Samsung’s Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge
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Their awful software combined with their pathological paranoia about people rooting their phones means I'll never buy a samsung product again.
[1] http://www.adamweld.com/2016/01/nexus-5-battery-capacity-upg...
To be fair, that hardware shines when Android fades away and you want to play graphically intensive phone games but it's terrible for everything else.
A couple of points as I used to share your opinion, but I recently purchase a Edge Plus which changed my views (which while not as extreme were aligned with yours.
1.) For the most part, I do prefer stock android in terms of aesthetics and some key apps (dialer, etc).
2.) Samsung has really toned down their over the top "colourful" aesthetic on phones. They are increasingly following Material design guidelines.
3.) Depending on the carrier variant (and this could be killer), Samsung bundle apps are not as critical anymore and they definitely do not cause weird breakages when disabled.
4.) Having used both a Nexus 6P (considered the cream of the crop when it comes to stock Android experience) and there is very little performance difference between the two.
5.) Samsung (and other OEMs) have always been ahead of the curve of stock android when it comes to features that were co-opted into later versions on Android. They were the first to have quick access toggles in the notification bar, lock screen notifications, etc. So there were always some trade-offs.
6.) Even without getting into third party launchers, etc that can completely ape stock android in looks - Samsung has finally included proper theming support for their devices - so even a novice user can download a "Material Dark / Material Light" theme.
One perfect example that is still relevant to this day is the multi-window option that I use daily on my Edge Plus, which would not be possible on a Nexus device (just yet).
Their modifications are also a large source of their delay to update to new Android versions. It's somewhat ironic that many users buy their hardware despite their software modifications.
This is not the first.
- a shitload of unwanted stuff (Samsung Services, Samsung Applications) that randomly update themselves
- The 'resize window' feature. If you've seen people using a Note you might've noticed that they had two apps open at the same time for example. The rather small (this is a 'pro', btw) S6E has the same feature, but it is pointless. Worse, I constantly, daily, activate it in error. Right handed, swipe with the thumb to open the notifications. This always ends up (try it) being a diagonal swipe for me, from top-right to bottom-left. Diagonal swipes like that activate the 'shrink current window' feature.
See http://imgur.com/SROLT6M for the result.
If you have a pointer I'd be very, very glad about it.
It's a brick. A paperweight. Crap. Unusable. The software is so bad, it hurts. It has flaws all over the place. I hate it so much, I'm trying to revive a 5 year old device with a dead battery right now.
That completely ignores
- that the "Edge" feature is so useless, utterly useless. Slightly shiny. So pointless.
- that this manufacturer doesn't give a shit about being open, probably is the worst in that regard. Forget about using the hardware with decent software - you are stuck with their stuff
I've disabled the fancy stuff like multi display, though.
My baseline expectations for samsung software are quite low so it might just be that I'm happy this phone works at all - but I can't recall the last time any software issues actually impacted me in a negative way. I don't have any carrier stuff on the phone, maybe that's a factor.
And, being on Verizon, my understanding is that I can pop in the micro-SIM from my 2013 Moto X and it will "just work", despite Verizon not officially supporting the 5x.
For that is a primary concern of mine. Due to circumstances, I'm kind of stuck with Verizon (in the U.S.). But I will never again purchase a phone whose updates are under their control. It seems to be either a Nexus that I can get to work on their network, or an iPhone.
It frustrated my wife enough that we sold it and got a used Galaxy S6 instead. It worked a lot better overall (despite running an older version of Android).
It's really disappointing. On paper, the Nexus 5X looks like a great phone. But in practice, basic features like taking pictures don't work reliably.
[1] https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/nexus/8D7t6xJVw...
And I will consider the price bump for the 6P -- and how I will carry it around.
Just dont drop it on your face, reading in bed. A little more mass haha.
Odd, I have a nexus 5X and I do not have this issue. The camera is pretty responsive. I think I've experienced some momentary freezes (the number of which I can count on one hand after 3 months?). YMMV? Although using "ymmv" makes no sense because they are the same device...
Also, the battery life is great and it is an good device over all.
I have a Nexus 5x and so far its performance has been absolutely fine for me. Opening the camera app has never produced a 10-20 second freeze.
