[HN Gopher] Samsung's latest Galaxy A53 is 33% slower than the p...
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Samsung's latest Galaxy A53 is 33% slower than the previous Galaxy
A52s
Author : adrianvincent
Score : 168 points
Date : 2022-04-05 14:37 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.comparedial.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.comparedial.com)
| Jiejeing wrote:
| So the rest of the world will finally feel the same pain as
| europeans with the slower exynos chips...
| rutierut wrote:
| Aren't those just for the Asian market?
| nicolas_t wrote:
| Asian market mostly get Snapdragon except for South east asia
| where both are sold. In Europe, it's exclusively exynos and
| that means that there's pretty much no point in buying
| Samsung compared to other brands in Europe.
| nixass wrote:
| There are Snapdragons in Europe too. Got myself S20 FE last
| December with Qualcomm chip in it off Amazon. Same SKU was
| available among many other retailers in Germany
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| I actually prefer Exynos, most models with Qualcomm do not have
| unlockable bootloader.
| mrlonglong wrote:
| So happy I ditched Samsung just under two years ago because their
| Exynos was just kak. Much happier with my OnePlus 8 Pro. I won't
| have to upgrade my phone for another 3 years hopefully.
| nicolas_t wrote:
| The exynos vs snapdragon issue is a long standing issue with
| Samsung. There's also very significant differences between the
| flagship phones like the S22 ultra sold in EU (exynos) and the
| ones sold in the US or Asia (snapdragon)
|
| Getting an Exynos galaxy means more thermal throttling, lower
| performances and is just not competitive with other brands for
| the budget.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| I thought both samsung and qualcomm dropped their custom cores
| for exynos and snapdragon at this point. So is there still such
| a huge difference between the two? Aren't both of them using
| the best arm licensed core? I get that for some reason apple
| sillicon like performance won't happen but this is just sad
| from samsung.
|
| Also samsung seems to be doing something fishy with benchmark
| results. It seems like exynos has been very close or even
| outperforming snapdragon for years now in benchmarks but the
| performance gap in real life is still massive. My friend
| imported a samsung s21 and it is a nightmare compared to my
| snapdragon s21.
| 7speter wrote:
| It might be benchmark cherrypicking. Companies like AMD,
| Intel, even Apple pick the best looking data to make their
| silicon look much better than the competitor. The latest
| example was apple claiming its integrated gpu in its new
| apple silicon chip used in the Mac Studio was more powerful
| than nvidias 3090... that didnt turn out to be the case
| needless to say
| causi wrote:
| Yes, and moreso in some applications than others. For
| example, Exynos graphics drivers are utter garbage and on
| unconventional graphics tasks like console emulation Exynos
| chips perform like a Snapdragon that's five or more years out
| of date.
| skavi wrote:
| there are still many potential points of differentiation on
| each SoC. For flagships, the cores are pretty much identical,
| but the cache sizes, fabric, process, GPUs, etc. can change.
|
| For the SoCs being compared here, the new Exynos model has
| half the big cores of the Qualcomm model.
| sschueller wrote:
| Why would Samsung own flagship chip perform worse than
| qualcoms? Wouldn't it be in Samsung's interest to either use an
| inferior version of the snapdragon or throttle it?
| EwanToo wrote:
| They still need a competitive offering against other Android
| manufacturers at the high end.
|
| Xiaomi and others are happy to buy Qualcomm chips if it gives
| them the high end advantage
| cf141q5325 wrote:
| In case anyone else is wondering what causes the different
| models for different markets
|
| >First, Qualcomm can't produce enough processor to fit in all
| of the Samsung's phones. Second, snapdragon is too expensive,
| especially if you buy it in other countries. So, Samsung only
| uses snapdragon in countries where Qualcomm sells them cheaper.
|
| As well as wanting to be exposed into more markets
|
| https://www.quora.com/Why-does-Samsung-use-Exynos
| _fat_santa wrote:
| I remember with my S9, even though the Exynos was slower,
| that's the device everyone wanted because the bootloader could
| be unlocked.
| nicolas_t wrote:
| The snapdragon devices in Asia can be unlocked, only the US
| snapdragons cannot. I have mine unlocked and rooted (even if
| losing managed work profiles is a huge pain)
| loufe wrote:
| For now, at least. I imagine they'll have caught up before too
| many generations. Samsung clearly has the resources to keep up.
