Reasons NOT to Buy a $1000 Samsung Galaxy S10

[Ink]

Thanks to @plat1098 for sharing this link, as posted here.

Quoted from Galaxy S10+ review: Too many compromises for the sky-high price

"Since this is a Samsung phone, let's talk crapware! This is an unlocked phone direct from Samsung, so with no carrier involvement, this is as good as it gets. Despite being a premium, $1,000 smartphone, the Galaxy S10 comes loaded with ads, even my unlocked version. There are apps from Flipboard and Spotify as well as a unremovable version of Facebook. McAfee Anti-virus is baked into the operating system as "security," and the Samsung Gallery app wants to share my location with Foursquare. The storage management settings, which is just a simple file-cleanup app, is "Powered by Qihoo 360," a Chinese security company. A caller-ID feature built into the phone app is provided by a company called "Hiya."​

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Once you run through setup and connect to Wi-Fi, the phone spawns an undismissable "Secure Wi-Fi" notification, which, it turns out, is an ad for McAfee VPN subscription service. I tried blocking the notification—it's not blockable—but it turns out you can open the advertisement, carefully consider subscribing to McAfee VPN, say "No," and then it will go away. Cool.​

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The clash between Google and Samsung is visible all over the phone, and mostly it will manifest in having two competing version of every basic phone feature. During setup, you'll be asked to sign in with two different accounts, one from Google and one from Samsung. There are two app stores, Google Play and Galaxy Apps; two voice Assistants, the Google Assistant and Bixby; two browsers, Samsung Internet and Chrome; two security systems, Google Play Protect and McAfee; two "find my phone" systems, two password systems, two galleries, and two music solutions. The duality of everything makes some common tasks profoundly weird. After the usual ritual of setting up the phone and installing all the updates in the Play Store, I wandered into Galaxy Apps and found 14 more updates waiting for Samsung apps. You really do have to straddle two different ecosystems."​

Related: How Caller ID Apps like Truecaller Violate Your Privacy

Change my mind.

 

[Threadripper]

Sane people will agree with you, if you want "premium" - get an iPhone with 5 years of updates. Paying the same price for an Android phone with, if you're lucky, 2 years of updates is lunacy. Don't want to pay so much? Get something from the Android One program with all different price ranges which are guaranteed 2 years of Android updates and 3 years of security updates.

If your phone supports it, LineageOS is also a very good choice.

 

[eonline]

With that money I buy a new PC... the phones of new technologies are too expensive and not to speak in my country... In any case I agree I wouldn't buy it. Regards!

 

[Local Host]

Sane people will agree with you, if you want "premium" - get an iPhone with 5 years of updates. Paying the same price for an Android phone with, if you're lucky, 2 years of updates is lunacy. Don't want to pay so much? Get something from the Android One program with all different price ranges which are guaranteed 2 years of Android updates and 3 years of security updates.

If your phone supports it, LineageOS is also a very good choice.

Guess you never heard of first party Android Phones.

At this point, even at the $150 price range we have Nokia phones that don't bundle crapware.

The price you guys pay for a Premium phone, I can build two mid range desktops ($500 each).

 

[Threadripper]

Guess you never heard of first party Android Phones.

At this point, even at the $150 price range we have Nokia phones that don't bundle crapware.

The price you guys pay for a Premium phone, I can build two mid range desktops ($500 each).

It seems you misunderstood this:

Don't want to pay so much? Get something from the Android One program with all different price ranges which are guaranteed 2 years of Android updates and 3 years of security updates.

 

[Local Host]

It seems you misunderstood this:

I didn't, cause it goes beyond 2 years, it all depends on the manufacturer, from Google itself as a first party you get support up to 5y easily.

You won't have to pay premium for it either, as you used to do with iPhone (that only stopped cause it was illegal in Europe).

 

[Threadripper]

I didn't, cause it goes beyond 2 years, it all depends on the manufacturer, from Google itself as a first party you get support up to 5y easily.

Forgive me for not making things clearer, last I checked Android One guaranteed 2 years of updates and 3 years of security updates which still seems to be the case. Also from what I can see 3 years is still also the case with Google phones (source). Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Local Host]

Forgive me for not making things clearer, last I checked Android One guaranteed 2 years of updates and 3 years of security updates which still seems to be the case. Also from what I can see 3 years is still also the case with Google phones (source). Please correct me if I'm wrong.

That is guarantee support, not support dropped.

Great example is the first Pixel phone which got the latest Android build despite being way past the guaranteed support.

Not to mention the huge performance drop and instability iPhone tends to get with the latest iOS versions.

 

[oldschool]

Thanks for the article and links @Spawn.

Sane people will agree with you, if you want "premium" - get an iPhone with 5 years of updates.

Or buy a used iPhone from Apple and save big $$$. You can do it through their website but they don't advertise it. What I will do when my cheapo J3 is EOL.

