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Comment by voidwtf | Hacker News Reader

My partner has a Samsung phone with the curved/wrap around edge screen. The screen is cracked. She's been trying to get it replaced for months, but none of the "Samsung approved" repair shops around here can get a screen. Apparently they have screens meant for the same phone in different colors, but do not have the screen for her phone color. Samsung WILL NOT allow them to use a screen from a different color of the same phone, despite being a working part. Samsung has provided no ETA when the part will be available. This is the kind of problem that shouldn't exist. Would love it if our legislators would tell manufacturers to shove it, and if they want to be the exclusive source for parts that the parts must be sold at some limited/reasonable profit percentage and if they're not available they should not be able to limit the availability or function of 3rd party parts.

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I swore to never buy Samsung after an ordeal with their warranty repair. Some of the data pins on its USB port wore out, so my Android Auto and fast charging became extremely flaky. It was still under warranty so I took it to their authorized repair centres. They did not have a fast charger and showed me that the standard charging was working, and refused to admit a problem. Finally I mailed it to Samsung, and they said that the display needed to be replaced because of some water damage (it worked perfectly fine!) as well.

Finally I got some local electronics repair guy to just solder a new USB port onto the circuit board and that fixed everything. But never buying their phones again.

I stopped buying anything Samsung for essentially the same reason. I was overseas and my S7 switched off and wouldn't turn back on. I walked into the flagship store and was immediately turned away because I didn't purchase it in that country.

I had a different experience, I bought a S21U overseas. While in UK the screen wouldn't turn on while the phone was on. I went to Samsung KX in London and a day later I had my S21 with a new screen and battery for no cost.

I think it's worth comparing to Apple here. I bought an iPhone from Amazon in UK and the screen developed a defect. Walked into an Apple Store after 19 months, without AppleCare and they gave me a new phone and migrated all the stuff over for me right there and then.

Not sure if they're that good now but I sure hope they are.

The UK has strong consumer warranty laws (extending to several years), and that rather than Apple's kindness of heart could be the reason. Thank the famous European red tape!

It’s probably a mix. I’ve had lots of stuff incl AirPods fixed for free well beyond warranty multiple times (I think because Apple knew they were prone to a defect causing cracking) and an Apple phone case replaced that others would probably say is “normal wear and tear” but legitimately degraded quicker than it should have etc. Apple online chat is also awesome!

Actually when I got my iPhone 13 Pro they said they said keep the receipt for the case in case it falls to bits so they can replace it free. YMMV.

19 months is less than the 24 month minimum warranty for consumers across the EU (which used to include the UK).

There is no such thing anywhere in the EU, it's a very common misconception. What there is is a 24 month(actually 6 years in some cases) seller's responsibility for the product against manufacturing defects and being "not as described"(which can include lack of described performance too). What the law also says is that within the first 6 months(12 in the EU) any defect is automatically presumed to be a manufacturing fault and the seller has to rectify it free of charge. After that time the seller is also responsible, but you as the buyer have to prove that the defect happened because of a manufacturing problem. If your macbook stops working 23 months after purchase the seller doesn't have to fix it unless you can prove that it's because of a manufacturing problem.

For all practical purposes it works like a warranty though.

I just checked my local amazon clone, and for a mac mini the warranty is listed as 24 months for consumers and 12 months for companies.

There is no official Apple presence in Romania so I can't check their official position.

There’s a difference between a guarantee and warranty. You only have a guarantee for the first 12 months. The next 12, you have a warranty. It’s almost Impossible to prove a warranty.

I’m in Europe in a country where it works like this (not sure about the exact numbers). Last time I exercised my consumer rights was when the bottom glass fell off my Samsung smartwatch. I handed it over to the seller literally one day before the end of the 24 month period. There were some remarks about it being almost too late, but I got it repaired for free. I’ve never had a seller dispute my warranty claim at any point of the two years. I’ve never had to prove anything.

Well, I guess you were lucky - legally the seller didn't have to repair it unless you proved that the glass fell off due to a manufacturing defect - just because they don't have to do it doesn't mean they won't(it's less hassle and I guess you left a happy customer not one that will go and write them a bad review).

Where I am I don't have to care about that, it seems.

In some places it is a minimum you describe and in other cases (a percentage of) the expected life of the product. Washing machines have different lifespans than phone for instance. Here we only have the 12 months of proof by seller/manufacturer and then it is the reasonable lifespan of the product.

Apple has a long history of being generous with repairs, nothing to do with the EU. Friend of mine, here in the US, got an entirely new laptop when his failed just out of warranty. Goodwill repair. And because they didn't have the old laptop available as a refurb, he got the current equivalent -- which was actually a pretty substantial upgrade.