| nicolas_t wrote:
| Based on what I've read it seems to me that the gap has
| become worth over the years... The last time I remember
| reading that the exynos was competitive was around the Galaxy
| S6 so 2015
| sudosysgen wrote:
| The S6 was clearly much better Exynos than Snapdragon. They
| were competitive for a few years more after.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| That was because the s6 exynos was to first mobile cpu
| with 14nm and the equivalent snapdragon (810) was a
| particularly bad SoC. To the point where it was
| outperformed by previous gen snapdragons. So yes Exynos
| was competitive then, but mostly because the competition
| had an exceptionally bad year.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Samsung has been promising that for almost 8 years now. For
| some reason they absolutely cannot figure out how to design a
| proper high end SoC. I'm not familiar with the design of
| exynos chips but I don't understand how they barely do better
| than Mediatek. They have control over the entire design of
| their devices and should have performances that is closer to
| Apple than it is to low/mid-end off the shelf designs.
| skavi wrote:
| Exynos has had at least one implementation which was
| significantly better than the contemporary Qualcomm SoC. (The
| Galaxy S6's 7420).
| skavi wrote:
| It is not at all surprising to me that the A52s' 768G benches
| higher since it has 4 A78s vs the 1280's 2. It is surprising that
| it seems to do better in power as well, since the 1280 is
| manufactured on a superior process.
| tpmx wrote:
| Fight me: Single-core performance is _still_ much more important
| than multi-core performance for most things you do on a phone,
| including web browsing.
| criddell wrote:
| I think you underestimate how many games people play on their
| phones.
| tpmx wrote:
| I _think_ you overestimate how many CPU cores those games
| effectively use in comparison to the daily e.g. webview
| usage.
|
| Very happy to be proven wrong though - I have no direct
| experience in the modern mobile gaming area.
| _joel wrote:
| I actually got one of these a few weeks back to replace the
| shitshow that was Oneplus Nord.
|
| It's working prefectly fine so far and I don't really need to run
| prime95 on it but this sucks from Samsung.
| Tade0 wrote:
| I was just thinking that Samsung's recent chip manufacturing
| capabilities appear to look somewhat disappointing on paper.
| Didn't expect a confirmation right away.
|
| I used to buy their products, because back in the early 2010s
| they we're successful as an alternative to Apple - in terms for
| bang/buck ratio at least.
|
| I won't be switching anytime soon because my Galaxy S8 is holding
| up decently, but news such as these here will make me think twice
| about choosing them again.
| z2 wrote:
| I recall Samsung struggling with high end fabrication since the
| iPhone 6 "chipgate" issue where the CPU (designed by Apple)
| manufactured by TSMC ran cooler than those by Samsung. It seems
| this happened again last year with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 888
| too: https://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2021/05/tsmc-
| ba...
| lkxijlewlf wrote:
| Day to day, anything past an iPhone 6s or 7 and phones pretty
| much feel the same speed.
|
| If you game or edit pics or anything else that _needs_ a faster
| proc, sure, you 'll notice not having the fastest phone. But if
| you email, reddit, HN, twitter, etc, you're really not going to
| notice much.
|
| Rumors are the iPhone 14 will have the same A15 and only the Pro
| will get the A16. I think you'll see a bunch of people freak out
| about this, but honestly, phones really don't need to be faster
| at this point.
| danpalmer wrote:
| Having had an iPhone 6s, X, and 12, I disagree. I'm a heavy
| user but of relatively basic functionality - I'm not gaming on
| my phone.
|
| Switching apps, latency for apps to restore state once you
| switch to them, latency for the camera to save a photo, latency
| on pretty much all interactions is noticeably better.
|
| I'm not talking about dropped frames, Apple have always been
| good at ensuring a fluid user experience, but there are lots of
| points where apps can take a few seconds to do something on
| older hardware, or do it nearly instantly on newer hardware.
|
| Does a few seconds make a difference? To my life, no. To my
| enjoyment of using the device, yeah. Whether it's worth
| frequent upgrades or not is a value judgement we can only make
| for ourselves, but there are many perceptible differences
| devices more than a few years apart.
| nicoburns wrote:
| How is the battery on your 6S? I don't doubt that the older
| processor is slower in places, but one with a degraded
| battery will be _much_ slower.
| danpalmer wrote:
| When I upgraded it I think it was at 87% health and my X
| when it was at about 83%. Apple claim there is no
| throttling for these amounts.
| wiredfool wrote:
| Having just upgraded from a 6s to a Xs, yeah, there's a speed
| difference with basic web browsing, even on lightweight sites
| like HN. It's the difference between fast enough and snappy.
| adolph wrote:
| Another aspect of Apple processor updates is increased battery
| performance per unit of work.
|
| Battery in SE 2 compared to 3 is 11% larger (1821 mAh to 2018
| mAh) but advertised "video playback" duration is 15% larger (13
| h to 15h). This is unlike the comparison of SE 1 to 2 in which
| an 18% larger battery (1624 mAh to 1821 mAh) was entirely eaten
| by screen, etc. for no improved playback duration.
|
| 13 h 15 h
| ssully wrote:
| I don't keep up on phone rumors. Do you think the 14 will stick
| with the A15 to get the regular iPhone lower in price compared
| to the Pro?
