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Comment by itissid | Hacker News Reader

I will NEVER buy a samsung phone. They have all these backroom deals to put in Services like additional LocationProvider(the underlying service that can be subscribed to for loc updates) for companies that will pay them to get access to location updates differently than other apps can. Like a social media company or an advert company you get that favor for $$$$$.

With google you know they control the locationProvider and all apps are equal and google still has priveledged access but its only them(as bad as that is)

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Samsung consumer electronics are a real shame (TVs and phones come to mind). The hardware is generally pretty good. But the software is crap at best, abusive at worst.

Samsung's version of Android certainly feels bloated compared to stock Android but it has much better features.

What are you favorite features that are exclusive to them?

I agree they have better features than stock Android too. The biggest for me is the customization of the UX. Simple things like allowing for gestures and displaying the bottom navigation bar at the same time. I use both because it's situational. Or separate volume controls. And Multi-tasking windows have more options and gestures, improving the whole experience.

The customization of the OS really opens up when you download their "Good Lock" app. Because phones don't have bezels anymore, I can customize the dead zone around the edges without ruining gestures. I can customize the behavior of the navbar, the notification drop down, the types of gestures, and so much more. I can use their Sound Assistant app to allow more than one app play sounds at the same time.

The downside is having to ADB into the phone and remove a lot of the preloaded bloat. They really do pack too much garbage on it. Some Samsung apps, especially Samsung Pay, started started having ads in them one day. And now I don't trust any of their standalone apps.

All that being said, as much as I love my years of Samsung phones, I doubt I'll be getting another. New devices don't really offer me anything better than what I already have, except for the removal of more features.

I think it's region specific, I wouldn't call my Samsung bloated, I was suprised how little bloatware there was based of previous experience years ago. I used to call Samsung phones Chlamsung and their launcher Touchwiz a Shitwiz.

Some people are silly though and would consider a basic calculator bloatware, though.

Yeah they've definitely gotten better over the years. At one point Samsung felt damn near unusable, but now it's a pretty good experience. I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab S-6 Lite tablet that is fantastic! It's remarkably close to convergence as well, something I don't think SS gets enough credit for, and is a really cool feature.

I do worry about the privacy/spyware though. Google and Apple have both shown some attention and love on privacy (Google's data controls are really incredible IMHO), but Samsung still seems to be going old-school vacuum and monetize.

No they are not. You haven't tried a Galaxy phone in recent years. That is apparent by your comment.

Its indeed been a few years since my last galaxy.

0 years to be exact since my S23 ultra, 0.7 years since my S20 ultra, 3 years since my S8+, 5 years since my Galaxy note 4, 8 years since my Galaxy note 2.

"Apparent by my comment", how is my opinion on how bloated the UI feels a fact to you

I was being transparent about my thought process and logic in order for my comment(s) not to seem snarky.

>for companies that will pay them to get access to location updates differently than other apps can.

Source?

Not sure about location data, but I'd be more concerned that they list "contents of messages and email" among the data that they sell:

"We may share your personal information by allowing certain third parties (such as online advertising services) to collect your personal information via automated technologies and server-to-server connections on the Services for cross-context behavioral advertising. This kind of sharing may be considered a “sale” under the CCPA/CPRA. You have the right to opt out of these types of disclosures of your information, as detailed below."

"We may sell or share for cross-context behavioral advertising purposes (and may have sold or shared during the 12-month period prior to the effective date of this Statement) the following categories of personal information about you to or with online advertising services:"

• Identifiers

• Online Activity

Online Activity is defined as:

"Internet and other electronic network activity information, including, but not limited to, browsing history, search history, and information regarding your interaction with or through the Services or other Samsung or third-party websites, applications, or advertisements (for example, health data or contents of messages and emails when you use certain Services)"

Source: https://www.samsung.com/us/account/privacy-policy/california...

Some additional commentary here:

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3514999/samsung-sellin...

I bought Samsung because it's the only cost efficiently choice. The renewed model is insanely cheap. You can get a 1 year old flagship s series for 400 dollars. Pixels were(are?) having both software and hardware quality issue. The specs are also worse than Samsung's. The rest of the brands are just bad.

