Samsung galaxy S23 and S23 ultra

[5105973]

I found that my iPhone 14 Pro just worked fabulously well, as had my 13 pro Max before it. My Galaxy S23 ultra also works fabulously well, but and this is a big but, it is also just so much fun.

Reading that back seems so strange, how on earth can a phone be fun? well, just the simple things such as putting the apps on the home page exactly where I want and can reach them and removing the names to make the screen look clean, the side bar, just being in the right place to reveal further, almost secret apps, the finger print under glass sensor that works wonderfully (for me), the "back button," (If you have only ever had iPhones, you have no idea about a back button). Tapping on the Google microphone and then tapping search for a song, it's just instant, I have tried to fool it with covers but it gets it right every time, just brilliant. These are such small things, and there are more I could mention.

It's a long time since I have had a Samsung phone, I remember then how good I thought they were, but now? This just takes it to another level. So much so, that I sold my iPhone and Apple Watches that I loved, but have no regrets.

I also had many Pixel phones and am strangely drawn back to them as well, I have promised myself a Z fold 5 but could be swayed to a Pixel fold.

I won't be changing my Mac book Air or iPads, I just think they are so good and can mix and match ecosystems quite easily to be able to enjoy both.

Oh, and the screen, just gorgeous.

View attachment 2180454

That wallpaper is absolutely gorgeous! I have a similar color palette on my green S21 Ultra but different subject matter. When my orange silicone case finally gets here I’m going to use that color palette for my S23 Ultra. Right now I’m using pastels. I get my wallpaper form the Samsung Galaxy store but I only choose the free ones. That still gives me plenty to pick from.

 

[daveathall]

That wallpaper is absolutely gorgeous! I have a similar color palette on my green S21 Ultra but different subject matter. When my orange silicone case finally gets here I’m going to use that color palette for my S23 Ultra. Right now I’m using pastels. I get my wallpaper form the Samsung Galaxy store but I only choose the free ones. That still gives me plenty to pick from.

Thank you very much, I like colour, this is my lock screen.

 

[keithop]

Thank you very much, I like colour, this is my lock screen. View attachment 2180887

really cool how do I find them?

 

[Technerd108]

That’s my husband! Buzz beep beep boop all the time.

I know he’s a busy businessman but he lets almost all of his apps send him notifications. So it’s not just work. There are endless sports notifications and news and it goes on and on. I’m able to tune it out as long as I’m not having to borrow his phone for something like inputting my selections for online food ordering.

I wonder if that doesn’t contribute to his overall irritability. As you all know I have that issue with my Samsung phone return being stolen. I should have just handled it myself. I can’t even ask about it now without getting a bit of attitude as if I’m a hen pecking nag. Same if I ask where we are at with all the paperwork that needs to be submitted for colleges and high school forms. I’ve had a word with him about this and he’s trying to be more considerate. He’s a very considerate person.

But I could understand someone acting beleaguered by questions if their watch and phone are bombarding them with information literally nonstop from the moment of waking until bedtime.

The kids who are active getting texts and social media notifications are becoming the same way. I will ask a question and get a snippy answer as if I automatically should already know the answers. A lot of the time it’s because everyone has mistakenly thought they sent me a text or email. Or everyone these days seems to carry around this mistaken sense that I’m magically plugged into some font of always flowing information. But I am not on my family’s social media. No kid wants their mother following them on Instagram! I’m also not on my husband’s work Slack channel or whatever it is. I’m occasionally on Twitter and on this forum at least once a day. I read but rarely post on Android Central. I’m occasionally on a couple of support forums for my health issues. That’s it.

Otherwise, I’m in my kitchen at least a few hours every night. My family can tell me things in passing and it takes only a second. I promise I’m not holding anyone under a bright light and conducting interrogations! 🤪

Sigh. But I absolutely do not judge my family for the current state of communications. It was my family who urged me to quit Facebook because I was acting like this once upon a time to them, myself. Being addicted to notifications is insidious.

I keep turning them off as they somehow pop up whenever I buy something. Samsung is annoying that way. I play whack a mole with their marketing. Best Buy is a bit that way, too. Pretty much any merchandising app gets overly excited when I buy something from them. 🤣🙄

You are a very good wife and mother from what I read and how patient you are. Also the fact that you recognize your own past behavior and try to modulate your response to be considerate of a past bad habit is very admirable in my opinion. So many people would not have the same self reflection to do the same thing.