It's hit or miss. My wife had keys failing under the butterfly keyboard replacement program, and the Apple Store tried to charge her to fix it. Apparently the technician who examined it "didn't know" about the warranty extension program.

How do you have a major repair program covering every laptop sold in the last 5 years and the technician doesn't know about it?

I’ve had similar incidents happen with Apple and other premium things, nowhere near Europe. It’s market forces that created an upmarket company with stuff like this as part of its identity. Thank goodness for global capitalism.

Same here. I have Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max with AppleCare+ which I broke during a trip to US (I'm in Canada). They were able to swap it with replacement at the Apple store in LA without any hassle. Too bad the SIM Card was also busted though :(

Get an iPhone, swallow your pride and just get one.

Anecdotes work both ways. Apple recently locked and forced a reset of Apple ID accounts for no reason.[0] This happened to my elderly mother at an incredibly inconvenient time, making her phone completely unusable, and the phone was set up for her by my elderly father, who had had strokes since then, and couldn't remember the account password, and had lost access to the email address. I spent hours on the phone begging Apple to help, and they could do nothing but direct me toward recovery Web pages that had long, mandatory waiting periods. It took weeks for my mom's phone to no longer be a useless brick, and it very nearly didn't work (they already denied one request without explanation). Even sending them proof of purchase from the mobile carrier, as they demanded, was rejected. All in the name of "protecting" the user.

I provided the link to the Forbes article to multiple representatives, including a senior advisor. None of them admitted to knowing anything about it, even a week later. It was reported on various Apple news sites as well.

So, no, I cannot in good conscience recommend buying an Apple device. Even if you pay for it, it effectively does not belong to you, and Apple may suddenly disable it at any time, for any reason, without warning.

0: https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2024/04/28/apple-id...

Morale of the story: Don't use face/fingerprint unlock. Sooner or later you/they will need to use the password anyway.

Wouldn’t face or fingerprint be more likely to be useable when memory issues strike (like they did for the OP)?

The device in question had no locking enabled of any kind. The associated Apple ID account was locked by Apple without warning, and so the phone itself was locked for any use other than emergency calls.

> All in the name of "protecting" the user.

It’s a bit of a bind though isn’t it? If they loosen their rules, someone will exploit it. Where is the balance?

Complying with the user preferences would be a good one.

My elderly dad doesn't use his iPhone for anything sensitive and it is not even password protected. If that phone gets lost I will replace it. He doesn't need his apple ID to be "protected" by Apple this way.

It seems like they still haven’t said what happened. I was in a restaurant at the time and first I knew was my Apple Pay wouldn’t work. Awkward is an understatement… thankfully I just happened to have my wallet on me that time, I don’t always though!

They now have a new way to recover lost passwords, is called “recovery contacts” and allows that contact to recover your mothers phone

AFAICT, this feature requires the recovery contact to also use an Apple device, which does not help us. It seems like another way to try to lock users into using Apple.

Its interesting to me to think that when Steve Jobs was still around, the iPhone was always on the cutting edge of design and tech features. You constantly heard the tech media saying how far ahead Apple was of its competitors in terms of features and camera specs.

Once Jobs passed and Tim Cook took over, everything changed. Now they're years behind other companies in terms of features and specs. It took them years to have wireless charging, even longer to have simple widgets - stuff Android phones had as standard features for years.

I've stayed away from them for the reasons you pointed out and the fact they just seem so far behind, even on features that have become standard on every other manufacturers handsets. Now its painted as "Apple sees what other companies are doing. They sit and wait and let other companies vet features and tech before integrating them into their handsets - its a very smart approach."

Copy and paste on iPhones, anyone?

Pride? It's a just a phone.

Man, the cult-like aspect of Apple is such a turn off...

It’s the opposite :-) the poster said “swallow your pride” … the cult-like aspect of Apple haters is such a turn off

Is English not your first language? "Swallow your pride" means giving up the pride.

> Man, the cult-like aspect of Apple is such a turn off...

It does not sound like this was intentionally ironic, but it works.

> Is English not your first language? "Swallow your pride" means giving up the pride.

To me, it read like GP is criticising as cult-like the very suggestion of pride being the motivation behind buying or not buying a particular phone.

Exactly correct, hence the "it's just a phone". English is my fourth language and I speak/understand it just fine, thanks.

Apple was for a looong time known to not honor Norwegian consumer protection laws. They've gotten better, but they've been worst in class here for a decade. Edit: two decades. Found this article from 2006 about how they refused to repair ipods after a year, even shops selling Apple stuff used to have problems because they had to fix things at a loss themselves https://www.vg.no/forbruker/teknologi/i/8300w/apple-og-forbr...

I actually believe that's why Apple adoption was fairly slow compared to the hype I was reading about in other countries. No official Apple stores, and most electronic chains didn't want to touch them.

