"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."

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/04/galaxy-s10-review-fo...

You don’t have to keep supporting Samsung by buying their phones. Get a pixel instead.

Being virtually stock Android, pre-installed software is easily disabled (even FB) - the only major complaint is inability to assign Bixby button to something else without rooting.

On mine the plastic frame cracked between the power button and the volume control (I think a reasonably common problem with this phone, I've never had a frame crack on any other phone). After that one button gets stuck on, which makes phone cycle reboot - OK - I can workaround that. Then the microphone went bad: that is caused by the crack causing pressure on the micro-connector which causes an electrical issue. That wasted more time and eventually my workaround for that issue failed.

I have had close experience with 5 different Nexus devices, and 4 of the 5 had nasty failure modes.

The Nexus line has been far less reliable than the iOS devices I have had experience with, and all the Apple devices got far more security updates over their useful life. Note: I usually use Android phones and iPad tablets (although I have also personally had iPhones and Android tablets).

So my two complete failures due to the crack were not "catastrophic" then?

The case cracking is common, and those two failures were common enough: most users would consider the phone uneconomic to fix, and not everyone has my tenacity or skill to waste time fixing their phone.

I also think it was that phone where the flash slowed enough to make it barely usable.

Back on topic.

The only Nexus I have had that hasn't had a problem was a Samsung Nexus 10 (still goes, but stuck on insecure Android 5.1).

The only Samsung phone I have had was the original Galaxy Nexus, which was still going when I gave it away last year. It's problems were: 1. screen burnin (OLED) and 2. Google didn't release Android 4.4 (due to TI dropping OMAP4 support?) even though 4.4 came out within 2 years. That phone cost more than an iPhone 4. My colleagues got iPhone 4 phones at the same time, and they got updates for twice as long and their phones remained useful for far longer.

So my experience with Samsung hardware has been good. I have always avoided buying Samsung because I hate their modified Android versions and lack of updates.

And then I heard the horror stories of everyone in my office who, having had a great experience with the N5, went and bought a Pixel.

Rooting will still give you the most functionality, but Samsung has finally at least partially relented.

I hadn't messed with tasker in a long time but that got me back.

(for example, the Moto G7. Of course, lots of people have Lenovo concerns)

After my "flagship" HTC10 became unusable within 2 years because of battery issues, I was in the market for a new phone. But I was determined to not spend over $250. I ended up with Nokia 6.1. The only issue with it is that it is just a little slow because it uses snapdragon 435 (I think). However for the same reason it's battery lasts up to 2 days. Other stand-out features are unibody metal design, and Android One (meaning no bloatware). I bought it for only $180 from Best Buy after price match, and sold the HTC for $60 at decluttr.com. I think this is one of the best value purchase I ever made- up there with a Toyota Corolla.

With that being said, I'll be switching to an iPhone for privacy reasons, starting with my next phone and I've been a loyal Android user since Google started with the G1. How times have changed...

Also HMD Global seem to be reliable at giving the security updates OTA.

I haven't looked at the newer Nokia 7.1.

My other choices are Google (expensive, multiple Nexus letdowns in past), Samsung/LG (awful software), Chinese phones (crapware, I don't trust), Sony (abusive relationship), a bunch of other brands with other reasons I dislike, or iPhone (costly and I don't like the UI).

But, well, put it this way. If Google or Apple had offered first-party solutions to each of those services, would they be criticized for offering bloatware as well? No, probably not. So, is the issue here that the services aren't first-party (Spotify) or that they aren't from traditionally trustworthy sources (McAfee)? If it's the former, why does it matter? If it's the latter, then Samsung should be more clear about the extent of the influence of the other company, which they are not, but that shouldn't necessarily exclude them from collaborating.

Now, there are some key issues that should be criticized. Hard. A persistent notification? It's unforgivable. Facebook? The amount of tracking they can do makes them a threat to the device. It's basically spyware. It can be disabled, sure, but it shouldn't be enabled in the first place (except to enable Gear VR, I guess).

But really, can you trust any major tech company, considering programs like PRISM exist and are in operation? What differentiates Google from Apple when the device is still able to transmit whatever it wants to whoever it wants however it wants? Apple or Google may or may not be tracking some piece of data, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't being collected and tracked by someone. That the companies themselves don't happen to store the data that happens to be the very thing they make their money protecting and using? It's definitely better in that your data isn't being used for the company's profit, but is it really any better for privacy from, say, the government?

The tech community seems to assume that software from Apple and Google will be well-thought-out and useful, and will be easy to dismiss if the user doesn't want it. The community seems to assume the opposite of anything from any other hardware company.

Honestly, those assumptions seem correct about 80% of the time.

ly bad

I had a similar issue with a phone I bought around 2005. I wanted an unlocked device, and by EU law, a carrier can't refuse to sell you that. So just pop into any store, right?

The device was unlocked but carrier branded, so the useless menu locked in place front-and-center was doubly useless because none of the carrier services worked.

I made sure to never get any phone through any carrier after that, and now that Android phones are having the same problem I'm so glad I did. Mine have always been crap free.

Funny, apple did this to iPod touch

What feature did you pay to unlock on iPod touch? I'm struggling to remember...

The first iPod touch had a broadcom chip that supported Bluetooth, but wasn't supported in the software stack. You needed to upgrade to use the Bluetooth hardware that you had already paid for.

By making updates paid, Apple was charging users for work that had been done on the software side after the user made their initial purchase.

<conspiracytheory>That's probably why the phone manufactures were asked by Google and the carriers to remove that feature.</conspiracytheory>

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16240485

My iPhone bought direct from Apple didn't have anything like that. Nor did my friends who buy on contract with carriers (UK).

What carrier did you buy from and did you restore from a backup/iCloud?

Backup/iCloud access are forbiden as per company IT securiy data management rules.