And remember there is no removing/uninstalling this kind of a service short of wiping the entire OS and installing another Playstore/Open Source alternative.

Can't you install stock Android on one? I'm an iPhone user and too lazy to switch now (plus I like iPhones) but Android is the more open platform so I'm assuming it's possible.

Or is it just to avoid supporting them?

There unfortunately is no such thing as stock Android… the closest that exists is the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) which is generally considered too bare-bones to be usable on its own and is missing a lot of the things that Android users might expect.

While there are third party Android distros based on AOSP available, they typically only support devices that are a couple gens behind or older, which means they’re not usually an option for anybody buying a current gen device.

I wish Android were more like Windows or Linux where the hardware is somewhat standardized, the OS is the same no matter what it’s installed on, and you could just wipe+reinstall “plain” Android like one does with a PC with Windows to clear away crapware, but that’s not what we got.

That might be the case for the apple-wannabes at Samsung, but for a lot of phones you can get custom roms for current gen phones. Pixel, OnePlus come to mind.

> like one does with a PC with Windows

Maybe in the past, but these days the crapware is coming from inside the OS.

AOSP is not too barebones for someone who is looking for a barebone OS for their mobile phone. Last I tried, it comes with a basic texting app, a basic phone app, a basic web browser, just no Google app store, no Chrome, no Google account synced messages, etc.

Citations?

>I will NEVER buy a samsung phone.

Then you're basically out of options for something remotely competitive to Apple in the Android world.

- HTC was great but they threw in the towel long time ago. Same with LG.

- Google makes some nice phones without bloatware but last few generation Pixels seem to constantly suffering from various SW bugs pushed by Google, have sub-par CPUs and GPUs, poor reception in challenging conditions from the Samsung modems compared to Quallcomm, and suffer high battery drain in comparison to Samsung S series with Qualcomm chips. No go for me.

- Sony also makes decent phones on the photography side, but are either overpriced or underpowered, and Sony has a poor track record for supporting their devices more than a few years. No go for me, if I spend big money on a phone I want it to be supported 5+ years at least.

- OnePlus used to be a brand I would trust in the past being very happy with the OP 3, bust I got burned with their OP 7T which saw very short SW update period and every update brough more and more bugs they would ignore. No go for me, avoid this brand today like the plague.

- The Chinese brands are great value HW wise but full of spyware, dark patterns, and offer very short SW update support, so that's a no go from the start.

- Nokia is just selling rebadged Chinese devices with various compromises. Same with Motorola and Blackberry. Nothing worthy of your Euros there.

- ASUS makes a small sized Zenfone which I like but costs more than Samsung's similarly sized and specked S23 while offering less years of SW updates. No go for me.

- Fairphone would be a good alternative on the repairability, ethical and environmental sides, but those phones are large/bulky as hell, while compromising on performance and photo quality compared to 'non-fair' competitors of the same price. No go for me sadly. Make a smaller phone please.

So, who else is left in the race? There seem to be literally no good Android manufacturers left that don't make large compromises or won't screw you in some way down the line eroding your trust post-purchase, as if they're all in a race to the bottom.

That's why so many Android users are fed up with this shit show and moved to paying the "Apple tax" over the years.

ASUS?

They're just as pricy as Samsung's flagships, or even more, while offering fewer years of SW updates. Also no go.

No they aren't (ignoring the nonsense gamer phone category, since those are just a ploy to part a fool from their money).

Yes they are. Their flagship Zenfone costs more than the Samsung S23, while offering fewer years of SW updates. That a very bad value for money and a bad deal in general.

I don't consider Samsung's flagship phone to be their base model S23.

Why not? The S23 is the one who's dimensions and specs are closest to the ASUS Zenfone 10 yet is also cheaper to boot and offers more years of SW updates to the Zefone.

https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=12082&idPhone...

Flagship means "the finest, largest, or most important one of a group of things".

In any case, right now the base model S23 is $659 and the Zenfone 10 is $619.99 (on Amazon US). Maybe you live somewhere where the prices are different.

I don't buy Samsung mostly because I loathe their advertising. They plastered historical monuments (like in Rome, Paris, etc) with billboards, and updated their SSD management software to serve ads. Android is often portrayed as a second-rate phone OS and Samsung makes it worse.