I think notifications are completely out of control these days. Just notifications related to my phone, texts, and email are enough to trigger my anxiety, PTSD, and other psychological issues. I can't imagine having a bunch of apps pinging me to.

My son love discord. I will be helping him do his homework on his computer and I will hear his discord notifications go off. Sometimes it is literally non stop for a few minutes and then settled down to a few every minute or two. This has to have a negative effect on mental health.

I am a big watch guy. I never got a smart watch just because I don't want to be so connected to my phone. My ex wife had an Apple watch and we would be talking about something and she would get a text on her watch and start reading it while we were talking so I would have to wait for her to get back into the conversation. It was just a little annoying. It is like why do you have to read the text now? Can't you wait until we are done talking. Made me feel less important than her phone. And it was a pretty constant distraction.

I think I am connected enough to my phone. I really don't need something connected to my arm to constantly distract me.

Honestly I see even with a phone only so many people completely not present to the people around them. I am guilty of this too at times but when I am talking to someone I put my phone face down and don't pick it up until the conversation is over. When I talk to my son I make a point of paying attention, giving him as much of my time as he needs. I am not perfect, I still make a lot of mistakes and sometimes I don't follow my own advice but I do my best and make a conscious effort to be there with undivided attention to the people I talk to.

Sometimes in those moments where are kids get short with us can be an opportunity to open up a dialogue and ask what is going on with them? If they understand that you care about them and just want to be engaged in their lives and offer your support where you can and explain that you are human and may not always know what is going on and when you ask it is because you care and not because you are harping on them or whatever it is that made them short with you.

Anyway I am not giving advice, just sharing my experience on the matter.

I remember when I got the s23u and the default notification sound was on. So annoying. I always turn it to silent. If I miss a text and it is an emergency call me and I will answer. 😂 At least if I can hear the ringer. Lol

 

[daveathall]

really cool how do I find them?

In the Google Play store, the app is called Zedge, hope that helps my friend.

 

[swarlos]

Haha 128GB Snow and as if it was the first day out the box in mint condition

Dang 128 can’t do that anymore LOL need minimum 256.

 

[swarlos]

Curious if anyone has owned the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro. I'm thinking about picking one up. Mostly just to track my steps and my runs as I decided to start running, lol.

And is wifi just fine? I don't have any interest in leaving my phone at home when I run. And I don't think I really every used lte on my Apple Watch when I had it.

I bought it with my S23 ultra but was severely disappointed by the absence of some of my favorite apps that I used on my  watch. Also setting up Samsung pay was very annoying. I loved the watch hardware and the watch faces I was using were dope.

 

[drinkingtea]

I haven't had time to talk here because of school, but I should be more free starting next week. The SIM is still in my S23U!

 

[mjschabow]

I haven't had time to talk here because of school, but I should be more free starting next week. The SIM is still in my S23U!

Did the factory reset help your battery?

 

[Bkdodger]

Dang 128 can’t do that anymore LOL need minimum 256.

Haha you know I don't mind it ...I offload plenty ...but I do have 512GB Ultra hehe ... And I sold the P7P on the way to a new home ...

 

[5105973]

You are a very good wife and mother from what I read and how patient you are. Also the fact that you recognize your own past behavior and try to modulate your response to be considerate of a past bad habit is very admirable in my opinion. So many people would not have the same self reflection to do the same thing.

I think notifications are completely out of control these days. Just notifications related to my phone, texts, and email are enough to trigger my anxiety, PTSD, and other psychological issues. I can't imagine having a bunch of apps pinging me to.

My son love discord. I will be helping him do his homework on his computer and I will hear his discord notifications go off. Sometimes it is literally non stop for a few minutes and then settled down to a few every minute or two. This has to have a negative effect on mental health.

I am a big watch guy. I never got a smart watch just because I don't want to be so connected to my phone. My ex wife had an Apple watch and we would be talking about something and she would get a text on her watch and start reading it while we were talking so I would have to wait for her to get back into the conversation. It was just a little annoying. It is like why do you have to read the text now? Can't you wait until we are done talking. Made me feel less important than her phone. And it was a pretty constant distraction.

I think I am connected enough to my phone. I really don't need something connected to my arm to constantly distract me.

Honestly I see even with a phone only so many people completely not present to the people around them. I am guilty of this too at times but when I am talking to someone I put my phone face down and don't pick it up until the conversation is over. When I talk to my son I make a point of paying attention, giving him as much of my time as he needs. I am not perfect, I still make a lot of mistakes and sometimes I don't follow my own advice but I do my best and make a conscious effort to be there with undivided attention to the people I talk to.

