Samsung still forcing bloatware on their phones

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Zorachus

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This article is why I still stick with Pixel and not comfortable going to a Samsung, I would love to try the S23 Ultra, it looks like an amazing phone, but the duplicate apps thing still is a bit annoying, and the Galaxy app store etc...

It runs a Google OS, there should be no Samsung apps or separate store installed, those should be optional and allowed to be freely and completely uninstalled permanently with out needing to use ADB.

https://www.xda-developers.com/samsung-stop-installing-apps-without-permission/
 
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I have a samsung s23 ultra and there isn’t a whole lot of bloatware on the phone. the samsung apps that are on it, don’t take up much space and can either be uninstalled or disabled. This is my first android phone, I’ve used iphones from the original, but kind of got bored with them. I really like the s23 ultra, especially the photos of the moon i can take with it.
 
Zorachus said:
This article is why I still stick with Pixel and not comfortable going to a Samsung, I would love to try the S23 Ultra, it looks like an amazing phone, but the duplicate apps thing still is a bit annoying, and the Galaxy app store etc...

It runs a Google OS, there should be no Samsung apps or separate store installed, those should be optional and allowed to be freely and completely uninstalled permanently with out needing to use ADB.

https://www.xda-developers.com/samsung-stop-installing-apps-without-permission/
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Ya this is why i stopped with Samsung. I think it was my S4, 72 applications / useless services pre-installed from Samsung, that could not be uninstalled.. bloat bloat and more bloat.
 
ADB is your friend. In the days of unlocked bootloaders, custom roms were king. Miss those days.
Not a fan of Pixel devices. Until they fix unusable video capture, I'm done.
 
Zorachus said:
This article is why I still stick with Pixel and not comfortable going to a Samsung, I would love to try the S23 Ultra, it looks like an amazing phone, but the duplicate apps thing still is a bit annoying, and the Galaxy app store etc...

It runs a Google OS, there should be no Samsung apps or separate store installed, those should be optional and allowed to be freely and completely uninstalled permanently with out needing to use ADB.

https://www.xda-developers.com/samsung-stop-installing-apps-without-permission/
Click to expand...
I got sick of buying Samsung phones which were among the fastest on the market only to have them crippled by bloatware. Not to mention, the user experience of having all that garbage on the phone doesn't do them any favors. I went with the Pixel for the same reason as you.
 
Travolta said:
I have a samsung s23 ultra and there isn’t a whole lot of bloatware on the phone. the samsung apps that are on it, don’t take up much space and can either be uninstalled or disabled. This is my first android phone, I’ve used iphones from the original, but kind of got bored with them. I really like the s23 ultra, especially the photos of the moon i can take with it.
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Same with my S22 Ultra. Before that was a Pixel3XL. No real day to day usage difference between the two. And I actually like the Samsung app store for a few things, including useful things for free like the Adobe Lightroom app for picture editing.
 
honestly it's much better than before... but some core services need these. if we could do Samsung hardware with Google asop/pixel features it would be a perfect marriage
 
Disclaimer.. I am a filthy casual when it comes to smartphones. Very long time iPhone user that successfully made the switch to Android this year. The last Android I used was a Moto X. So it's been ages.

I just wanted a change from the iPhone, and it was easy for me because iPhone was the only Apple device I owned. I just kept it for familiarity.

I successfully switched to the Galaxy S23. My last two phones were an iPhone 8 and then iPhone 11. I wanted to stay with something more compact and make the switch to 5G.

I tried the Pixel 7 first, but did not like it. I found the Tensor chip to be very anemic even during basic tasks and the phone would noticably slow down / jank / get warm at times. Plus reading all the spontaneous glass shattering stories was enough to spook me away and return it.

Tried the OnePlus 11, it was bigger but still narrow enough to feel manageable. I really liked Oxygen OS and the customization options, but it didn't fully work with my carrier. I could get service to work but going online on my account I couldn't make changes because the system constantly showed an unknown device and for me to verify my activation and after spending a couple hours on the phone with support they couldn't figure it out. I returned it.

Lastly I finally got the Galaxy S23, and I love it. I really like OneUI. It feels very polished and more buttoned up even over the Pixel as weird as that sounds. Any app you don't want you can uninstall or disable.