 

[mlnevese]

The presence of both Samsung and Google products on the phone never confused me. It has been like that since they started manufacturing Android phones. Actually I prefer some Samsung software, their browser for instance is often more compatible with web sites than Chrome. I totally agree the price is absurdly high and not worthy paying full. If you have a nice discount for any reason then you may consider it.

 

[ebocious]

Guess you never heard of first party Android Phones.

At this point, even at the $150 price range we have Nokia phones that don't bundle crapware.

The price you guys pay for a Premium phone, I can build two mid range desktops ($500 each).

The Pixel 3 is killing it with its camera, and the idea of unlimited free storage sounds really nice (if only it weren't with Google). But it's slow. It doesn't have enough RAM for garbage collection. And you need that, if you're going to use Java-based apps.

Pixel 3 XL vs. iPhone XS Max speed test results are pretty embarrassing

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bgr.com

 

[dash]

This isn't even factually correct. I had an S10 and I was able to uninstall FB. Bunch of baloney.

 

[IkariGradius]

While i agree that i can be confusing, it's quite easy to end up with a perfectly usable Android system without any crapware on a Samsung phone (or any brand for that matter):

- First, some apps can be uninstalled. And many other apps can be "disabled", such as McAfee. They're not uninstalled, but you won't ever heard of those again, so the end result is the same.

- Second, the apps used on regular basis are easy to arranged into folders, as it's much more practical, end prevents from seeing all the apps for nothing.

- Third, it's quite easy to never use any Samsung apps or services. Just uninstall or disable the Samsung apps that bothers you, deactivate the Samsung (or other brand) services you don't use and such. Also, once set by default apps won't bother you (for example, using Google contacts and set it to "always use this app", it won't ask you again).

- Fourth, if for some reason the UI bother you, it's easy to switch to a good launcher, such as Evie Launcher. Same goes for the keyboard and other stuff.

In all honesty, it's quite a pain, but if you take the time to set your phone right, it's gonna run smoothly just the way you want within a few hours, and then you're set. It's just too bad there's no "clean install" on Android the way Windows 10 allows it (making a fresh install of Windows 10 is the first thing i do when i buy a new PC).

 

[HarborFront]

This isn't even factually correct. I had an S10 and I was able to uninstall FB. Bunch of baloney.

You root the phone or use ADB commands?

 

[mlnevese]

While i agree that i can be confusing, it's quite easy to end up with a perfectly usable Android system without any crapware on a Samsung phone (or any brand for that matter):

- First, some apps can be uninstalled. And many other apps can be "disabled", such as McAfee. They're not uninstalled, but you won't ever heard of those again, so the end result is the same.

- Second, the apps used on regular basis are easy to arranged into folders, as it's much more practical, end prevents from seeing all the apps for nothing.

- Third, it's quite easy to never use any Samsung apps or services. Just uninstall or disable the Samsung apps that bothers you, deactivate the Samsung (or other brand) services you don't use and such. Also, once set by default apps won't bother you (for example, using Google contacts and set it to "always use this app", it won't ask you again).

- Fourth, if for some reason the UI bother you, it's easy to switch to a good launcher, such as Evie Launcher. Same goes for the keyboard and other stuff.

In all honesty, it's quite a pain, but if you take the time to set your phone right, it's gonna run smoothly just the way you want within a few hours, and then you're set. It's just too bad there's no "clean install" on Android the way Windows 10 allows it (making a fresh install of Windows 10 is the first thing i do when i buy a new PC).

Between Google and Samsung synchronization,services there is a good chance your next phone will be configured as you like it out of the box as soon as it is allowed to coneect and sync settings.

Organizing your most used apps in folders is something I do since the first time a smartphone allowed me to. I see no reason to have to go through a huge list of apps just to run the one I want. Currently my apps are organized in 18 folders and I never have any trouble quickly running what I want.

Appearence of the UI iin any Android phone really depends on the launcher being used. If you don't like the way your manufacturer did it, just change. I haven't used Google or Samsung keyboard for years.

 

[jogs]

It will be better (for some people) if phones come without the OS just like PCs and then the user can install the OS and other apps.
Not every phones should be like this as many users will find it difficult to install the OS but there should be an option without the preloaded OS.

 

[Local Host]

It will be better (for some people) if phones come without the OS just like PCs and then the user can install the OS and other apps.
Not every phones should be like this as many users will find it difficult to install the OS but there should be an option without the preloaded OS.

Most of the proprietary hardware wouldn't work properly due to lack of first party drivers then, unless you expect the phone makers to waste time and money making drivers for multiple OS (most of them can hardly keep up to date drivers for Windows on their laptops).

 

[SumTingWong]

Reason #1: No money

 

[mlnevese]

Reason #1: No money

Excellent reason...

 

[dash]

You root the phone or use ADB commands?

Nope. It uninstalled just by me asking. Uninstalled, not disabled. T-Mobile version S10+.