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I use an ancient SIM-free phone and the place I notice the
| speed issue is never within the applications I use it for
| (Stellarium, Maps, All Trails, IRS etc). It's switching between
| applications. Once you're "fully inside" one of the apps, yeah,
| the speed of this 10 year old device is completely adequate and
| almost indistinguishable (with these apps at least) from a
| similar phone today.
| snovv_crash wrote:
| That sounds like slow flash, not a slow processor.
| gruez wrote:
| >reddit, [...] twitter
|
| Probably not the best examples because they have bloated
| webapps that are pretty slow/laggy.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| Reddit on a desktop does this kinda weird jiggle thing.
|
| I thought my eyes were going bad, and then you notice the
| page is still loading after 10 seconds.
| mike97 wrote:
| For reddit you can use Infinity or other reddit clients, I
| use Infinity and I don't even need an account to subscribe to
| subredits that I want to follow and for me it seems to be a
| lot faster then the official reddit app.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| If you're using reddit on mobile, use any app besides the
| official one. Personally, I use Bacon Reader.
|
| If you're on desktop, use the old reddit layout, and install
| RES if you can.
|
| Nearly every complaint I see about reddit's UX is because of
| people using the official app (Seriously, how is the official
| app the worst one?) or the new reddit UX.
|
| As for Twitter, I've never felt its website or app to be slow
| on mobile.
| nicce wrote:
| You can use nitter instances instead of Twitter. UI on
| there is super lightweight and usable, something you hope
| the original one would be. Also you are not distracted by
| constant popups for logging in.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I think most people use the reddit website.
|
| If you have to download an app to use what is fundamentally
| a website, that website has failed miserably.
| yissp wrote:
| If you access the website from a mobile browser it will
| nag you at every opportunity to switch to the app. It's
| quite annoying, so I wouldn't be surprised if most people
| give up.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| There's a button to turn off the nags the menu. I don't
| think you even need to be signed-in.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Apps force you into a single-threaded experience, which I
| dislike. Browsers have tabs, which I like.
| lkxijlewlf wrote:
| Fair. But they're laggy on everything.
| alvarlagerlof wrote:
| No
| lkxijlewlf wrote:
| Yes.
| google234123 wrote:
| Yeah, Reddit is just (deliberately!) bad on mobile.
| orangepurple wrote:
| RedReader
|
| https://f-droid.org/packages/org.quantumbadger.redreader/
| parkingrift wrote:
| >Rumors are the iPhone 14 will have the same A15 and only the
| Pro will get the A16. I think you'll see a bunch of people
| freak out about this, but honestly, phones really don't need to
| be faster at this point.
|
| I think if this rumor were true then Apple would not have
| launched the iPhone SE with the A15. There was really no reason
| for the SE to have the A15 but they shoved it in there, anyway.
| lkxijlewlf wrote:
| The SE is an odd ball device. It is a device that is
| explicitly for the crowd that will _not_ upgrade their phone
| every year. Apple wanted to make sure they had a 5G phone for
| that crowd because they want _all_ their devices on 5G now.
| They _could_ have put an A14 in it, but they needed the
| efficiencies of the A15 to make up for the 5G battery suck
| because they could only increase battery capacity so much and
| still fit the iPhone 8 frame.
| reaperducer wrote:
| The only feature fight I want to see from phone makers and
| networks anymore is latency.
|
| Voice latency is a big part of why people type on a telephone,
| instead of talking on it. We're entering a second generation of
| people who have no idea what it was like talking on an analog
| POTS network. They'll even argue with you, claiming their VOIP
| connection across the ocean has the same quality and latency as
| someone talking on a hard line to a neighbor down the road.
| Ummm... no. Not even close. Sadly, the older generations didn't
| realize how good they had it.
|
| Remember when phone companies used to compete on quality?
| AT&T's "You get what you pay for" campaign. Sprint's "So clear
| you can hear a pin drop" campaign. MCI's "Static-free coast-to-
| coast."
|
| Today, it's "We'll bundle six other services you don't want
| with your phone service and charge you a $1,200 for a new
| phone. Aren't we great!"
| cl0ckt0wer wrote:
| IIRC, Sprint was just increasing the bass somewhere in their
| connection. But you can't really think that a POTS call
| sounds better than a modern VOIP call? Maybe the super-
| compressed crap you get when you dial a number, but apps use
| way better sounding codecs.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _IIRC, Sprint was just increasing the bass somewhere in
| their connection_
|
| That was AT&T's method. AT&T even had a demo line that you
| could call that would play various sounds and music and you
| could press a button to switch between the modes to hear
| the difference.