I have seen some things online suggesting that the Snapchat app may be responsible for some 5x performance problems. Did your wife's 5x have Snapchat installed, by any chance?
first is that the battery easily lasts me 2 days sometimes into a 3rd day if I use it a little less than normal.
however I only ever charge it for 15-20 minutes and in that time the fast charge gets me back up to 80something %. It is amazing how fast it charges. I never worry about the battery life on this phone which is the first time I have ever said that since smartphone came along.
for me the fast charging is actually the more important thing for me as being able to get 50+% battery charge in around 15 minutes is just awesome.
Reference:
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_li...
Other than those 2 aspects, I'm pretty happy with it.
* The shape of the actual phone. It's completely ridiculous that the phone doesn't sit naturally on a flat table. However, Google's case completely fixes this problem.
* Good luck finding a case that offers non-trivial protection.
* (This could be a pro) You likely cant walk into your carrier's store and buy one which means you have to buy it directly from Google and without an upgrade 'subsidy'.
* It's pretty expensive. Nexus phones have been historically cheap but this isn't really the case anymore. If you want cheap and near-stock you have to look at Motorola...
* You're being gouged for internal storage. If you want more than a paltry 16GiB of internal storage you'll be paying out the nose for it, and with no microSD card slot you cant buy a large and cheap storage for your photos and music.
* The battery isn't removable or user replaceable. This should be combined with my first point because the two are most likely linked. If the phone had a uniform thickness there's no doubt they could have fit a removable battery. Form over function seems to be the motto of every hardware designer. I haven't read the iFixit guide yet so it might be replaceable by you or me but it's certainly out of the range of your typical consumer.
* Since you bought the phone from Google you get to deal with Google's legendary customer support.
* This might be a weird complaint but the LED light on Samsung phones is much nicer than what you get on the 6P.
* Rooting the phone is trivial but requires a complete wipe of the device and disables the use of Android Pay. Maybe not a huge deal especially considering other phones in the ecosystem but it was nice when older Androids could be rooted in place.
But despite all of this it's still the best phone experience I've ever had and as long as the person isn't a die hard phone gamer or in the Apple ecosystem I would recommend them the 6P over just about everything else that's currently available.
I agree that non-replaceable batteries are not so good.
> Good luck finding a case that offers non-trivial protection.
They exist, but the phone is already big enough.
> You likely cant walk into your carrier's store and buy one which means you have to buy it directly from Google and without an upgrade 'subsidy'.
That's million times a "pro" and not a "con" to me. Main reason I ditched Verizon was their locked down subsidized phones.
> If you want more than a paltry 16GiB of internal storage you'll be paying out the nose for it
Nexus 6p starts at 32GB, there is no 16GB version. Also, it's only $50 more for 64GB. Only Nexus phone to have an sdcard was the Nexus One (which really really needed it with 500GB internal storage).
> The battery isn't removable or user replaceable.
I don't like that either, but sadly most phones have gone to doing this, especially higher end ones.
> Since you bought the phone from Google you get to deal with Google's legendary customer support.
I called them once (yes, you can call them for phone issues) and they were native English speakers. Overall, they were quite easy to deal with.
Motorola on the other hand was horrible to deal with and outsources their call centers. Would never buy another Moto phone again after dealing with their broken customer service (this was after the acquisition by Lenovo). Moto's customer service lied to me and told me my phone was shipped when it hadn't even left the warehouse yet. That was just small issue to some others I had with Moto though.
> Rooting the phone is trivial but requires a complete wipe of the device
That's a security feature and a good thing. Always been that way with all Nexus phones or any phone that allows root without an exploit (exploits that can be used maliciously as well).
> disables the use of Android Pay
Yeah, Android pay won't work unfortunately with a rooted device. There's a hacky workaround for it, but it's a pain in the ass to do on every purchase: http://www.xda-developers.com/android-pay-no-longer-working-...
Don't know about Motorola service, but that is common in general, unfortunately. Experienced that with other providers.
I wouldn't want to run with it though! I can imagine that would be a pain in the ass as it is big. Not super heavy or bulky but I can't see it being very comfortable just because of the dimensions.
However I still can't really fault the phone as it is. Sure I would change some things but nothing about it is fundamentally faulty.
