- Jan 8, 2011
- 22,361
Thanks to @plat1098 for sharing this link, as posted here.
Quoted from Galaxy S10+ review: Too many compromises for the sky-high price
Related: How Caller ID Apps like Truecaller Violate Your Privacy
Change my mind.
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."
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.
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.