This kind of shit is why I've decided to avoid Samsung wherever possible. I bought a galaxy watch years ago and got sucked in with a galaxy flagship phone and the Samsung earbuds.
Every Samsung device I've ever owned since the galaxy s4 has been utter trash. The watch was never useful because Samsung wanted to create their own app ecosystem and all but abandoned it. My note 10+ is full of bugs and rooting it is entirely out of the question. My earbuds have been nothing but trouble and are thankfully finally dead enough that I can justify replacing them.
Can't wait for this phone to finally die so I can replace it with something that I don't actively hate.
Their software is terrible, but their hardware is pretty nice. Shame they've been paring it down over the years. Pinnacle of their hardware, IMO was the Galaxy Note 4. Had their "antiglare AMOLED" (admittedly still not ideal for long device lifespan and outdoor use), wacom stylus with hover and right click (awesome for local or remote desktop sessions), replaceable battery, IR blaster, blood oxygen sensor, pulse measurement, audio jack, physical buttons.
Nowdays I make do with their 2022 XCover6 - but I miss the features I lost.
I still have my Galaxy Note 4. It refuses to die, and manufacturers refuse to give it a competitor.
It may be its last year though, even though it is perfectly functional, and I blame app developers for that. It runs Android 6, and for the last couple of years, developers have been dropping support. LineageOS is an option, though on that particular phone, it is not as good as stock, and know some apps are going to piss me off because of SafetyNet. It is also starting to lack in processing power, as apps get more and more demanding even though they don't offer more in terms of features.
My next phone is probably going to be the XCover6 too. Seems to be the only decent phone with a removeable battery, with the FairPhone, but the FairPhone has no SD card, no headphone jack, and I find it overpriced.
BTW, the S5 was also an excellent phone, a combination of the two would have been perfect. It lacked a stylus, but it was waterproof and built like a tank even though it wasn't a rugged phone. It it also supported hovering on its touchscreen (called Air View), a feature I don't understand why it isn't present in every phone today, if just for its ability to support "hover" target in web pages. Its hardware implementation is also pretty cheap and clever: it is just a particular way of driving the capacitive touchscreen.
The lack of touchscreen hover in modern devices is pure tragedy. I had an S5 as my first touchscreen phone and so many things have gone downhill since then. It had a removable battery, headphone jack, IR blaster, and just a ton of features.
Each time I get a new one there are less useful features. I had an S8 that had a mimicked home button press with haptic feedback (since they removed physical buttons, this was perfect IMO). They removed that feature. There was an extra button for Bixby that could be (awkwardly) used by Tasker to have custom controls. Gone. They moved the buttons to all be on the same side and now one handed screenshots are hard to take.
I was a huge Note fan, I'm using a Sony Xperia 1 III now which is not perfect but it's OK. Has a proper headphone jack at least, and the S7-style colour notification LED is really useful (although not quite as good as the S7's version).
I feel the exact opposite - after years of OnePlus phones, I got an S21 two years ago and jesus, finally an android phone that just works. No weird issues with bluetooth/wifi dropping out, no random crashes, good camera, it just works without a hitch. It feels like an iphone experience just with android.
While I don't know about his particular device, newer Samsung devices tend to permanently disable features (like the camera in the Fold devices) when you root them.
Snapdragon versions are usually harder to root, and my carrier s21u here in Canada does not even have the bootloader unlock option that exynos versions do. But Exynos are always worse when it comes to thermals, camera quality, and performance. So the choice is often between a much more performant but locked Snapdragon or a more open phone but with the sometimes atrocious downgrade that comes with Exynos SoCs. Exynos used to be harder for custom roms to get right, but I think that's not the case anymoee.
Even if your device lets you root it (many don't), you will trip the "Knox fuse." It's a small fuse inside the CPU that permanently burns out if you root, and permanently blocks Samsung Pay, Secure Folder, a few other Samsung security apps... and on the Galaxy Z Fold 3, your camera (though on the Z Fold 3, apparently, if you re-lock your bootloader the restriction goes away). Also said fuse cannot be reset so if you reinstall completely stock firmware, it's blown forever.
It seems that most Samsung phones are locked down in the US. Other models have no issue besides KNOX tripping.
KNOX tripping only disable some features you probably won't need unless you have a corporate phone, and you probably shouldn't mess with these anyways. At least in Europe, tripping KNOX doesn't void your warranty.
I don't think it's just a Samsung problem. I have an non-Samsung Android TV and it becomes intermittently non-responsive, apps sometimes crash, sometimes commands are queued up and then after a pause all happen in rapid succession.
People long for angular iPhone, I long for Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge form factor. I wish it would have been available today. Well, anyways, mine S10 (small one) is okay feature/bug/hassle free-wise within my scoped use-cases.
The real problem is, what do I replace it with? The open source options right now seem to be generally kind of crap for a daily driver. The best option I know is a pixel phone with a custom OS, but I feel bad about buying from Google.
That’s a good point, having a nice usable smartphone kind of requires selling your soul to a devil at the moment. I’ve sold mine to Apple, and despite the closed nature of its ecosystem, I am very happy with the day-to-day experience.
Is it worth giving up my freedoms in the absence of a viable free alternative? I guess it is for me. If it’s not for you then I guess your stuck for now.
I agree. I tried every other brand to avoid apple but came back to apple this year. Samsung is bloatware and janky and google pixel was incredible but had really poor battery life and somehow even though android looked great, iOS did tiny micro interactions so much better. E.g. when holding the space in iOS, the whole keyboard becomes a virtual touchpad vs android where you can only go left or right horizontally.
Every Samsung device I've ever owned since the galaxy s4 has been utter trash. The watch was never useful because Samsung wanted to create their own app ecosystem and all but abandoned it. My note 10+ is full of bugs and rooting it is entirely out of the question. My earbuds have been nothing but trouble and are thankfully finally dead enough that I can justify replacing them.
Can't wait for this phone to finally die so I can replace it with something that I don't actively hate.