|
| _But you can 't really think that a POTS call sounds
| better than a modern VOIP call?_
|
| Yes, I can. Because just before the pandemic, I was able to
| use a real POTS network in a remote part of the country.
| Called from one ranch to another over a rural switch. And
| it was awesome.
|
| The quality of a call is about more than its audio
| bandwidth. If that was true, then people wouldn't be able
| to tell the difference between an iPod and a vacuum tube
| amp. And, again, latency is a massive factor, as is true
| asynchronous communication. Arguing over POTS is a whole
| different thing than arguing over VOIP.
|
| People who defend VOIP claiming it's just as good have
| never done a side-by-side comparison. The only advantage
| VOIP has over anything is the usual "make it cheaper" race
| to the bottom.
| StillBored wrote:
| POTS, is largely of varying service too. The switched
| network of old was mostly replaced by G.711 on TDM
| connections, which is probably an improvement for long
| distance. So at that point it was no longer strictly
| analog, but then the phone companies started shaving
| pennies and doing things like pair gain to cram more
| phone lines down the same wires, which was a fairly large
| reduction in line quality for local calls.
|
| These days so much of it is routed over IP, which is
| where all the latency got added.
|
| So, its hard to know what your "ranch" actually was.
|
| OTOH, its hard for any hardwired system to be half as bad
| as your average cell phone which are dealing with
| constant channel quality issues, which results in the
| robot voice (for lack of a better description), and all
| the broken up audio, or simply silence that one
| frequently gets from a cell phone. Basically cell phones
| suck for actually talking to people. <shrug> But once
| again, convenience trumps quality.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| VOIP needs added latency when done over a mobile connection.
| Digital mobile connections aren't the most stable or
| reliable. I can ping Google from my phone and get results
| anywhere between 30 and 300 ms. With latency being all over
| the place, you have to add a significant buffer to avoid
| audio cutouts.
|
| And personally, I'd rather have a little latency added than
| have to talk over a shitty POTS line. I always had a hard
| time understanding people over it.
| theriddlr wrote:
| Had an SE 1st gen. I had to upgrade last year as Duolingo
| wouldn't load anymore even after killing all other apps. The 13
| Mini is too big for one-handed use and gives me migraines from
| PWM.
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| A great deal of the processor on phones and for people to
| upgrade aren't necessarily the processor speed but a better ISP
| and also an accelerator to process pictures faster. The
| secondary reasons to buy a phone is getting a better camera and
| battery life / battery is nearing end of life.
|
| Then again I upgrade phones if they come out in green also. My
| last upgrade was for a 120hz screen refresh rate.
| lkxijlewlf wrote:
| Okay, but the article was about the multicore speed
| difference.
| pmontra wrote:
| Add to the list being constantly out of disk space because of
| all the pictures and videos on whatsapp. It used to happen to
| people with 16 GB phones, the latest safe size is 64 GB now.
| trixie_ wrote:
| It's also not as much the hardware, but the software running on
| the chip. Any programmer can make a fast chip feel slow if
| they're not careful. Especially year after year as changes
| stack up. Apple tends to not abandon old hardware as readily as
| their competitors do. They actively work to ensure software
| updates do not cause performance regressions in older models.
| People in our industry have a tendency to abandon 'released to
| production technology' so quickly it really hurts the end user.
| I think Tesla is another example of a company that doesn't
| abandon their software after it leaves the door like most other
| car companies.
| k8sToGo wrote:
| Higher Refreshrate is quite useful.
| Shadonototra wrote:
| as usual European getting scammed, when the leaders will
| understand that?
|
| the US doesn't want koreans to develop their own chip anymore, so
| they sell their stock of scuffed exynos to EU market
| secondcoming wrote:
| My new phone was a Nokia.
| Finnucane wrote:
| A couple of days ago this guy was holding this phone up as an
| alternative to the iPhone SE. But this phone is also not good?
| faeriechangling wrote:
| Depends on what you value out of a phone. I'd probably never
| buy an iPhone SE over this due to the screen size of the SE.
| Bilal_io wrote:
| I am an Android fan, but I have to admit, no budget or even a
| mid-range Android phone compares to the iPhone SE. Maybe I am
| generalizing, but it seems like a safe bet.
| akvadrako wrote:
| I would say the Pixel 4a is a good alternative, though it was
| recently discontinued.
| Bilal_io wrote:
| I own the Pixel 4a 5G, it's a solid phone but it's 2
| generations old. In comparison, the new iPhone SE is in a
| league of its own, at least for now.
| akvadrako wrote:
| Um, no I mean the non 5g version. It isnt two generations
| old; I bought it just when it was released, that was
| under two years ago. That makes it current generation.