Probably the worst timing possible given the MWC is on.
First impressions have been great. The build quality, speed and screen have all been a nice incremental improvement.
The Nexus 5 had been rock solid and I probably wouldn't advise anybody rush into the upgrade.
Stock Android is fantastic.
Yes, and I don't think I could go to some manufacturer-customized bloated version ever again. The only thing I'd like to be better on my Nexus 5 is camera. Otherwise it's an awesome device.
I was a little worried Customs would stop it and try to charge me some kind of duty but nope :)
Nexus 6P is amazing, SO much better than my Galaxy S3
Also with their episode with TI, I do not trust Google to be any different from Android OEM in terms of guaranteeing updates.
In an ideal world, root would be a built-in feature, which can only be accessed through some obscure code, like the developer settings. It would show a big scary warning, and it would have su app controls included. Rooting the phone could trip some bit, sure, but a full factory reset should reset it.
The only reasons I can see not to do this are 1) extra work supporting people who've messed up their phones. Easy enough to fix: we don't support phones while they are rooted. 2) allows removal of built-in apps. But really, just because you can't uninstall the stuff doesn't mean you have to use it, so is there really a benefit there? And 3) it would take a bit of development effort to add the feature. Perhaps the demand just isn't sufficient to justify it. But I find that hard to believe. Unless there's a 4) that there's a segment of the buying public that would actually be scared to learn a phone could be rooted or something?
Wouldn't the fact that "you can do all these cool things once it's rooted" increase the perceived value and help drive sales and push towards manufacturers making it easier to root? IMHO the big selling point is all the apps, not just what software came with the hardware.
I have an S5. I can understand the move back to USB2 in S6 and above, and I don't know if USB3 is the cause, but my S5 battery goes from empty to full in a good short space of time, so I'm not missing out that much on the super charging goodness. Battery life is still good too. I'm also lucky to be in a country where Samsung have 2 free screen repairs over 2 years.
Hopefully I'll be able to wait for the S8 or 9. I'm impressed with the S7 on paper, and I'm glad they brought back the things that made me dislike the S6. Now for hoping for better Android upgrades from Samsung :)
Of course it would be nice if Samsung at least cared to provide security updates.
I felt the same way when I had to replace a phone battery...which then made me wonder what the point of having a replaceable battery is when you worry that a replacement battery might explode. So my next phone, HTC One, did not have a replaceable battery and I did not miss it. Replacements are too hard to find and besides it's easier to just plug in an external battery anyway.
I see why Samsung went with the non-removable battery on the new phones.
I suppose I could have the foresight to buy two batteries when I get a new phone, although I've never done that and I'd have to work out how to store the second battery so it wouldn't go dead or get lost, and it increases the initial cost of the phone even further.
My friends make fun of me for how 'small' it is, but I look at them put their giant phablets to their ear and it just looks ridiculous. Wasn't the big thing making things more compact, now we're going back to giant phones again?
Good luck getting rapid Android updates for your carrier-modified Samsung Galaxy S7. I'm stuck with a T-Mobile Note 4 with 5.1.1.
I don't want updates. Leave my phone alone.
And, I'm not talking about browsing and other uses that continue to escalate power demands. The darned phone app/dialer is quite laggy. One difference that might account for some of it, is that the appear to have made it more graphical and to have further animated the graphical elements it displays.
Under 4, the dialer popped right up, populated its list displays expeditiously and smoothly, and did things the moment you touched the control.
Now, it can take a couple of seconds just to launch. Buttons are harder to hit because they are smaller, move around, and are not positioned at the screen edge as they were before. The also don't respond consistently; often there is a delay, and occasionally a touch doesn't register at all.
The recent calls list displays a couple of days with only some jerkiness, but the requires an explicit tap to go further back and quite noticeably delays when first doing so and continues to delay and stutter as one scrolls down.
Function first. Then form, or "design." The move from 4.x to 5.x seemed to get this backward, in this regard.
The problem is with Samsung and their terrible UI.
I suggest you watch Adrian Ludwig's State of Android Security on YouTube to see how really ineffective malware on Android really is.
Although for me the factory reset did fix my post-upgrade performance failings... But I'm just using a moto g 2.