Aside: the S23 doesn't even have a 3.5mm headphone jack; the lack of which negates any and all other features or benefits.

>Flagship means "the finest, largest, or most important one of a group of things".

HN rules also say assume good faith and respond to the strongest interpretation of an argument, not the weakest, [just for a cheap jab].

Yeah sure, if you wanna be pedantic about it, the S23 Ultra is the most flagship of the flagships (the weak argument), but that's an entirely different class of devices to which Asus has no competitor as the S23 Ultra is bigger higher resolution screen and has a pen making it a phablet, so the nearest closest flagship competitor for the Asus is the vanilla S23 in size, specs and price to the Zenfone (the strongest argument)

>Maybe you live somewhere where the prices are different.

Yes they are. In Europe, cheapest prices on Geizhals:

- S23 is ~650 Euros @ 5 years of SW updates

- Zenfone 10 is ~717 Euros @ 3 years(?) of SW updates

S23 wins hands down just for giving you more years of SW updates at a lower price for same specs. Nuff said.

If you enjoy throwing away devices sooner because of ASUS's ridiculous update policy, then go for the Zenfone.

I adhere to the actual definition of the word, and you adhere to the one that fit your narrative. You admit that my use of the word is correct, then accuse me of a cheap jab for using the word correctly?

Like I said before, the S23 doesn't have a headphone jack, so for me it's not even in the running - so its OS updates don't matter. I usually find a reason to get a new phone before SW updates run out anyway.

You value features that don't matter to me, and I value features that don't matter to you. You seem to take a stance ("you're basically out of options for something remotely competitive to Apple") that your values are the ones that should matter to others.

> If you enjoy throwing away devices sooner berceuse of ASUS's shoddy update policy, then go for the Asus.

I hope this was just sarcasm, or more imprecise wording on your part, but if not... you really shouldn't throw away your working devices just because they won't receive future software updates.

p.s., I think the strongest interpretation of an argument is usually the one that most accurately reflects the established meanings and contexts of the terms involved, as well as the underlying facts and logic.

Samsung is light years ahead of everyone else in the Android phone space, and the only manufacturer that can compete with iPhone. It's crazy that it's true, given the opportunity for Google themselves to try to compete, but they don't for whatever reason.

I think it's in part that they don't want to seem to compete with Samsung so they have to define themselves as mid tier.

>Samsung is light years ahead

In what way?

I'm someone who hasn't bought a new phone since 2016, and there are zero occurrences in daily use where I feel it's too slow. I can't imagine being one or two generations behind the bleeding edge in CPU speed to be a hindrance. What are people doing on their phones that need ultimate speed?

Only thing bothering me now is its screen size, but not enough to replace it. Unfortunately Apple wants me to throw a functioning device into a landfill to make more money, so they cut off software updates.

Yeah, seriously... a little more speed and 7b quantized LLMs would be almost usable. I guess that could be nice? :)

But in practice, performance is mostly being wasted on phones right now.

I don't think this is totally true, tbh. The Pixel 8 Pro holds up really well against the S23 Ultra IMO. The camera generally rates higher in blind comparison tests.

Performance is a little lower, but tbh... even my old Pixel 5 was fast enough. Marginal differences in performance don't seem that important to me now in a phone. Battery life might be lower, but I get the feeling that real world performance is really close.

>Battery life might be lower, but I get the feeling that real world performance is really close.

According to users of both, real life battery life of the Pixel 8 is much lower than the benchmarks would suggest, because of the inferior SoC and modem which drains the battery much faster then the Qualcomm powered S23, when you use your phone a lot on data.

The problem is most battery benchmarks are pretty meaningless as they're always done indoor on WiFi which is a lot easier on the battery than when using the modem for data, so they don't reflect the real world use when you're out and about throughout the day roaming between cell towers of varying signal strength.

My biggest torture scenario for a phone's battery is web browsing on the train or in our office building. It literally nukes the battery compared to wifi.

I've heard reports of very high drain on cellular, but tbh it isn't something that I've noticed in real world usage.

Maybe some of that is the difference between the P8 and P8Pro. I'd guess high modem usage isn't as big of an impact on the higher battery P8Pro.

Also if you want a well supported precuse stylus on a phone or tablet, there is not really a choice as far as I can tell.