Yeah with AppleCare+ both of these people would have walked out with a working phone.

How is paying extra a solution to the problem of having to pay to get their phone fixed? Insurances exists for other brands as well (or through the store you buy from).

AppleCare is just seamless and works well though.

In terms of warranty I’ve walked into Apple stores and had stuff just replaced our fixed in store once they look up the SN

Top consumerism right here: being proud of a purchase.

I don't know who started this, I only remember that one could be proud of an achievement or of making something. Being proud of purchasing something; it just sounds as impossible as drinking space shuttles.

Nobody was talking about "being proud of purchasing something". What you replied to was an allusion to some people being proud of refusing to buy an Apple product.

The phrase "swallow your pride" is literally a call to abandon pride as a motivating factor.

I never mentioned Apple. Sure, proud of _not_ purchasing is another level of this, and then _accusing_ someone of being proud to (not) purchase rounds the circle I guess.

It's amazing.

I never said that you mentioned Apple.

You Android users know what I mean

Apple phones are too large. Not sure what I'll do when my 12 mini reaches eol, I guess an SE but feels like a step back.

Apple does plenty of anti-consumer stuff too. My last Apple product is my ipod nano. I swore off them after they shipped a firmware update specifically closing the loophole that allowed me to manage the song library without itunes. I have a whole separate rant about itunes. I replaced it with a sandisk player for a third of the price. Surprisingly, it worked much more smoothly, had fewer annoyances, and had an FM radio.

You swore to never buy Samsung. I swore to never buy a pixel again. My gf swore to never buy an apple again.

I'm using a Motorola to type this and I wonder when it'll let me down in unforseen ways.

I've bought nothing but mid-range Nokias and Motorolas for the past 10 years or so and they've been great. Always stock or near stock android and security updates for 3+ years.

I have a habit of doing stupid things with my phones (mostly accidentally submerging them in seawater) and haven't attempted fixing them after that though.

I've been using LineageOS for years, and recently got a Motorola G 5G 2024 as a temporary phone while I addressed some issues with my main phone. I was blown away by the amount of custom bloatware on the thing. It nagged me at least 30 times about various features it wanted to introduce me to. If that's "near stock", then I'm staying away.

That's a shame to hear. Can that be right?

I diverted recently, but I used budget Moto G's for a decade and couldn't have been happier with the stock OS.

Maybe they finally succombed in 2024.

I think it was whenever they stopped giving the Moto G series numbers (G5, G7, etc), and just started making them "Moto G (Year)". Official LineageOS support has gotten worse since then, but I don't know if it's because they can't find maintainers or what.

I’m concerned that you’ll soon run out of otherwise reputable phone manufacturers.

I sport an iPhone, but sometimes I think it’s a shame Microsoft so deeply lost focus on and then abandoned mobile.

>I swore to never buy a pixel again.

The only reason I can think of to buy pixels is to run GrapheneOS. From that perspective, I am somewhat difficult to disappoint.

I mean, it's a phone, and it's not samsung. That's a reason, right? Why not buy a pixel?

The 4xl had a totally faulty battery ribbon. I had to replace the battery yearly, which was semi ok because of cheap Amazon parts. Then eventually the motherboard freaked out and it just died. But I guess at least it lasted 3.5 years.

Just buy an Ulefone or Doogee for $200, shock, water and kid-proof.

If it breaks two years later, well it was just $8/mo.

An update bricked my Ulephone after 3 months. Not going there again.

My next phone will be a Fairphone.

I've had Fairphone 3 for a few years. The camera isn't fancy but I don't care. The original battery died at some point. Replacing it was very easy; no tool needed. Just like it was in the '90s with most phones. The repairability promise is kept, IMO. The only issue I had with this phone is that after some system update the fingerprint sensor was regarded as not meeting some security level and stopped being usable by sensitive apps (banking).

FYI the fingerprint sensor problem has since been fixed and I can now use it again without trouble for banking apps and the like. (Although I'm on a Fairphone 3+) Still holding up fairly well in 2024, even if it's a bit slow at times.

Writing this from my Nothing Phone.

The list of companies I wouldn't trust ever again is just to long. My Xiaomi was literally bricked trough an official update.

I hated my 2021 Edge+ with such a burning fury that I'm typing this on my old OnePlus 9 (with LineageOS, which I couldn't do on the moto). I can't remember all the reasons (there were many), but stability was one of them.

The OnePlus 9 is supposedly the last good phone from them, so I'm thinking of using my wife's Pixel with a re-locked ROM once she upgrades. Pixels, for all their flaws, have historically been the most consistent for me (apart from OnePlus).