That said, the space gobbling is making 8GB stock in value-priced devices ludicrous. I can barely fit all the stock software, much less 3rd-party apps.
Thanks so much for not letting me uninstall hundreds of MB in international keyboards I'll never use - yay, pinyin.
Is this still true? This article seems to suggest Samsung is more committed to OS updates
http://www.slashgear.com/samsung-makes-good-its-promise-reve...
Love the hardware and Samsung Pay is absolutely revolutionary (far better than anything Apple or Google have put out), but the slow device updates and general Samsung bloat mean I'll never go back.
Samsung may pass the updates to the carrier, but the carriers fail to respond in a timely fashion.
I suspect it was my carrier's fault (Spark NZ) not Samsung. After that experience I switched to Nexus 6P, and won't be using any phone in which the carrier gets to install any kind of software :)
However, the battery life which was pretty decent at the beginning is now horrible. At home, on wifi, I'm lucky to make it 12 hours with minimal usage before needing to charge. On previous notes about half a year in I swap the battery with a replacement and get full life again. Can't on the Note 5 and looks like the S7 series is going to be the same :/ Really poor choice Samsung.
I see why they're doing they're not making the battery removable though. They're pushing portable chargers.....
That's what sets it apart from the Apple devices for me as a daily device and I'm surprised more phones don't do that - but apparently consumers don't care that much.
At least they are still able to include a barometer, though! That's awesome.
No brainer.
What?
>The HTC One trades sheer megapixel count for larger (2-micron) pixels on the sensor itself, allowing for improved low-light capabilities when combined with its wide-angle f/2.0 lens.
>the HTC One runs rings around the Galaxy S4 in night shots
Maybe Samsung is doing something right here...but the HTC One had an awful camera. I bought it for the low-light camera performance. But it had some sort of hardware flaw that caused low light photos to have a purple haze. HTC had a replacement program, which would have required me to go without a phone for weeks. So I got Verizon to replace my phone with a refurb, which was actually worse. I just sent the refurb back and kept the purple haze phone.
After this I switched to iPhone, not least because if it is defective an exchange just takes a trip to a retail store.
Furthermore, HTC refused to replace it under their replacement policy, as I had placed a custom ROM on the phone.
The woman on the phone actually said: this is a known hardware issue, but you changed your ROM, so bad luck.
Never would buy another HTC phone again.
0. http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/does.pixel.size.matter/#...
Reminds me of the time that I was working at a large (5K+) org and we found a virus to be circulating that was spread by custom scanner software that was really just bloatware / trayware that came bundled with various models, it hardly ever got updated and it did crazy things like run a local (custom) http server etc... what a nightmare.
* poor battery life * you can't uninstall all the bloatware.
As someone who is running a custom rom on an s6 edge, I can confirm: the software us also the reason for the poor battery life. I regularly get 10 hours usage time out of my phone. It easily survives 24 hours of light use. My rom isn't anything special or battery oriented; it's just a version of TouchWiz android with all the S-features removed.
Imagine what Samsung could do if they shipped that way. Their 2015 offering would have been one of the best built phones on the market, also leading the pack in performance AND battery life. Imagine the S7 series if they didn't have to pack extra battery into the enclosure.
Their business plan must hinge on selling the extra data collected through S-crap. But I can't imagine it's worth more than, say, raising the price by $20 per unit.
Hell, they could offer a "vanilla" version of the phone for $100 more and get plenty of takers... And silence the critics.
Any other phone with comparable screens?
My current phone is a Moto-X 2nd Gen which is good enough, not great.
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Galaxy-S...
Apple introduces their annual flagship smartphone so late in the year. Doesn't it give Samsung plenty of time to counter them spec wise next year? :)
BTW, no, the iPhone that's going to be announced in the autumn is likely going through the last phases of testing.
Plus, Apple buys or has bought chips and screens from Samsung.
On the flip side, getting your flagship out months and months before Apple means hundreds of thousands or millions of people walking around with the "latest and greatest" which might just eclipse the last gen iPhone.
Still, Apple doesn't compete on specs. They happily put less megapixels (with better quality) or a lower clock speed (with better chip design and operating system efficiency), and have almost always had much smaller batteries.