| lizardactivist wrote:
| But will you ever notice, other than if you obsess over
| benchmarks or play video games all day long?
| sheepybloke wrote:
| My wife has one of their lower end old models (A32) and it
| sometimes lags out playing Netflix. Everything is going fine,
| and then the video just stutters to the point that it's
| unwatchable. For comparison, that has a Geekbench score of 500
| single threaded and 1650 multithreaded[1].
|
| This is on top of other issues like the wifi just not
| connecting after a bit, or the bloatware and constant struggle
| fighting against their incessant notifications. After this, I'm
| never getting her a Samsung phone again. Please Google, don't
| kill the Pixel line... you're our only hope.
|
| [1] https://unite4buy.com/Samsung-Galaxy-A32-5G-geekbench/
| faeriechangling wrote:
| Yes, the performance is low enough to cause
| jitter/stutter/frame drops just navigating around the UI and
| hopping between apps. Android can really use as much power as
| you can throw at it.
| onpensionsterm wrote:
| Yes because in 2022 Android is still a sluggy slow hellscape
| monkeydust wrote:
| I would pay more for Samsung with stock Android. Well I would
| have in the past now I can just buy a Pixel.
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| GrapheneOS works wonderfully on the Pixels.
| hbn wrote:
| Calling what the Pixels run "Stock Android" is a misnomer. Even
| being lenient, I'd argue Google's phones haven't really run
| anything close to stock Android since the Nexus 4. The Nexus 5
| was when they dropped the AOSP launcher for one that integrated
| with Google Now to the left of your homescreens, replaced the
| default messaging app with Hangouts, and that was when the
| Google apps replacing stock apps really took off. Modern Pixels
| are certainly not running stock Android.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| They should call it the A51 because that thing looks like an
| alien with its 5 camera's.
|
| Does anyone else find this sort of flex ridiculous?
| falsenapkin wrote:
| I think it's 4 cameras and a flash but yeah I agree still. I've
| casually tried to read about the cameras and can't really find
| a good technical source. To me it looks like a lot of one
| upmanship. Main camera does 64MP but by default shoots in 16MP.
| Macro/depth cameras are only 5MP. Is a macro lens something
| people are really clamoring for? I think physical "0.5x" and
| "2x" make a lot of sense but something about their strategy
| seems more like marketing check boxes for tech geeks and less
| about quality.
| jotm wrote:
| If the Note 9 is any indication, it's not the hardware, it's the
| bloody software - Samsung is seemingly terrible at it!
|
| The North American Note 9 used a Snapdragon 845 SoC while the
| European version used Samsung's own Exynos 9810. The Exynos
| consistently benched lower, had worse battery life and ran
| hotter. The upside was that the Exynos version has an unlocked
| bootloader, which is huge imo.
|
| With a custom kernel made by hobbyists in their spare time, you
| can have the 9810 on par with the SD845 or even better. It has
| great undervolting and overclocking potential on both the CPU and
| GPU. The difference between the stock Samsung kernel and Zeus for
| example, is mind boggling.
|
| Sadly, flashing a custom ROM on it involves tripping an eFuse and
| losing some Samsung functionality, but if you don't care about
| Samsung Pay and whatever other "secure" garbage they offer, it's
| worth it.
| skavi wrote:
| Definitely not the software. Samsung consistently ships very
| well tuned flagships. Compare their performance and efficiency
| to other devices using the same SoC, and that much is clear.
|
| Of course, we can only say this about their Qualcomm devices,
| since there aren't other Exynos devices to compare against
| Samsung's.
| Jweb_Guru wrote:
| Qualcomm makes all their own firmware, drivers, etc. and my
| impression is that it's considered to have _much_ better
| software quality than Samsung 's stuff. Take this with a
| grain of salt though since I'm hearing this second-hand.
| skavi wrote:
| Devices using the exact same Qualcomm SoC can have
| significantly different performance and efficiency [0].
| Samsung devices tend to do very well, even though they are
| typically among the first to ship the chips.
|
| In the article I've linked, you'll see the Samsung S10 gets
| the longest battery life of any device using the Snapdragon
| 855, while still placing at or near the top in the
| performance charts.
|
| [0]:
| https://www.anandtech.com/show/14794/snapdragon-855-phone-
| ro...