I'm on a OnePlus 11 (upgraded from a OnePlus 6T) and it's great. My only issue is that there's a small selection of cases for it, especially if you want one that's magsafe compatible.

Wait, what do you mean magsafe? I have a oneplus 11 5g and I didn't even think this phone had wireless charging.

I purchased an olixar wireless adapter and an olixar sentinel case, they work well but the adapter takes up my USB C so I always have to remove the case, unplug, and put it back on.

Magsafe is used for things other than wireless charging. Tons of accessories that mount to the magsafe "ring"

Soon we will all be making our own phones from raspberries pi or other single board computers and hacked together parts (cell network dongles and whatnot). They will break more often but at least we will only have to ban one component manufacturer at a time.

Although my current phone is an iPhone (a 12 mini) I had used Motorola "Moto G" phones prior to that and never had any issues when them other than Android updates eventually ending despite the phone being physically in working order.

The iPhone was a gift, and I still prefer the Android UX but so far it's had no issues either.

I'll probably go back to Android next time I need a phone; all the iPhones except the SE are too big for my taste. But it's hard to find a small Android phone from a reputable manufacturer as well.

> other than Android updates eventually ending despite the phone being physically in working order.

That is when you put LineageOS [1] on the phone and never look back. A clean Android experience with OTA updates - I still get these on a Samsung SIIIneo from 2014 - so I'd suggest pulling that 'old' phone out of the drawer and giving it a try as you have nothing to loose.

[1] https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/#motorola

Motorola has been a good long-term value for me, but in 2 out of 3 the charging port has gone bad or close to bad eventually. If spending $500 a year on phones didn't morally offend me I'd just buy Apple or Samsung and dispose of them when they go bad.

I have a Samsung TV that is now more than 15 years old. And it still works ok.

11.5 years for me. Their products are generally solid, but I'm not surprised their service policies are crap. Whose policies aren't consumer-unfriendly crap these days?

Tip: use magnetic ports/cables on your USB devices. Moved to these after that happened to me years ago and love them - quick and easy to connect/disconnect, and less worry about tripping over the charge cord flinging the device across the room.

The only disadvantage is I haven't found any that support high amp/watt charging.

There's a good reason they don't support high amp/watt charging.

https://old.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/motlhn/magnet...

Wasn't there an issue that with magnetic cables the ground pins aren't the first pins connected / disconnected?

(Edit -- autoexec had the same memory of the same thread as I did)

I'm thankful for the New Jersey division of consumer affairs that sued Samsung for faulty home appliances. I'll never buy Samsung anything except nvme drives.

Their SSDs have suffered from prominent firmware bugs.

Samsung is the perfect example (and failure?) that advertising and lobbying works. They have the worst product I've ever tried and always come with an annoying catch (ie: computer screen with special adapter). But they are huge (and growing). They advertise aggressively and they integrate themselves with local suppliers like nobody else.

Worse product? What other android phones do you mean? Sony? I used to buy Sony long time ago and I did like it, but around the time of Galaxy S8 I switched when my Xperia 3 unglued by itself in my pocket. None of my Samsung phones experienced any such failures. All were cheaper than equivalent Sony products.

And I wasn't very gentle with them. All my phones have huge gauges in their metal casings after years of use and I replaced them only after I broke the screen after few years.

Also, I've been using the hardware to it's limit with gaming, GearVR and own apps (running RealESRGAN directly on a Samsung s8 for example).

So hardware wise I'm very happy with Samsung(except part availability). Software - wise the preloaded apps are not bad. I've never used Bixby, but I do use the gallery and the video editor all the time(including slomo and super slomo) . Whenever I use a different android phone I miss these and more feature.

Also I have lots of sideloaded apps from the net and others such as a full blown Linux OS app running real python scripts etc.Once upon a time I tried apple. All the limitations made me dislike it a lot.

So what else is there better than samsung in android? Google? I never tried their phones because of the prices.

Worse than iPhone and Pixel I guess. Yeah they cost more, but it's like a Honda vs a Hyundai, you get what you pay for.

Rocking Galaxy S20 for last 4 years.

Once lens fogged up after a beach trip. The device was out of warranty. Service center swapped the back plate with a new one for equivalent of ~$10.

There are a lot of valid cricotisms, but claiming Samsung products are 'the worse' is just....

To much.

I liked my first Galaxy but within a month the phone developed purple vertical lines down the screen. Nowhere local could repair it. Samsung told me to mail it to somewhere in Texas and I’d get it back in 6-8 weeks. When I asked if they offered any faster replacement service even for a fee, they told me no and suggested should’ve bought the insurance from my carrier.

Never bought a Samsung again.

If you want to go to some shop somewhere and have some arbitrary part grafted on to your phone, you can do that now. There was an electronics engineer a while back who had a standard audio jack installed in his phone. There's nothing Apple can do o stop you, it's your phone.