The snapdragon gen 2 is a beast. The phone has been siky smooth. It even feels more smooth than iPhone. For the first time in many years the iPhone finally felt buggy and didn't have that impeccable iOS polish that we are all used to, and I think it's mostly because of iOS 16.. but the Samsung serious slaps.

The battery life has been incredible. Even the base model S23 is a 2 day phone with casual use for me. I've been able to get 8 hours SOT out of it before. When I watch battery test videos on YouTube it almost does as good as the S23 ultra. Usually dies when the Ultra has around 10% left give or take.

Definitely wouldn't let the assumed bloatware deter anyone from trying this phone, and believe me I used to be a classic Samsung hater. I was always dunking on their trash TouchWiz software, but it feels really polished now. I'm impressed.

Until Google can up their build quality and get a real SOC for their flagships I'm going to stick with Samsung.
 
^ this, basically how I feel about my move to the S22 Ultra. And I will add the fingerprint scanner is top notch. faceid is good, not near as good as iPhone though
 
kydsid said:
^ this, basically how I feel about my move to the S22 Ultra. And I will add the fingerprint scanner is top notch. faceid is good, not near as good as iPhone though
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I love my S22 Ultra as well. But the battery life does suck ass though.
 
ACE_350 said:
Disclaimer.. I am a filthy casual when it comes to smartphones. Very long time iPhone user that successfully made the switch to Android this year. The last Android I used was a Moto X. So it's been ages.

I just wanted a change from the iPhone, and it was easy for me because iPhone was the only Apple device I owned. I just kept it for familiarity.

I successfully switched to the Galaxy S23. My last two phones were an iPhone 8 and then iPhone 11. I wanted to stay with something more compact and make the switch to 5G.

I tried the Pixel 7 first, but did not like it. I found the Tensor chip to be very anemic even during basic tasks and the phone would noticably slow down / jank / get warm at times. Plus reading all the spontaneous glass shattering stories was enough to spook me away and return it.

Tried the OnePlus 11, it was bigger but still narrow enough to feel manageable. I really liked Oxygen OS and the customization options, but it didn't fully work with my carrier. I could get service to work but going online on my account I couldn't make changes because the system constantly showed an unknown device and for me to verify my activation and after spending a couple hours on the phone with support they couldn't figure it out. I returned it.

Lastly I finally got the Galaxy S23, and I love it. I really like OneUI. It feels very polished and more buttoned up even over the Pixel as weird as that sounds. Any app you don't want you can uninstall or disable.

The snapdragon gen 2 is a beast. The phone has been siky smooth. It even feels more smooth than iPhone. For the first time in many years the iPhone finally felt buggy and didn't have that impeccable iOS polish that we are all used to, and I think it's mostly because of iOS 16.. but the Samsung serious slaps.

The battery life has been incredible. Even the base model S23 is a 2 day phone with casual use for me. I've been able to get 8 hours SOT out of it before. When I watch battery test videos on YouTube it almost does as good as the S23 ultra. Usually dies when the Ultra has around 10% left give or take.

Definitely wouldn't let the assumed bloatware deter anyone from trying this phone, and believe me I used to be a classic Samsung hater. I was always dunking on their trash TouchWiz software, but it feels really polished now. I'm impressed.

Until Google can up their build quality and get a real SOC for their flagships I'm going to stick with Samsung.
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Thanks for that. I have a S23 on order to replace my Pixel 7 hopefully before the holiday. I wanted a smaller phone, but I've used nothing but pixels for a while. I've always thought that the tensor was janky (rebadged/tweaked Exynos that even Samsung doesn't use). Hopefully, I have no issues when it comes in. I haven't used a Galaxy S phone since the S8.
 
kirbyrj said:
Thanks for that. I have a S23 on order to replace my Pixel 7 hopefully before the holiday. I wanted a smaller phone, but I've used nothing but pixels for a while. I've always thought that the tensor was janky (rebadged/tweaked Exynos that even Samsung doesn't use). Hopefully, I have no issues when it comes in. I haven't used a Galaxy S phone since the S8.
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Very curious your thoughts. I'm also a Nexus Pixel nerd, but the battery life blows, and I Bluetooth is intermittent working.
 