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Sadly, flashing a custom ROM on it involves tripping an eFuse
| and losing some Samsung functionality, but if you don't care
| about Samsung Pay and whatever other "secure" garbage they
| offer, it's worth it.
|
| It's not just Samsung Pay you'll lose. Blow the eFuse and
| you'll play _constant_ cat-and-mouse with Google Pay, Netflix
| and a shitload of banking apps.
|
| It's really sad that we have to choose between rooting our
| devices (and giving us the same amount of control that we have
| on desktop PCs and laptops) or participating in digital life.
| soylentcola wrote:
| Yep. I can install software and manage my laptop and desktop
| computers. I can grant superuser/admin permission when
| needed. And yet somehow I'm able to pay my mortgage, transfer
| funds between checking and savings accounts, buy and sell
| stocks, and stream movies without the whole thing crashing
| and burning.
|
| The idea that it's just unthinkable to have the ability to
| grant superuser rights on my stupid pocket computer is
| ridiculous. I can't help but think it's because it's another
| chance for said services to avoid the "mistake" that was
| (relatively) open computing and the choice it offers.
| Darmody wrote:
| I can't believe how bad Samsung has become.
|
| You pay them extra to avoid "Chinese brands" and you get ads
| everywhere, bloated devices with very bad performance.
|
| I'm still using a Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition and even if it's
| slow, it still works pretty well. It has some stuff in it that I
| can't get rid off but overall is a great tablet. I've used
| countless Samsung devices ever since and I only see the quality
| going down.
| the_snooze wrote:
| Does anyone know why their software is just so so bad? I have
| Samsung phones for testing and development work, and I don't
| understand why anyone would ever use these things. They're
| loaded down with so much half-assed knockoff shovelware of
| common services, some of which have ads, and nearly all of
| which keep issuing out useless notifications.
|
| It's like Samsung forgot that phones serve people, not the
| other way around. Samsung software is just so damn needy and
| won't get out of the way.
|
| And it's not like these things are cheap either! The user is
| very much a paying customer, not a freeloader who's a product
| to be sold to other businesses.
| duxup wrote:
| >Does anyone know why their software is just so so bad?
|
| Is Samsung "good at software" at all?
|
| I'm wondering if maybe Samsung's skill set as a company just
| doesn't include software / they don't have the people who
| know how to manage software development / products / teams
| and etc?
|
| I remember ages ago I had a Samsung phone and their software
| started to trickle out and I thought "woah they're just
| getting started it seems, but they've got the money to get
| better". A few years later they hadn't improved at all, and
| were clearly going to push their own software and at that
| point I decided I was out...
| bee_rider wrote:
| Their hard drives are pretty reliable as far as I've seen,
| which would seem to indicate that they don't regularly mess
| up the drivers I guess.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I assume you mean the on-disk firmware. The "drivers"
| would normally be software provided by the OS, and is
| protocol- not vendor-specific.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Indeed I do. Good point!
| mardifoufs wrote:
| One UI is pretty good. Probably the best version of android
| especially w.r.t consistency. But yes the camera software
| is... okay at best. The sensors are great but the software
| processing makes it impossible to have iPhone-tier pictures.
| The only other problem with One UI is that it often has one
| google app and one samsung app for doing the same thing, but
| I guess that's just necessary due to google policy.
|
| The galaxy store is useless too, but the new optional samsung
| apps that you can get from there can be awesome. The Sound
| Assistant app has been a game changer and it's only available
| on the galaxy store
| bee_rider wrote:
| Suspicion: Samsung sees itself as a hardware and component
| company first, and doesn't prioritize the quality of these
| user-facing apps.
| screye wrote:
| Is it bad though ? I honestly have no clue where people are
| seeing ads. Their base apps are all 1:1 better than Google's
| and replacing their launcher with Nova is so trivial that I
| wouldn't even consider that modification. Bixby is shitty,
| but I insta disable it and keep Google assistant on instead.
|
| Thr UI itself feels mature and fast. I never run into
| problems with lagging and I practically run my phone (zfold3)
| on battery saver all the time. (I don't need to, it just
| doesn't seem to have any cons for me, so might as well)
|
| Their camera app is great and split screen is executed much
| better than Google. Dex and pen support are pretty much
| exclusive to Samsung.
|
| Maybe the nonflagship experience is terrible. But their
| flagship experience for me has been stellar.
| goosedragons wrote:
| I've been happy with my A51. I haven't even bothered to
| change the stock launcher. It lets me organize the app
| drawer alphabetically which is basically all I care about.
| The email client is decent and there's no ads I see. The
| Galaxy store has ads but that's insanely easy to ignore.
| The phone is admittedly not the fastest but I only notice
| that in the occasional game. The features I do care about
| like the screen, NFC, SD card slot all work great. Often
| the faster cheaper phones skimp on the screen and always
| leave out NFC.
|
| And yeah split screen is better than stock.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > Does anyone know why their software is just so so bad?
|
| I have never heard of any software developer in the US
| aspiring to work at Samsung. I assume their pay to quality of
| life at work ratio is pretty bad.