What you can't do is do that and expect the original manufacturer to still honour their warranty, and I think that makes perfect sense. The proper remedy for your partner's situation is to get a full refund, or a replacement of the phone.

> What you can't do is do that and expect the original manufacturer to still honour their warranty

One would suggest that if it is required that you use OEM parts to maintain your warranty status, then it is likewise reasonable to say the OEM is required to provide those parts with reasonable lead times.

Contracts with customers these days seem to be written entirely, completely for the benefit of the corporation, and that's bullshit. Contracts should be bidirectional agreements on how business should be conducted between entities, not simply a list of how a vendor gets to legally fuck you over. And we should be enshrining that fact in law.

If a company says "you can only buy replacement parts from us" then those parts should be damn well available to buy when needed, or the clause should be nullified. If you must get your product serviced by them then service should be available, affordable, and reasonably quick turnaround, and if it isn't, then that clause should be nullified.

Consumers should, as a matter of both ethics and law, not be put between a rock and a hard place simply because the company they're doing business with can't be fucked to uphold their end of the agreements.

>One would suggest that if it is required that you use OEM parts to maintain your warranty status, then it is likewise reasonable to say the OEM is required to provide those parts with reasonable lead times.

I completely agree, and as I said, there should be recourse if they don't such as refund or replacement.

>And we should be enshrining that fact in law.

I'm a Brit and I think our protections here are better that the US, but sure. I suppose it varies by state over there too. I'm not in any way arguing there shouldn't be protections, I think there should be at least the protections I suggested, but maintaining warranty with third party parts of completely unknown quality or compatibility is a non-starter.

What gets me the most is that the refusal to sell a different color screen is probably the result of some insane delusions about brand representation.

Same with charging an apple mouse - like they can't stand the idea of having a cable sticking out of it while being used.

They're fine with that, but there's no room for the port on the top end of the mouse and they won't alter the design in order to fit a port there, and don't want the cable sticking out of the side, so they just screw the user and hurt the function.

Apple probably knows that power users are buying non-Apple mice anyway so they can have multiple mouse buttons. Their mics have always been some degree of form over function (remember the puck mouse)?

Apple in general is form over function (with a healthy dose of NIH). It's just part of their ethos, for better or for worse.

That hasn't always been the case. Many of their products have been extremely functional -- and even repairable. Have a look at the inside of a PowerMac G4.

But they get into this weirdness where they produce a well-designed functional product, people like it, they assume it's because of the design and then produce something else that sacrifices function for design, then act confounded when people don't like it.

They've skirted the line many times while also frequently releasing great products that combine both. The apple III overheated because they didn't want to put a fan in it for aesthetic reasons. So did the original Macintosh, alright to a less problematic degree.

I honestly don't understand Apple's apparent disdain for more than one mouse button though. The OS and apps support extra buttons, everyone knows how to right click by this point, what's the benefit? At one company where I worked everyone had a MacBook, apple monitor, apple keyboard, and a white Microsoft mouse.

Their mouse and all of their trackpads support right click without extra buttons.

Technically the trackpads have had zero buttons for years now. It's all haptics and pressure sensors. It's a major step up from the old method, since you can reliably click anywhere on the pad. (They also support a hard-press gesture, but not many applications use that out of the box.)

Apple's computer mouse has supported right click for almost twenty years now, since the 2005 Mighty Mouse.

Yes, but always in a less intuitive way than just having a second button.

How do we go from Samsung phone screen to Apple Magic Mouse?

As an owner of multiple Magic mice, this is such a non-issue. I don’t get why people bring it up so much, but I suspect they don’t actually own one.

I forget to charge mine and so go through the approximately monthly dance of charging it just long enough to get to the next break repeatedly until I can properly charge it to 100%. Being unable to use it while charging is an annoyance. It's not the end of the world, but it's still dumb.

Both examples follow the same principle

People bring it up because it's such an obvious design flaw in a premium product that is explained by a disrespectful "form over function" principle which people also don't like

> a disrespectful "form over function" principle which people also don't like

Which some people don’t like.

Apple may have accepted the in their view minor inconvenience of not being able to use the mouse for half an hour or so every few days to get a cleaner look of the device, knowing full well that some people would complain about it.

If they had put the charging connector on the outside, I bet some people (possible even some of the same people) would have complained about the looks.

Also, even assuming it is a design flaw, I don’t see it being an obvious design flaw. Maybe Apple knows it doesn’t work well with a cable attached (modern environmentally cleaner cables tend to be stiffer. How stiff is the cable they supply it with?), or that permanently charging it wil shorten battery lifetime (yes, that’s preventable, but they may have had other constraints, e.g. time to market. Reading https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Magic+Mouse+2+Teardown/51058, it’s not all proprietary chips inside)

>Which some people don’t like.