Sometimes in those moments where are kids get short with us can be an opportunity to open up a dialogue and ask what is going on with them? If they understand that you care about them and just want to be engaged in their lives and offer your support where you can and explain that you are human and may not always know what is going on and when you ask it is because you care and not because you are harping on them or whatever it is that made them short with you.

Anyway I am not giving advice, just sharing my experience on the matter.

I remember when I got the s23u and the default notification sound was on. So annoying. I always turn it to silent. If I miss a text and it is an emergency call me and I will answer. 😂 At least if I can hear the ringer. Lol

Thank you for your kindness! Your “non-advice” was spot on. I had separate conversations with everyone after dinner about their demeanors. I got apologies and acknowledgement, but honestly I think everyone is going to be completely bonkers until the end of the school year. It’s absolutely insane here. I well remember how that felt as a student even though it was 40 years ago!

A fun side effect of having the conversations is that I found out their friends love me, lol. And some of their friends have noticed me getting grumped at and told them “Be nicer to your mom!” 😆

It’s easy for me to empathize with my husband because I was once type A career driven and I understand all that goes along with that. Health issues derailed my aspirations. I completely appreciate GrumpyDad’s hard work and willingness all these years to be the sole provider. I can spot him some occasional grumpiness too. 😆

It’s funny you should mention Discord. I was invited to join a group quite some time ago for the purpose of getting batteries for my now discontinued robots. Lol but my kids won’t let me on Discord! Not until they tutor me! They said, mom you will get so confused. I was supposed to get tutored on how to navigate it but we just haven’t had time to do that.

One of their friends is too intimidated to go on Discord at all. So I don’t feel like a dinosaur if a 17 year old feels lost on it.

I asked my husband about the situation with my Samsung after we finished dinner. He said he’s notified the credit card company. He said there’s nothing more I need to do. I’d given him all my correspondence with Samsung. By the way the poor man has had to go back to work! We had dinner, a nice conversation and watched one tv show together. And at 9:00 pm he had to go down to his home office to do more work! Fortunately that’s not common, even for him. It’s one of those months.

As for the Samsung return, I’d like to get that $1000 back of course! I’ll keep you posted on how that plays out. I think next time I will get my Samsung from Best Buy. They didn’t sell unlocked phones for awhile but they seem to be doing so now. If I need to return a phone, I will be able to do so in person.

I won’t be able to get special colors but I don’t ever want to go through any of this again. I don’t know if I’ll do trade ins anymore. If I buy and do a trade in person I have to surrender my phone right then and there. If I have trouble with PWM I won’t be able to revert to my old phone.

As far as Samsung goes, this may mean I use the phone until it can’t be used anymore. Wow. That would be a new era for me! But realistically what will happen is the sting of this theft will fade and I’ll be right back to drooling over the S25 Ultra! Of course I’ll have to have the special edition color sold only on the Samsung website. I’m a fool. I’ll never learn! I’m the same big kid now I was when I joined this forum years ago.

 

[5105973]

I haven't had time to talk here because of school, but I should be more free starting next week. The SIM is still in my S23U!

Good luck with everything! Yep this is a crazy time of year for students. Wishing you all the best!

 

[SteveJUAE]

Yep! I just mute my phone from 8pm on. Occasionally, I'll check my phone to make sure nothing major happened, but otherwise, that's time to unwind and enjoy family. I supposed I could actually use Bixby routines and set a focus mode too, lol.

Just use do not disturb with custom schedule and exceptions on contacts, much easier

 

[drinkingtea]

Did the factory reset help your battery?

I will let you know later! I just haven't had time to notice 😭. Thank you for asking!

 

[danb1979]

I'm flakey and weak willed 😂

iPhone 14 Pro Max and Apple Watch Ultra sold (I won't miss the watch TBH as wasn't using it to anywhere near its potential)

S23U on its way to me via Amazon; lands tomorrow 😬

 

[Dave245]

I'm flakey and weak willed 😂

iPhone 14 Pro Max and Apple Watch Ultra sold (I won't miss the watch TBH as wasn't using it to anywhere near its potential)

S23U on its way to me via Amazon; lands tomorrow 😬

Really? I love my Apple Watch Ultra, is the main reason why I won’t go all in on my S23 Ultra. I use mine daily for working out and marathon training. You will love the S23 Ultra by the way, it’s a great phone with battery life that matches the 14 Pro Max.