| marcusjt wrote:
| I recommend running Universal Android Debloater [1] on all
| Samsung devices (I have 2 of them) plus other manufacturers
| are even worse (e.g. Xiaomi) and the same accept works
| wonders on them too.
|
| [1] https://www.xda-developers.com/universal-android-
| debloater-u...
| bpfrh wrote:
| About why somebody would buy it:
|
| for me it was a combination of having a normal audiojack,
| smaller form factor(s9) and pricing.
|
| I did buy the phone after it was already out for a year or
| two and was cheaper...
|
| Software is ok for me, but I don't use anything from samsung
| except for the mail app and clock, so it is not like I would
| notice.
| sdoering wrote:
| I still use my old Pixel2 as my work phone from my employer.
| The reason?
|
| I can only select Samsung devices as mobile phones from my
| employer.
|
| I just won't.
| thevagrant wrote:
| I find their phones OK when new but I have a feeling at the 2
| year mark they turn off software optimizations in an android
| update. I have no proof but the speed of the device degrades
| significantly. It goes from nice and fast to _adequate_ speed
| but not snappy smooth and always with irritating lag on some
| basic functions like keyboard. (my experience with flagship
| Galaxy S / Note series)
|
| Sure enough, the current year model is blazingly fast with
| same apps installed, even when the specs are not very
| different... speed lasts until that 2 year mark comes.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Agreed. The problem is, the competition is worse... basically
| only with Samsung and Google you have the assurance that
| you'll get firmware updates for a reasonable amount of time,
| and Google's palette of devices is limited.
| [deleted]
| _fat_santa wrote:
| The problem as I see it, Samsung wanted to carve out a piece
| of Android to create their own experience. They wanted to be
| like Apple and Google and have their own first party apps.
|
| The problem is that Android already comes with all these
| first party apps so you just end up with duplication. This
| problem is only further compounded by the carrier having
| their hand in the cookie jar and having their own first party
| apps.
|
| From this all you end up with is massive app duplication on
| your phone and every app fighting to be your choice. I
| remember buying an S7 from Verizon years back, it had 3
| dialers, 3 messaging apps, and 4 web browsers.
|
| Dialers: Verizon Dialer, Samsung Dialer, Android Dialer.
|
| Messaging: Verizon Message, Samsung Messages, Android
| Messages
|
| Web Browser: Verizon Web, Samsung Web, Chrome, <3rd party
| browser added by Samsung>, <3rd party browser added by
| Verizon>
| w1nk wrote:
| I think you're giving them too much credit by saying
| they're attempting to create their own experience. I don't
| believe that's the motivation at all. I don't see any
| reason to believe Verizon wants to improve the dialer or
| the messaging app in any way. They're building these things
| as data exfiltration applications. In the case of some of
| the apps you can't even remove them. It's absolutely
| disgusting to be honest.
| elp wrote:
| This is what no competition gives you. The Huaweis are much
| better, and were starting to eat into Samsung's business, but
| without the Google services its hard no for most people
| including me.
| TonyTrapp wrote:
| For what it's worth, even outside Android their software is
| horrible. Check out Samsung Magician, their SSD tool [0].
| That UI just doesn't make _any_ sense. Samsung is a hardware
| company (and they 're great at that), can't remember any good
| software from them, ever.
|
| [0] https://i.imgur.com/lbqdn8i.png
| rejectfinite wrote:
| That looks like the old interface.
|
| Here it is on my machine, latest version
|
| https://i.imgur.com/dg9JOr2.png
|
| Not saying this is better :D
| TonyTrapp wrote:
| It's a screenshot from three years ago or so, it was just
| so bad that I had to keep it. And yeah, can't say that
| the new interface is an improvement. ;)
| bee_rider wrote:
| The tool works well enough, though.
|
| They seem to be really bad at user experience stuff
| specifically.
|
| In their defense, this is exactly how most engineers would
| run a company I think, haha. The only problem is that they
| are in literally every segment, including ones where
| usability is really important.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Seeing as how their Washing Machines self destruct, I don't
| think they may be that good at hardware either. Yeah its
| been a few years since we heard them in the news but I am
| hearing through the grapevine that they products still are
| poor quality(at least the appliances).
|
| [1]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4ddIfgarPg
| faeriechangling wrote:
| I have been hearing the exact same complaints about Samsung
| literally since it entered the smartphone market.
|
| - Bloat? Yup, touchwiz.
|
| - Ads? They had an unremovable galaxy store app early on.
|
| - Bad performance? Definitely compared to the iPhones they got
| compared to.