1. I was answering the question "why people bring it up so much", so your "some" is irrelevant, as is whatever Apple thinks.

> cables tend to be stiffer

2. That would be a non-obvious justification for the obvious design flaw, but still not something that would make it flawless

But also

> it doesn’t work well with a cable attached

You don't need it to, the only difference vs. today is that in those cases where you've forgotten to plug the mouse to recharge it you'd be able to continue work (yes, with some downsides of a stiff cable attached), so that's still a marked improvement over the design where you can't use a mouse at all

> time to market.

how does that explain not fixing it in the time after it hit the market? (but more generally, see 2.)

I think it's a question of being able to do something, even though it's not great doing it, but the alternative might be worse.

I have a Logitech MX something or other which has the charging port where the cable would be if it was wired, so I can charge it while using it. But as you say, the provided cable is so stiff, it's a total PITA to use it. In practice, I never charge my mouse while using it. But if the battery were completely drained and I had to use the mouse right now (it's connected to a desktop, so no touchpad), I could, instead of having to wait around for 10 minutes or however long it takes for the mouse to become usable again.

Speaking of mice, the best one I've had was a Logitech G703 or similar, which would convert to wired mode if you plugged in the charging cable to the computer. The cable was also quite great during use, much suppler than on most common wired mice.

I have always wanted that feature! Ideally Bluetooth but wired if plugged in to the charging cable or with the option of the dongle for wireless.

My use case is when the drivers don't work setting up a Ubuntu PC rather than high speed gaming. The dongle is always lost so the charging cable is always going to be helpful.

Whilst at it, I want some USB storage on there too plus the full sensor suite that you can expect on an Android phone for things like where north is, how light it is, G-forces, GPS and so on.

Clearly there is no market for such a gadget, so I have compromise devices for now. I would want to get the Logitech ones but - left handed!

Well, this particular model was of the "gaming" persuasion, so I'm surprised it even had blinky lights, since the goal was to be light. The MX master is a freakin' brick, so they could probably stuff all kinds of sensors in there without any issue.

The G703 didn't do bluetooth at all but had a small "lightspeed" dongle which was absolutely the best wireless experience I've ever had on a mouse. My current MX doesn't feel laggy, but whenever I switch to my wired "gaming" mouse, it somehow feels more responsive. I didn't feel any difference with that mouse. Note I'm not actually a gamer, I just love these mice because of the high sensitivity, very low weight and on-board memory. There may be better wireless options out there.

Too bad the scroll wheel started behaving funny, I was actually thinking that since they were supposed to be able to take a beating while playing, they would last forever as "office" mice.

> The dongle is always lost so the charging cable is always going to be helpful.

Logitech were actually nice enough to provide a female micro-usb to female usb-a adaptor, so you could actually keep the dongle on the charging cable. And even though the provided cable had some kind of weird mechanical connector surrounding the usb port, which would fit "securely" to the mouse, you could actually use any random micro-usb cable to charge the mouse if the connector wasn't absurdly thick. This was a nice touch, because the battery life was pretty terrible so I always had to have the chargin cable on hand. I had to charge it basically every week when using it heavily. My MX master has a much better battery life.

Samsung love to kill their brand.

Bought a Samsung washing machine. Completely died in 2 months. Their third party repairer wrote it off and said it’d be a month wait for a new one. Several frustrating phone calls and 3 months later no washing machine. Retailer bounced me back to the repairer.

So fuck them all. Chargeback. I will never buy Samsung again.

Edit: also three colleagues bought iPhone 15 Pro phones this time round after Samsung last time. Don’t know what happened there but you don’t make a switch like that unless you dislike what you had that bad.

The iPhone 15 Pro is nice though.

100% agree. Bought one myself!

If you want a high quality washing machine get a speed queen https://speedqueen.com/speed-queen-difference/

Thank you for taking the time to drop this link. I had exactly the question I think you anticipated: "Where can I get a really well-made washer and dryer?"

Or Miele if you're in Europe

I heard about Miele dropping the ball lately, but mine (9 y o Miele W 3371 Edition 111) never needed anything replaced/fixed so far. I can recommend.

The trade-off is that the speed queen is pretty inefficient and does a mediocre job of actually getting clothes clean. But it'll last forever.

They have a model with a normal powered agitator.

>Edit: also three colleagues bought iPhone 15 Pro phones this time round after Samsung last time. Don’t know what happened there but you don’t make a switch like that unless you dislike what you had that bad.