Asus

OnePlus

Many more from what I read... There's plenty of choice in the Android market, even if Samsung makes it feel like they are Android.

I might buy a Samsung phone myself, but it would have to be a considerable discount. They tend to be overpriced, and as OP noted they load the phone down with laggy bloatware, so I either have to install a custom ROM (and possibly break some security checks apps require) or purge apps through adb as a half measure.

>The Chinese brands are great value HW wise but full of spyware and offer very short SW update support, so that's a no go from the start.

....OnePlus.......

I would bet GP means the plethora of cheap Chinese brands, not literally every brand from China.

Yeah thats kind of how I interpreted it, the flood of "low quality" brands.

I wouldn't be averse to a Chinese brand with a track record (like OnePlus).

Same. I have a bit of a hobby of buying cheap Chinese electronics/gadgets and have found some real badass gems[1], but something running that much software with such deep connections makes me pretty nervous. A brand like OnePlus is an exception to that.

[1]: This is my most recent toy, which has been a ton of fun and turned out to be a great gift for kids! It is sold by a ton of different whitelabel brands so comes and goes, but is essentially the same product: https://www.amazon.com/Player-Hotechs-Memory-Classic-Digital...

I have used Pixels for a long time and never felt the issues you're talking about.

For me Pixels phone are the best overall Android phone you can get.

>I have used Pixels for a long time and never felt the issues you're talking about.

Without specifying exactly which pixels, that statement is largely irrelevant since if one generation of Pixels was good that doesn't translate to the next generations as well.

The problem with Google is that it's not a consistent HW manufacturer across generations like Apple. I've been following the Pixel series since the 6, 7 and now the 8, and they all have tonnes of complaints about HW issues related to signal reception, battery life, glass kracking, which Google refuses to acknowledge, to SW bugs, plus hit or miss services in case of repairs.

Currently, their Samsung modems are still far inferior to Quallcom flagships and call signal reception is the most important thing for me.

I mean, sure, but I've been using Pixel phones since the beginning and the worst thing I've seen is shitty reception in a parking garage.

On the other hand, I could buy two Pixel phones for the price of a new iPhone which has been reported to have overheating issues and won't let me do basic shit like install a different browser or sideload an app.

Yeah, the hardware is better, but it doesn't really matter to me if the phone is too locked down for me to use it.

>I mean, sure, but I've been using Pixel phones since the beginning and the worst thing I've seen is shitty reception in a parking garage.

But that doesn't mean the current Pixel model for sale, is also good just because you had a good older mode in the past. Google is just not consistent at building quality phones over the years and fluctuates a lot between hits and misses in various areas with each model they release. They just suck at building HW and supporting their products.

>the worst thing I've seen is shitty reception in a parking garage

You see, that's a massive problem for me and a lot of people who see our phones as devices that should reliably make calls in all challenging situations as it could mean a matter of life and death, not necessarily in a parking lot, but hiking, camping, traveling, driving, etc, etc.

The fact that my phone has reception issue in some cases, is an instant deal breaker no matter how fancy Google's AI photo tech is.

Oh, and cherry on top, last week I had the immense "pleasure" when I launched the Google phone dialer to make an urgent call to my doctor, instead of being allowed to instantly dial a number, I was greeted by a prompt on top asking me how many start I rate their dialer app before I could dial. I wish I was making this up. Who the F at Google thought this was an acceptable UX to be pushed to production?

For more bad phone UX, I get calls from "potential spam call" with, as far as I can tell, no way at all to get more information. No indication of what "potential spam call" means (bad STIR/SHAKEN data? Google blacklists? Who knows!). I don't know how to turn off their filter either.

Of course they also have those notorious problems with 911 calls not working.

Does Google just do metrics driven development with no user studies or something? And no one there has actually used a phone for phone calls?

> Oh, and cherry on top, last week I had the immense "pleasure" when I launched the Google phone dialer to make an urgent call to my doctor, instead of being allowed to instantly dial a number, I was greeted by a prompt on top asking me how many start I rate their dialer app before I could dial. I wish I was making this up. Who the F at Google thought this was an acceptable UX to be pushed to production?