Zorachus said:
Very curious your thoughts. I'm also a Nexus Pixel nerd, but the battery life blows, and I Bluetooth is intermittent working.
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My battery life isn't too bad once the adaptive battery kicks in. It took maybe two weeks before that happened though. Now I can at least get through a whole day with average use. I never had any bluetooth issues with mine.

I'll give you an update when I get it fired up.
 
ACE_350 said:
I love my S22 Ultra as well. But the battery life does suck ass though.
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Do you have it running in 4k or whatever highest res setting?. It looks great but kills the battery. So does VPN. Otherwise I can get a full 24hrs out of mine.
 
kydsid said:
Do you have it running in 4k or whatever highest res setting?. It looks great but kills the battery. So does VPN. Otherwise I can get a full 24hrs out of mine.
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I was at the highest resolution. I'll drop it down one. But I am in Firefox and typing this out and the words look massive.
 
ACE_350 said:
I watch lots of battery test videos on YouTube and the S23 Ultra is on par with the 14 Pro Max, and I've seen more than one video where it beats it slightly.
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Yes, I would agree with the S23 Ultra battery being comparable to the iPhone 14 Pro Max.
 
Zorachus said:
Very curious your thoughts. I'm also a Nexus Pixel nerd, but the battery life blows, and I Bluetooth is intermittent working.
Click to expand...

Just switched over to the S23 yesterday. Couple thoughts moving from the P7...

  • Fingerprint scanner is MUCH better on the S23. So this is what a front fingerprint scanner is supposed to be like.
  • Battery is about the same maybe slightly worse (although I probably haven't given enough time for adaptive battery to kick in).
  • You can tweak some settings in the S23 using the Samsung Good Lock app to make it better.
  • Samsung apps are just different. They aren't worse necessarily, but I ended up downloading all the familiar Google versions of the dialer, contacts, messages, photos, etc. from the Play Store.
  • The size is exactly what I was hoping for.
  • The UI is somewhat smoother on the S23. When I went back to the P7, it felt laggy.
  • The software experience overall is better on the P7 IMO, but that could just be my lack of familiarity with Samsung. Things that there are probably settings for are in different places than I'd think to look, so I can't change it yet.
Overall, I don't feel like I have to immediately switch back. While I prefer the Pixel software, the hardware seems noticeably better on the S23. I'm guessing that the battery life will fix itself as I use the phone more (adaptive battery).
 
Samsung doesn't have "bloatware" on their phones anymore. IMO, the Samsung app offerings are just better optimized to the Galaxy phones than their Google counterparts, the only exception being Google Messages, which I recently switched to from Samsung Messages after using the latter for 10+ years, simply because it has RCS and E2E encryption.

I used to be a Nexus/Pixel fanboy, and used to hack mod and install custom ROMs on my phones from the early Samsung Captivate days up until I got the Note 3, and have stuck with it ever since, for a single reason:

Samsung Good Lock

This suite of tools lets you basically customize your phone to do things that you'd normally need to root your phone for. Every single thing I used to root and install a custom ROM for, has a Good Lock module. No more need to root, and I got the best of all worlds. Plus, the phone JUST WORKS. Battery life is great once Adaptive kicks in.

So I completely disagree that Samsung phones have bloatware, in fact, it's the most opposite of bloaty/Chinese spyware phones. You can basically uninstall EVERYTHING you don't want. And even if you can't, you can disable it. Problem solved. You can almost make your Galaxy like a Nexus, quite literally.
 
I've got a 256GB S23 Ultra sitting in my basket on Samsung's website. They offer $400 trade-in value for my P7 Pro which drops the S23's price to $800. I probably should wait for more info on the P8 Pro before clicking the BUY button... but, I really don't want to wait. ;)
 
Mad Maxx said:
I've got a 256GB S23 Ultra sitting in my basket on Samsung's website. They offer $400 trade-in value for my P7 Pro which drops the S23's price to $800. I probably should wait for more info on the P8 Pro before clicking the BUY button... but, I really don't want to wait. ;)
Click to expand...