Samsung got rid of all the things that made their devices different (micro sd card, headphone jack, MST, IR blaster, etc) and then changed the design of the phone to look more like an iPhone. Software also has been moving that direction. There's nothing special or unique with main Samsung flagship phones anymore (with exception of s-pen and folding phones). So by jumping to Apple you aren't losing much in terms of hardware if anything.

On the other hand iPhone have been adding more customization features things like widgets on the home screen and allowing to change the defaults to make it more like Android.

> Samsung got rid of all the things that made their devices different (micro sd card, headphone jack, MST, IR blaster, etc) and then changed the design of the phone to look more like an iPhone. Software also has been moving that direction. There's nothing special or unique with main Samsung flagship phones anymore (with exception of s-pen and folding phones).

True - there are tons of options with Android.

> So by jumping to Apple you aren't losing much in terms of hardware if anything.

I think you are net gaining in terms of hardware quality.

> On the other hand iPhone have been adding more customization features things like widgets on the home screen and allowing to change the defaults to make it more like Android.

Not nearly enough; e.g. I use Syncthing to manage/sync data across devices in my home and have customized it exactly how I want it and I don't need to pay iCloud tax every month - no such luck with Apple. But beyond customization, the main issue is lock-in about which they are (understandably) doing nothing. If you use a idevice and have buyer's remorse, tough luck getting stuff out to a non-Apple ecosystem without friction.

What are you doing that requires you use iCloud in lieu of FOSS/self hosted options?

For photos, check out PhotoSync. It supports a one time purchase and is phenomenal for its use case. Fairly powerful; not something to use without reviewing every single setting first.

You guessed it right, its Photos and Videos. Thanks for suggesting PhotoSync, will check it out.

Probably a bit more than you want to deal with, but I use Samsung phones and my wife likes her iPhone. We have Nextcloud set up, and both phones auto upload all pictures to the cloud (in the basement).

Hope you have an offsite copy somewhere.

I have been meaning to explore nextcloud. What client do you use for Android and iPhone?

The only issue is the other Android options are pretty mediocre, so it's Samsung or the "others"

I swear there has to be a conspiracy driving everything to the iPhone-featureless-hardware + *Cloud*-all-the-things + nickel-and-dime paradigm. It can't be that customers are really this... helpless.

Well, if all the new models are made out of shit, when your old phone goes and you need a new one you have to buy a shit phone. Your purchase then goes into a graph in a presentation that shows that people really love holding shit, because why wouldn't they be buying it? Meanwhile, almost all competition for non shit products has been completely reduced and everyone except the execs hates almost every product that exists. Presentation giver gets a bonus

We had a Samsung washing machine that failed (leak killed control board, something that isn't uncommon with that model) and we were a few months out of warranty. They said the warranty period wasn't a problem and offered a hefty discount on other Samsung products as well, including a TV we were already considering. Control board got replaced and the machine is back in action.

Arguable whether something obvious like a washing machine being able to leak and kill a critical bit of internal hardware is good enough though...

Prices on repair parts is the issue IMHO. I have a $1000 Samsung Washing machine. Had a similar issue with the control board dying. If I had to replace it myself, that circuit board is a $400 part. Without labour. You can't return it if it doesn't fix the problem. I just cannot see how it can cost $400 to supply a board that is part of a $1,000 washing machine including retailer margin. Once you add in $100-200 to have someone actually fit the part... it's just silly.

So the whole thing gets binned. Because for twice the price you get a new everything with 4-5 years warranty. Car spare parts also have this issue. It gets even weirder, every dealer for Mitsubishi Australia sells spare parts for literally 5x the price of the same OEM Mitsubishi part but ordered from Amayama. This held true for a stack of parts I checked from a $0.30 washer to a $120 shift fork to go inside a gearbox. More recently I looked at the ABS Control Module and it was only 2x but that's a $2,000 part. $2,000 OEM from Amayama, $4,000 from a dealer.

I get that there is some overhead in warehousing spare parts for years, but still. There is clear profiteering and something needs to be done if we're going to be remotely sustainable long term.

Never mind that we've been building modern washing machines and dishwashers for 20+ years and yet every model from every manufacturer uses a different unique part, made from scratch, which managed to make the same mistake 100 other versions of that part have made and fixed causing them to often fail.

I'm ranting, oops...

I hear you. I looked at fixing the machine myself and we considered just replacing it when we thought the warranty was too far gone, but it seriously irks me to throw out an entire machine. It feels incredibly wasteful.

We must shop the same brands. I scratched a rear removable interior panel of a Pajero (fridge rubbing against it for 3,000km of corrugated road) and asked for a replacement price out of interest when I was in for a dealer service. $350 or so for what is a single piece of moulded plastic. Unique to the vehicle, but not otherwise complicated.

I like your idea of trying to standardise at least some components across various brands of a product (like is done with USB standards). It shits me that everything is optimised for cost and profit rather than for consumers and the broader environment.