I find that I rarely ever type a number into the dialpad these days - I start most of my calls by voice command, or by pressing a phone icon on a search result.

It sounds like what you want is the modern version of an old-fashioned "dumb" phone. I value things like "can run browsers other than Safari" and "tries to ID callers using Google's database" over being able to make phone calls from the middle of the wilderness or underground, since I bought my phone for the ~330 days a year when I'm not in a reception-challenging situation.

Yeah, the reception issue is a serious problem, I went from years of the galaxy line to a pixel 6 and then to a pixel 8, and both pixels have terrible reception, though I suspect it's a software issue because for about 8 months into the pixel 6 I had never had a single reception issue, now I have them constantly, even with full bars I'll lose connectivity about a dozen times a day. I'll be going back to a Galaxy for my next phone.

I had a pixel 4a and currently have a 5a and never had any issues

I got a pixel 6a after the 4a's power button started going wonky for no reason (it'd randomly think it was being pressed and bring up the power menu with the emergency call button, which is not great when you're using the phone and might tap that button on accident). The 6a had a bug for the first month or two where the brightness slider control was offset from where it appeared on the screen (so you had to slide your finger somewhere else to get it to work). It also constantly crashes the entire phone with Firefox if you have the URL bar on top, which as far as I know is still not fixed after over a year. There's some multitude of permissions that have to all be set correctly to get e.g. Pagerduty calls to come through during bedtime mode, and even with the permissions + adding PD to contacts, I missed a call. I can't remember whether it was because I hadn't starred them, or whether my volume was set to silent. In any case, you have to search online to have any hope if finding the correct settings to make it work (the app used to max it out and turn off silent mode and everything just worked with 1 slider. I presume that if that stopped working sensibly, it's because of Android changes). Honestly all of the Pixels I've owned have left me pretty unimpressed with Google's engineers, and the UIs get worse each year.

I mean most people live in cities where reception is a none issue no matter what chip you use, now the question is outside of cities is there such a big difference between a Samsung and a Qualcomm one?

I've been buying unlocked Motorolas for years. They're great and priced reasonably. Their manufacturer exclusive features are actually features.. like I can pull my phone out and give it a quick shake to turn the flashlight on.

Wouldn't the best strategy be to buy a cheap Chinese phone and install stock Android?

That's what I did recently. Got a cheap Xiaomi ($120 used) with a 120hz OLED display and a mid-range CPU and flashed PixelExperience on it: it feels like a $800 Pixel phone.

Interesting! I hadn't heard of it, but this looks like a neat project: https://get.pixelexperience.org/

Slightly off topic, but this is why "you can always buy an Android phone" is not a valid argument against allowing side loading on iOS.

FWIW I've owned two OnePlus phones, both bought secondhand - a 7 Pro and a 9 Pro.

The 7 Pro was one of my all time favorite phones, and I am using the 9 Pro now. I really like it. I owned a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra in between, and it was decent but the photos always felt weird to me. Overall I much prefer the 9 Pro to the S21 Ultra.

I do agree that OxygenOS 11 was really rough on the 7 Pro, and I held onto OxygenOS 10.3.8 until 12 came out! That transitional period was rough for them. My 9 Pro has OxygenOS 13.1 and it's been rock solid.

I was (and in some ways still am) a OnePlus fanboi, but I won't buy their phones anymore either, not unless they reverse some decisions. Ceasing to provide factory images alone was a major blow for me as I strongly prefer to root, and without factory images root becomes a risky proposition.

But the awful bugginess on my OP7 Pro was really horrible. Even just the front-facing fingerprint reader was a sad change. I really miss my OP6, but I had to switch carriers and that phone wasn't supported. The Pixel 5a and OP6 are tied for favorite device. I'll be running this 5a until it completely dies.

> Nokia is just selling rebadged Chinese devices with various compromises.

Have you a source for that? Nokia licensed the use of the Nokia brand and designs for mobile phones to HMD (started by an ex Nokia exec) a few years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMD_Global

Spot on. It just blows my mind that there isn't a great Android phone option anymore! We've had so many come and go over the years, and yet it feels like we're always moving backwards.

I might consider a Samsung phone if running third party ROMs on current models were possible/practical, but otherwise I’d agree.

You can but its a pain, and onlty some models

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