Do it and report back please.
 
Is a Samsung running Lagwiz or Touchjizz or whatever they call it now, truly on par smoothness wise as a Pixel Pro phone?

The one thing Pixel phones always gotten praised for is how fluid smooth the UI is with no jank or lag no stutters, etc...

Does a S23 Ultra truly compete and on par with zero hiccups or stutters like a Pixel?
 
my S22 ultra has not stutter, lag or anything ive ever noticed. every bit as good as the pixel it replaced (better but also much newer so expected/required of course)
 
Zorachus said:
Is a Samsung running Lagwiz or Touchjizz or whatever they call it now, truly on par smoothness wise as a Pixel Pro phone?

The one thing Pixel phones always gotten praised for is how fluid smooth the UI is with no jank or lag no stutters, etc...

Does a S23 Ultra truly compete and on par with zero hiccups or stutters like a Pixel?
Click to expand...
Samsung is way past the days of TouchWiz... They have worked hard on OneUI. plus they have the better chipset with Qualcomm over old exynos chips like in tensor. Hell Samsung does not even want to use them in their world phones anymore

Saying that I still have my Pixel 6. My next phone we shall see but in the US it's basically Samsung or Google for Android and Motorola aka Lenovo
 
My 512GB 7 Pro only gets $400 trade-in value. It's what I was originally offered by Samsung, but damn I want that $800 now. :banghead:

s23.png
 
Here's another wrinkle... If I place an order via the Samsung app on my phone the price for the 256GB S23 Ultra drops to $674 with a $350 trade-in of my 7 Pro.
 
Zorachus said:
Is a Samsung running Lagwiz or Touchjizz or whatever they call it now, truly on par smoothness wise as a Pixel Pro phone?

The one thing Pixel phones always gotten praised for is how fluid smooth the UI is with no jank or lag no stutters, etc...

Does a S23 Ultra truly compete and on par with zero hiccups or stutters like a Pixel?
Click to expand...

It was night and day between my P7 and the S23. The P7 felt laggy and janky compared to the S23 when I was using them side by side.
 
Off topic, but when I went to Best Buy to look at the S23 Ultra, I also looked at the iPhone 14 Pro Max, even though I'm not a fan of iOS, but one thing I do like is how each individual app can have specific custom settings for certain things, and for me, as I get older, my eyesight isn't what it used to be, ugh. But when I had the 12 Pro Max a couple years ago, I liked how I could adjust the font size per app. Some apps I could see just fine at default, other apps I liked to increase the font size to see and read it better, and in iOS it allowed me to do that.

On my Pixel 7 Pro I have never seen that option, and if it is there, would love to know how to do it. Even Chrome or Brave browsers, I go into the Settings - Accessibility and increase the font size to 200%, but... it doesn't change anything really, it still the same size, except maybe some titles or labels might be extra large, but articles still look tiny and small. But with Safari browser I can set it to a larger font, and it actually changes it.

So as much as I don't like iOS, certain settings and apps are just better than on Android.
 
Zorachus said:
Off topic, but when I went to Best Buy to look at the S23 Ultra, I also looked at the iPhone 14 Pro Max, even though I'm not a fan of iOS, but one thing I do like is how each individual app can have specific custom settings for certain things, and for me, as I get older, my eyesight isn't what it used to be, ugh. But when I had the 12 Pro Max a couple years ago, I liked how I could adjust the font size per app. Some apps I could see just fine at default, other apps I liked to increase the font size to see and read it better, and in iOS it allowed me to do that.

On my Pixel 7 Pro I have never seen that option, and if it is there, would love to know how to do it. Even Chrome or Brave browsers, I go into the Settings - Accessibility and increase the font size to 200%, but... it doesn't change anything really, it still the same size, except maybe some titles or labels might be extra large, but articles still look tiny and small. But with Safari browser I can set it to a larger font, and it actually changes it.

So as much as I don't like iOS, certain settings and apps are just better than on Android.
Click to expand...
Android 14 is supposed to improve font scalability, but I don't know if it'll be as flexible as Apple's solution. Accessibility has been one of Apple's strong points for a long while.
 
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