 

[danb1979]

Really? I love my Apple Watch Ultra, is the main reason why I won’t go all in on my S23 Ultra. I use mine daily for working out and marathon training. You will love the S23 Ultra by the way, it’s a great phone with battery life that matches the 14 Pro Max.

Currently I'm 'injured' so training isn't happening and secondly; I do this 'for fun'

154kg stone

New item · Album by Dan B

photos.app.goo.gl

So wearing the Apple Watch Ultra doesn't happen otherwise it'll be damaged/in pieces in no time haha 😂

Other than that; it's a fantastic device; but not for me

 

[mjschabow]

Samsung unveils big camera and gallery update for Galaxy S23 with major improvements

Samsung has started pushing a big camera update for the Galaxy S23 smartphones a day before the end of March, as promised. The latest firmware for the newly launched flagship comes with several new features and improvements for camera and gallery apps. Through this rollout, the company mainly...

www.sammyfans.com

 

[Dave245]

Samsung unveils big camera and gallery update for Galaxy S23 with major improvements

Samsung has started pushing a big camera update for the Galaxy S23 smartphones a day before the end of March, as promised. The latest firmware for the newly launched flagship comes with several new features and improvements for camera and gallery apps. Through this rollout, the company mainly...

www.sammyfans.com

Nothing on my S23 Ultra yet, I've just checked (UK) not sure if they push out all regions at the same time or if its different.

 

[5105973]

Ugh. My mom was given the foods she’s not supposed to have again. Or so she says and I’m dealing with possible consequences of that. We aren’t at urgent care this time, not yet. I’m going to be very busy. I learned my lesson last time. Don’t anyone reply to this. I don’t want to derail the discussions. I’ll be back when things are not so blarggghh. Gonna try to improve my mom’s living situation.

You all take care. Have a great weekend. My love to all!

 

[Bkdodger]

TGIF y'all...

Changed up wallpapers from Zedge and icons Balx

 

[mjschabow]

I've had the Watch 5 Pro for a day now and I'd say it's right on par with the Apple Watch. Like I had mentioned earlier, I'm not one to use a lot of apps on a smart watch. I use it more as a watch and to quickly glance at the weather and see how many steps I have. If I need anything more intense, I have a phone for that. So no complaints here at all.

 

[Ludatyk]

TGIF y'all...

Changed up wallpapers from Zedge and icons Balx

I was searching for that Balx Icon Pack and it’s no longer in the Play Store. And doing a quick search on Google.. indicates it’s an older icon park, looks dope though.

I've had the Watch 5 Pro for a day now and I'd say it's right on par with the Apple Watch. Like I had mentioned earlier, I'm not one to use a lot of apps on a smart watch. I use it more as a watch and to quickly glance at the weather and see how many steps I have. If I need anything more intense, I have a phone for that. So no complaints here at all.

Yeah, I use mine daily… with no major complaints! I do hope that we get some alternative launchers to choose from. I rather have a list instead of a grid of icons and the Notification Center with the horizontal scrolling isn’t bad, but I do like how Pixel Watch notifications are displayed.

 

[Bkdodger]

I was searching for that Balx Icon Pack and it’s no longer in the Play Store. And doing a quick search on Google.. indicates it’s an older icon park, looks dope though.


Yeah, I use mine daily… with no major complaints! I do hope that we get some alternative launchers to choose from. I rather have a list instead of a grid of icons and the Notification Center with the horizontal scrolling isn’t bad, but I do like how Pixel Watch notifications are displayed.

Definitely old lol like most of my icon sets ..

Try here

Balx - Icon Pack APK (Android App) - Free Download

Download: Balx - Icon Pack APK (App) - ✔ Latest Version: 43.0 - Updated: 2023 - com.djskarpia.balx - djskarpia - Free - Mobile App for Android

apkcombo.com

 

[Ludatyk]

Definitely old lol like most of my icon sets ..

Try here

Balx - Icon Pack APK (Android App) - Free Download

Download: Balx - Icon Pack APK (App) - ✔ Latest Version: 43.0 - Updated: 2023 - com.djskarpia.balx - djskarpia - Free - Mobile App for Android

apkcombo.com

Thanks for link, but I'm going to pass on it.

I was curious about it and wanted to see how it looked in the Play Store... I have enough Icon Packs already lol. And now that HeX Installer has been patched to work around the Theme Park because I think Samsung is potentially targeting HeX, adding new Icon Packs is a task.