|
| At this point I see the main pulls of Samsung being the fact
| they offer better software support than Chinese brands with up
| to 5 years security updates / 4 years OS updates, and they have
| an entire ecosystem of tablets and keyfinders and audio
| products and so on. The problem I have with Samsung nowadays is
| that Apple offers all of those things but better so if you can
| do without the Google/Microsoft integration you should just go
| Apple. They have also lost several of their historical
| advantages:
|
| - SD card? Gone.
|
| - Headphone jack? Gone.
|
| - Best screens in the business? Everybody is using their panels
| now.
| llampx wrote:
| Maybe I'm cynical but I think most of their success can be
| attributed to advertising/marketing. They've done a good job
| of that. In quality though, I don't consider them better than
| Huawei or Xiaomi.
| k8sToGo wrote:
| Also the US gets fast Snapdragon while the rest of the world
| gets inferior Exynos CPUs for the same price.
| progx wrote:
| Had now a cheap realme GT Master Edition, no Ads, no bloated
| device (every preinstalled external App could be removed), and
| it is fast, Snapdragon 778G Chip.
|
| I don't like chinese brands, but Samsung & Co. did not deliver
| competetive devices in lower price-area.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| I bought a Chinese phone once, it worked fine for a few
| months, then I had a long call on Teams and it suddenly
| turned off - it was very hot. I never managed to turn it back
| on.
| ok123456 wrote:
| I quit Samsung as soon as I started getting ads for Spotify on
| the music player on my Galaxy S5, and just started buying
| shenzhen chinese phones. I haven't seen an ad or piece of
| bloatware since. The quality is quite good, and the features
| often surpass most mid-range devices for about half the price.
| They're either stock android or very close to it.
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised to find malware preinstalled on those
| devices, tbh. I'd wipe it and install AOSP or LineageOS on it
| instead.
| pg5 wrote:
| I just got an S22+. Haven't noticed any ads and it's pretty
| minimal in terms of bloatware, though maybe it's due to my
| carrier.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| I will continue buying refurbished LG V35s until they either
| become impossible to find, or carriers stop supporting 4G LTE.
|
| Not that I've needed to buy a refurbished LG V35 yet- it's
| going on 3.5 years without missing a beat. The only bloatware
| was LG's personal fitness app, and a handful of carrier stuff
| that was easily uninstalled or disabled.
|
| My old V20 was similarly durable, besides OLED burn-in after
| about 3 years. I still keep it by my desk in case I need to use
| Find My Device.
| treis wrote:
| >I will continue buying refurbished LG V35s
|
| What's so good about them?
| unixhero wrote:
| Just like my Galaxy S10 Plus with 512gb (2019) feels identical to
| my new and expensive Sony Xperia 1 III (2021)
| wara23arish wrote:
| Sony Xperia is one of the most intriguing phones to me.
|
| Im currently on an iphone 8 still kicking.
|
| If it had a removable battery I would buy it in a heartbeat, I
| dont think Ill ever need to replace my phone as long as it has
| good battery health. Problem is, there are almost no phones on
| the market that do have one. Last one I had was a LG G3.
| summm wrote:
| Nah, they really dropped the ball with updates. 2 years of
| security updates for a 1200EUR phone?? Note the clock starts
| ticking as soon as they announce the phone, and it takes ages
| before it is actually available, resulting in about 1.5 years
| of security updates. This is laughable for a flagship and
| should result in a boycott.
| durnygbur wrote:
| Galaxy S10e was the last Android smartphone, if it only
| wouldn't crack within first weeks I possessed it. Now only
| Android phablets exist.
| starwind wrote:
| I love my S10e but it's probably the last Android I own cause
| --to your point--everything else is just too big
| Jiejeing wrote:
| I am going to make it last as long as I can get the battery
| replaced and lineage OS keeps pushing updates, after that
| I'm not sure. Maybe a fairphone that I would carry much
| less often.
| martin_b wrote:
| I love my S10e too. And there is the new S22, which is just
| tad bigger, I think it could be a reasonable replacement.
| albertopv wrote:
| I like "small" phones, Galaxy S10e is the second best android
| I ever had. First was Sony xperia X Compact, sadly a fall
| destroyed the screen and the repair was really too expensive
| and risky. So I bought a xz2 compact, a used one to save
| something, not the first second hand phone I bought, never
| had a problem. A bit bigger, but faster, and a total failure:
| screen suffered of ghost touches until it became unusable,
| after the purchase I discovered it was a known issue, of
| course seller blamed me. Last time I bought a used phone.
| BTW, S10e was the only smartphone not too big and it will be
| my last android, no more "small" android phones are made.
| Considering I'm also sick of Google (I'm already gradually
| switching to other services), when my S10e will stop to work
| I will switch to an iPhone SE.
| danlugo92 wrote:
| PSA: Don't buy phones with Mediatek chips, they overheat (thus
| slow down).
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