I've always been wary of import white goods after hearing the horror stories about Samsung's and LG's, and comparing that with my experience with domestic ones where parts are cheap and largely shared across brands; then again, with most of them being owned by Maytag/Whirlpool, it's not like there are many companies either.

Incidentally, for car parts, the Big Three had a lot of parts interchangeability at the height of the automotive era, many of which are still available today in the aftermarket, but it seems that for newer models they have also started becoming more closed and proprietary.

Basically no one makes white goods locally in Australia, so :)

I had a failure in a bosch dish washer which probably would have been control board replacement and $$$$ if I had it fixed. But I happened to look up the issue on the internet and learned that it was a common problem - a bad solder connection on a particular pin on a relay on the control board.

Re-soldered it, and it has been fine for a couple of years.

This is why it’s a good idea to buy the most common model of anything, or whatever enthusiasts buy.

My family has kinda done the same by having a Toyota Corolla and an older bmw 3 series (without the turbo and 4wd thankfully). Also got the base model Bosch dishwasher.

At least if you can’t repair it or part it out yourself, there ends up being some efficient network of buyers that can fix it or at least harvest the remaining good parts.

At least you didn't have to replace all your hardwood flooring like my neighbour 2 days after his shiny new Samsung washer and dryer were installed.

Samsung's constant chasing of Apple has removed most of the reasons I would buy a Samsung phone.

For me it was:

- adding sponsored links (amazon I think) in an OS upgrade on my flagship phone

- camera (and other apps but with camera it is most annoying) sometimes taking way to long to open, as if there was one or more network calls involved

- general lagging

- software updates stopped after less than two years

Went to a cheap iPhone and it was way smoother. I understand Android and Samsung has improved, but why switch back? My entire family is on iPhone now and my only problem is someone thought it was a good idea to put a random limit on 6 persons in a family group. (BTW, Android had the same problem last I checked. So much for diverse teams.)

It also kills me that Google has a more open security hardware platform. There's reasons GrapheneOS is Pixel-only.

Had a similar problem with a Samsung washing machine here in the UK, one of the more expensive models too. After just a few months, it developed problems.

I had to spend hours on the phone to their support people, who would tell me to reset it, switch it off and on again, wait a few days and try again etc - just... useless. I practically had to bed them to send someone round. Eventually they agreed, and a local repair guy came round - he spent a few minutes looking at it, declared it a write-off, and told me he advises all his customers to avoid Samsung!

To be fair, the Samsung that makes appliances has very little connection to the Samsung that makes phones or TVs, aside from the name.

But I otherwise agree. My Samsung washer & dryer will be the last Samsung appliances I ever own.

My last Samsung phone had an annoying habit of hanging up as soon as the proximity sensor decided the phone wasn't up against your face. Turns out that was somewhat common. They did replace the phone, but shortly thereafter I abandoned my Android allegiance and went with iPhone so I wouldn't have to tinker with a device I use as an appliance.

Why would hanging up based on the proximity sensor be a thing? That'd make using the keypad for phone menus nearly impossible, unless you put the phone in speakerphone pre-emptively.

As if the colour mattered at all! The phones are so slippery and fragile, one is pretty much forced to wrap them permanently in a case.

I'm going to buy a case for any phone regardless of how many gorilla's they promise are in the phone.

I've recently repaired a similar Samsung phone (a galaxy S9+ edge if I remember correctly).

It has been extremely difficult to source a replacement screen. I first procured some from China from sellers that promised exact same tech. Although their screen looked when displaying stationary images it fell apart during such simple tasks as scrolling a Web page quickly (it became blurry). Considering that the phone was being repaired to use GearVR this was unacceptable (blurry screen every time you move your head).

Then I finally found a non-burned-out old screen. I fitted that and it works fine, but it puts artificial limit on the lifetime of these phones. They are really nice devices that are destined to a landfill, because they don't want to sell few screens.

Long ago I had a no-name/generic Android where the screen needed replacement. I got a replacement of a different colour from Ali and ended up with a more unique two-coloured device.

That said, I wonder if in your Samsung case they actually made design changes such that the colour isn't the only thing different about them.

Did you try small claims court? That should work.

Tbh even Apple had the idiotic idea of curved screens on some models.

I'm still rocking an iphone XS with a majorly cracked screen. I haven't dropped it more than any other iphone i've had, but it's the only one I owned where the glass isn't protected by that straight metal edge. So ... crack crack crack.

At least Apple seems to have given up on it.

I had a Galaxy with the curved glass on the side of the screen. It did absolutely nothing useful for me at all, and then, surprise, ended up getting cracked on the curved edge.

Your frustration with the situation is completely understandable

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