never again buy Samsung.

The phone feels like how cancer would look like if it was made into a phone.

WTF is going on with tech/engineering sector? Everything seems to be getting worse. No common sense.

I've owned a few Android phones and Samsung seem to be the best build quality. Although I believe this went down after the A5, as they stopped releasing IP68/IP67 (dust and waterproof rating) rated midrange phones, until I believe the A33, which will be the next one.

I would never consider buying a flip phone with a single screen, as that just looks like asking for trouble to me.

My Samsung refrigerator has been the biggest disappointment I’ve ever had from a major appliance. It constantly freezes up. I had it repaired multiple times under warranty, and it just kept doing it.

My Samsung washing machine lasted several weeks past the warranty.

My early experiences with Samsung were so positive, my camera circa 2003 was great, as well as all the dumb-phones, and my first smart phone, a Galaxy S, but something changed. They’re not the quality they once were.

I find the Note's stylus terrific - and I find the iEcosystem does not fit me. Are there any non-Samsung devices with a stylus? Are there any good third-party stylii? I need something for dragging across the screen smoothly primarily, but also used for tapping.

I once bought an "active stylus" from ebay for about $20 that was terrific, but it failed within a year and I've been unable to repair it. It's not available anymore, but I've tried other active stylii and been disappointed. Also, that fact that the Note stylus is built into the phone means that it is always available - that is not the case with any other stylus.

Help me HN, you're my only hope.

PS, I thought everyone knew the foldable devices weren't ready for primetime?

I swore off LG products about 15 years ago, after a similar experience with some of the monitors, but ended up with a LG fridge (which failed) and a TV, and various monitors full of LG parts. These big tech conglomerates are hard to get away from. Its part of the reason I cheer on any competition in some of these spaces, no matter where it comes from.

You could call out Samsung on this issue, but outright trumpet "never buy any device again" based on your edge case is just sour clickbait. Samsung - despite myriads of issues with bloatware, OSS-hostility, half-assed and then abandoned features - is still a major innovator, has a solid product line, and currently the only company that can globally compete with Apple.

For me it's the same as claiming that your eg. computer comes with 128gb of ram because you can buy some sticks and put them there

I mean, foldable screen, of course that will break quickly. It's actually astonishing that it survived for 3 months, that's pretty cool tech.

If you want safety, get an iPhone and Apple Care. They should be foldable in a few years time.

I was actually surprised someone would never buy Samsung again for their hardware as they are reasonably good quality and design. Their software on the other hand is pretty awful and the main reason I will look at other brands when this phone needs to be replaced.

I bought a 49" monitor from them in January. A week later, I had two lines of dead pixels. I'm still trying to get them to repair it and customer service has been the worst. Moreover, the warranty online was incorrect. They said they would fix it but they haven't yet. It's been weeks. A nice $1k spent on a very frustrating experience.

I wish someone makes just TV panel with ton on inputs and outputs. I am happy to plug in Sonos soundbar and Apple TV to make it work and make it "smart".

Other family members with Samsung appliances like fridge, drier and washer have had similar issues.

Eg. Samsung's brand of Android has floating multi windows. Split-screen app pairings. There's also Samsung Dex.

Pixel and Nexus are probably the most basic Androids you can get.

I am mostly an early adopter (sometimes joking that I refuse to use software past the alpha stage)... But a foldable screen? I am deeply skeptical that this will be reliable anytime in the next two decades.

Since then, the only thing I will buy from Samsung are TV's

(Several of those by other household / family members and/or friends, after I'd sworn off the company.)

On my "never again" list.

If you value your sanity don't allow vendors to bind closed vendor specified functions to the limited supply of physical buttons on the device.

Still the author does seem to have a point on repair policy. On screens specifically on this model they should have been more chill

Depending on what he means by "device", I don't think he's got a choice.

I really liked the detachable idea LG was putting out, but their out of the OEM race.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

That's some serious dedication to keep yourself feeling that unhappy, hateful feeling for a very long time.

I would kinda not want to deal with such an attitude as an employee or as a partner. You are not Steve Jobs man!

Though, not many companies know warranty. Only Amazon and sometimes Apple gets it right. Sometimes!