That's why Apple set the trends with large phone displays and 7 inch tablets right? I think Apple makes great devices and that you don't need to distort the great work this company does by living in a fantasy world about Apple getting everything right on the first try and not borrowing ideas from others because they clearly do.
I didn't say they never follow trends, in fact I explicitly pointed out when they did -- to ensure that iOS and iPhone don't fall behind on critical features.
Fact is, Apple could not care less what gimmick or spec Samsung is introducing. Apple will not adjust this years iPhone because of any feature or spec that Samsung introduces, and they've never done that in the past either. The biggest change like this would be perhaps Jobs' frantic last minute change from plastic to glass screen, a "rest is history" kind of moment.
If Samsung's new feature this year is that important then Apple will introduce it in a few years. They're not in a rush. Years late to mobile payments, years late to e-watches, years late to large screens... they do not make quick changes.
I think that with this one-year cycle that phone manufacturers have--unfortunately--imposed on themselves, it is a strategic decision to have both ecosystems at different times in the year--so you have all the media buzz for one system at a time. If you were to have both competitors released at the same time, there would be probably less reporting on either, and that may be a risk neither Samsung nor Apple want to take--the two being the only two manufacturers whose releases regularly make it into non-tech news outlets.
Also, if you have half a year between releases, then the pressure of being able to directly compare specs is off, as compared to if both were released the same day (then one would have 'won' the specs contest and the other lost, which would likely be publicized widely, which both want to avoid by being able to say: our next release will blow everything that existed before out of the water).
Those would be my best guesses why we're seeing such consistent schedules.
I wonder if competitors would get drowned out if they announced around the same time. (Not trolling, genuinely wondering, as iPhones create a lot of buzz.)
The Gear VR app has it's own built in app store. It's kind of like a mini OS.
You still have to installed Facebook & Messenger App through the Play Store.
And this is more a S6s than a new device.
For the first time I decided to get an iPhone. So I got a 6s.
Worst mobile phone I've ever had.
The battery life is terrible. Now I understand why people have 'Power banks' with them all the time.
The phone also dies with 40% battery! I turn it on, it shows a splash screen meaning low battery, turns on, shows 40% battery, then dies after a moment again.Funny thing is that I try restarting it several times and at some point it starts working for hours (which means it actually does have 40% battery and its not a calibration issue).
The user interface (which it was supposed to shine at) is just bad. I can never find items I'm looking for. I had to read an article to find out how I'm supposed to turn on the Hotspot feature (And it actually seemed like editing xorg file!)
Viber/Skype start ringing and I cannot respond immediately, as the ringing dialog doesnt even show up until I do to the application.
ios has only a few keyboard layouts and misses my language (Farsi) and I have to rely on third party keyboards to type and third party keyboards are so unstable. Sometimes the keyboard just doesnt show up until I close/open the application.
My GPRS just started working when I inserted the SIM card to my HTC phone. On ios? I had to configure it manually! Again, felt like Linux +10 years ago!
I know this is totally off-topic to this thread but I had to say this rant. iPhone is only a fashion item. Its nowhere as usable as Android.
If you want a phone that just works do yourself a favor and give a decent flagship Android phone a try. You'd be surprised.
(And I'm not a fanboy of Google/Android, I wish we had a FOSS OS with an open ecosystem, but Android just works, unlike ios)
Other complaints aside, have you considered that your device might be defective? What you describe is neither common nor accepted by iPhone users at large.
:D You most definitely are or you somehow managed to mix iPhone and Android in every single sentence. Most of the stuff are not even opinions, they are just simply wrong information/lies.
"The user interface (which it was supposed to shine at) is just bad. I can never find items I'm looking for. I had to read an article to find out how I'm supposed to turn on the Hotspot feature (And it actually seemed like editing xorg file!)"
If you are serious about this I gotta say I'm speecless. It's actually amazing you were able to turn on your computer and open the web browser since it take just as much as turning on that hotspot: Pressing a single button...
And I'm not an idiot. The 'Personal Hotspot' item was missing in my menu so I searched internet and found dozens of articles describing how to fix it.
And fixing it included things like 'Enter your carrier name into the text box' and 'Restart your phone'.
For example take a look at this:
http://www.igeeksblog.com/personal-hotspot-missing-in-ios-9/