Android

S22 ultra here for 18 months now. Great phone, although I'm not into unlocking and Linuxing my phone. As it is, it's durable, camera amazing, speed great, screen great, speakers are awesome. No complaints about hardware at all. In fact, I find them to be the best available hardware right now.

My opinion on them based on my last phone I got from them (S22 Ultra Exynos) is pretty mid just like the phone for its price. I overall think they are right now in a bit of a slump and resting very much on their laurels. Their phones are still for the most part very good, market leading in some points even, but they have slowed down the innovation a lot. Like the last 3 Galaxy Ultra phones are pretty much the same product. And the regular S20, S21, ... line also takes 0 risks and cuts one too many corners for my liking. And the whole Exynos situation is just a shame since usually where I live we pay more for less. If they stuck those Chips in 500 - 700€ ish phones and passed along the saving they would wipe the floor with all the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 1 wannabe flaghips.

What I think however nobody will take away from them anytime soon is OneUI. I think right now its the best and most feature complete Android skin and its refreshing seeing Samsung stick and refine one design for this long (before they changed the look and feel every 2 - 3 years). I only wish they would bring back Linux on Dex which was in beta for some time. That would be a killer feature for me!

I had (tbh I still have it somewhere) a Samsung Galaxy (the first model, no S, no number, no anything) as it was the first Android phone available in my country. About a year later Samsung decided they won't support this model anymore and I had to install custom firmware to keep it up to date to the quickly evolving Android landscape back then. I never bought anything from them again.

I suffered through 2 years of zero software updates, not even security updates. Google Pay stopped working randomly. I contacted Samsung support who couldn't figure out why on either of these issues. It also kept lighting up on full brightness in the middle of the night due to no reason I could figure out, despite being on do-not-disturb. Never buying a Samsung again.

Cant use same email on two phones if you lost old one, because need old phone to verify account.

Over time phone runs slower and slower.

I find Motorola's much better, I generally go with the Pure.

Really nice hardware, inexcusably bad software.

I like them. Bloat ware is a bit annoying, but not a deal breaker. Just use my launcher to hide it. Timely updates, decent UI, relatively long-term support, some neat features here and there (integration with Windows 10-100 Phone Link is really cool), and having one of the last phones with the trifecta of headphone jack + microSD card slot + OIS means I'll be holding on to this for a long long time!

I had a note 8.

Ok phone, nice pen.

But the one phone I managed to break the screen of. Tanks to curved screen that make using proper protection impossible.

Went back to nexus / pixel.

Their foldables are so damn fragile. My sister's Flip 4 was busted after a fall with a case while my Fold 4 had the black line of death not too soon after the screen protector on the inner screen started popping off.

I hated Samsung phones when I had them ~2019 because of One UI being so far behind Android as well as me getting constantly badgered to create a Samsung account to use the Samsung store so I can upgrade the built-in photo editor even though I never had any reason to do so.

I didn't see any reason to complain about the hardware One UI ran on, though.

I recently bought an S23 after owning 2 pixels and a nexus. So far, I'm loving the experience much more, funny enough because of the things people call bloatware. Maybe it's because I play lots of games.

The sidebar shortcuts a super useful, the lockscreen customizations remind me of old android before google went all apple, and dex is great for multitasking.

The only thing that's a bit annoying is bixby, but i simply installed google assistant alongside it.

I disagree regarding Android. Google's Android feels to me like it's trying to go against everything that makes Android good such as SafetyNet, Android 12 removing customizability from Android 11 and choosing default apps convoluted, separating gestures and launchers, half assed tablet experience.

One UI has a lot more customization and practical options and generally always implemented features before Google did, like split screen and still can do things no other OEM can.

I actively avoid buying exynos based samsungs. Rest is OK. Was lucky enough to buy M51 with 7000mah battery and an efficient snapdragon SOC which lasts minimum 2 days on full charge.

The hardware is pretty good. Not a fan of Exynos tho.

The software feels really bloated. I usually have LineageOS on it instead. Compared to One UI, the Pixel-like UI feels very clean, and the OS feels very lightweight.

If it was impossible to have something less-bloated, I'd probably switch phone to a cleaner Android.

I don't like them for me. I hate all the Samsung software injected into android.

But for regular people they are probably the most recommended ones in the android ecosystem. So I recommend them sometimes if the budget is good.

I might not like the software. But the hardware seems good quality. And software still has some cool functions.

Somebody told me it has a way to hibernate apps that are in the background. And I think that is amazing.

Have an s21, wife has s22, few yrs ago child had A20 (I think) the s series has been great. I could have upgraded to s22 didn't want. The A20 was horrid but for a youngish teen it was "fine" if I had to get another phone I would look around and see whats what but over all I like my phone better than the s22, and while my phone was being repaired I bought a Moto G5, considering the cost I hated the damn thing and was slow as F. Now my other youngish teen has that one, I am just happy to be rid of it. It worked for me, just barely. Admit to having been used to the s21, so may be somewhat biast.

I haven't had a Samsung phone since Android Gingerbread, but I do have a Samsung TV in my guests room and every time it gets turned on, my pi-hole blocks a lot of traffic under the ads and tracking category, so Samsung's phones are probably similar.

I think their screens are really good and they also have 5 generations of foldable devices, more than any other company.

Still, I wouldn't buy one because I don't like their software and they tend to restrict functionality unless you use other Samsung devices. For instance, a Samsung Galaxy watch, even running Wear OS, will not have all the features enabled unless you pair it with a Samsung phone.

The flagships seem good. But the cheap Samsungs are a nightmare. I set up an M14 for my sister and it kept installing Candy Crush and some gambling apps every night. I found this practice predatory and wouldn't trust a company that did this

I'm honestly quite happy with my Samsungs so far. Had an S9 and currently use an S21.

I honestly prefer the Samsung apps over the Google apps most of the time. They also integrate better with non google stuff. Especially calendar, contacts and mail. The Bixby button has been gone for a while now and most of the bloatware is hidden away well enough to be able to ignore it easily.

The irreversible bootloader unlock is quite the shame really because it will cause most banking apps to refuse to work so I never unlockedy bootloader. I used to do this on my nexus and Sony phones. Tbf though I don't miss my root privileges currently. Android and Samsungs one ui has come a long way.

Edit: formatting

Like I want a good android phone designed in the US. What Motorola use to be before Google bought and subsequently sold Motorola or an LG phone that was actually normal and really good.

Google pixels have hardware and software issues, Samsung is very anti consumer with active efforts to mimic apple and reduse repair options, Sony is often too expensive, and the rest are of Chinese origin and potentially carry creepy invasive spyware.

I couldn't buy a screen for my galaxy s20 to fix my self and taking it to an authorized repair shop resulted in a $350 repair that resulted in everything but my motherboard being swapped out without my permission. Waistfull greedy overvalued company that would definitely sell you out for a couple hundred if it could.

We need S5 but with modern specs. Galaxy Alpha would be zased phone if it had a MicroSD reader.

They became dead to me the moment they stopped having removable batteries.

No, this is not a Note 7 joke or anything. I just really hate the trend of integrated batteries in electronics because it places a fundamental limit on the product's useful life of about four to five years before the battery degrades so much that it becomes essentially unusable as a mobile device. It's probably the single worst "innovation" in consumer electronics history. Replacing a sealed-in battery out of warranty is often similar in price to getting a new damn phone, and not without risk either since modern phones are sealed so tightly that even professional technicians can accidentally destroy the rest of the device while trying to disassemble it.

You used to boast that your removable batteries were an advantage over the iPhone, Samsung. What happened to that?