Trying a Samsung, how can make this suck less?

[Ffosse]

This sums up my experience with android devices.... I am always impressed by the hardware and love it at first... But then I start using Android and it all goes to hell in a handbasket... then I come running back to iOS.

Yes, I agree. I recently bought the Honor 10 which is fantastic value for an android phone, (£359) but therein lies the problem: it's android and I like iOs that much more.

The good points are that it came with 128GB and supports aptX HD which my iPhones don't. The increase in sound quality escapes me, though, as I am 51.

 

[sunking101]

Well I can vouch otherwise. I was an iPhone man for years and finally grew tired of them. I bought at Xperia XZ and loved it & Android. Never went back. Currently using a Note 8.

 

[Michael Goff]

Well I can vouch otherwise. I was an iPhone man for years and finally grew tired of them. I bought at Xperia XZ and loved it & Android. Never went back. Currently using a Note 8.

Yep. If everyone was the same, it’d be a boring world. The Note8 is a great phone, too.

 

[Zaft]

If you are used to IOS, switching to Android will be a bit of a shock. The immediate reaction is to run back but it takes a good 2 weeks to get accommodated. I could start using Android but iMessage, FaceTime and continuity with my iPad is a lot to give up for me.

 

[pika2000]

I'm also a not-too-happy owner of the Galaxy A5 2017. I bought it because it's the "cheapest" Android phone with IP68 rating without going for the Galaxy S series or Sony flagships.
But experience wise, it just sucks. Sure, the build quality feels nice as Samsung uses the same design as the S7. But whatever component/combination of components Samsung put in there (be it the SoC, RAM, or storage), mine just lags like crap. It lags even when starting the camera app. The fingerprint sensor needs to be cleaned on every other usage. It's just ridiculous, and considering its price relative to other Android phones, it's not cheap. My $200 Xiaomi performs a TON better, but it's not IP68.

As for updates, yes, every updates, including security patches, will require a reboot, and that's also valid for iOS. And yes, I also agree on why they cannot have the latest update capable of updating any older version instead of having to download every single update. Not to worry though, there's not a lot. After the Oreo update, there's just one more security update (June 2018), and you probably won't get any more updates until next quarter. And the Oreo update is crap, with the UI force closing here and there.

Samsung is just going insane. The latest Galaxy A series are losing their IP rating (making them even less useful). And now Samsung is trying to sell a premium mid-range with an SD450 chip inside. And people think Apple is greedy.

Currently, the best bang for the buck Android phone is the Xiaomi Mi A1. Nothing beats it for the price (64GB storage, 4GB RAM, stock Android One) other than Xiaomi's own Redmi phones. Too bad it's not IP68 rated.

 

[Shanghaichica]

I'm also a not-too-happy owner of the Galaxy A5 2017. I bought it because it's the "cheapest" Android phone with IP68 rating without going for the Galaxy S series or Sony flagships.
But experience wise, it just sucks. Sure, the build quality feels nice as Samsung uses the same design as the S7. But whatever component/combination of components Samsung put in there (be it the SoC, RAM, or storage), mine just lags like crap. It lags even when starting the camera app. The fingerprint sensor needs to be cleaned on every other usage. It's just ridiculous, and considering its price relative to other Android phones, it's not cheap. My $200 Xiaomi performs a TON better, but it's not IP68.

As for updates, yes, every updates, including security patches, will require a reboot, and that's also valid for iOS. And yes, I also agree on why they cannot have the latest update capable of updating any older version instead of having to download every single update. Not to worry though, there's not a lot. After the Oreo update, there's just one more security update (June 2018), and you probably won't get any more updates until next quarter. And the Oreo update is crap, with the UI force closing here and there.

Samsung is just going insane. The latest Galaxy A series are losing their IP rating (making them even less useful). And now Samsung is trying to sell a premium mid-range with an SD450 chip inside. And people think Apple is greedy.

Currently, the best bang for the buck Android phone is the Xiaomi Mi A1. Nothing beats it for the price (64GB storage, 4GB RAM, stock Android One) other than Xiaomi's own Redmi phones. Too bad it's not IP68 rated.

There’s no point in buying a midrange or budget Samsung device and thinking you are going to get a better experience than another budget android device because of the Samsung name. I think the problem for a lot of us is when we’ve used a high end device we will find ways to find fault with a lower end one. That’s why I don’t bother with budget android phones. I can’t see any gain in saving money at the expense of experience. Even with the iPhone I couldn’t get the SE. Not only because of the small screen but mostly I’d miss things like 3D Touch and faster Touch ID. Not to mention the lower resolution screen and lack of dual lens camera. In the end I wouldn’t see the point in using it over my X as it wold be inferior.
[doublepost=1531906797][/doublepost]

I'm also a not-too-happy owner of the Galaxy A5 2017. I bought it because it's the "cheapest" Android phone with IP68 rating without going for the Galaxy S series or Sony flagships.
But experience wise, it just sucks. Sure, the build quality feels nice as Samsung uses the same design as the S7. But whatever component/combination of components Samsung put in there (be it the SoC, RAM, or storage), mine just lags like crap. It lags even when starting the camera app. The fingerprint sensor needs to be cleaned on every other usage. It's just ridiculous, and considering its price relative to other Android phones, it's not cheap. My $200 Xiaomi performs a TON better, but it's not IP68.

As for updates, yes, every updates, including security patches, will require a reboot, and that's also valid for iOS. And yes, I also agree on why they cannot have the latest update capable of updating any older version instead of having to download every single update. Not to worry though, there's not a lot. After the Oreo update, there's just one more security update (June 2018), and you probably won't get any more updates until next quarter. And the Oreo update is crap, with the UI force closing here and there.

Samsung is just going insane. The latest Galaxy A series are losing their IP rating (making them even less useful). And now Samsung is trying to sell a premium mid-range with an SD450 chip inside. And people think Apple is greedy.

Currently, the best bang for the buck Android phone is the Xiaomi Mi A1. Nothing beats it for the price (64GB storage, 4GB RAM, stock Android One) other than Xiaomi's own Redmi phones. Too bad it's not IP68 rated.

Apple are selling the SE for a similar price to the SW and that has the A9 chip in it from 2015. They also sell the iPad mini using a chip from 2014. I have the iPad mini 4 and it runs well enough on ios 11 but it's not like apple don't sell devices with old chip sets in them for premium prices. Look at the mac mini.

 

[mib1800]

I'm also a not-too-happy owner of the Galaxy A5 2017. I bought it because it's the "cheapest" Android phone with IP68 rating without going for the Galaxy S series or Sony flagships.
But experience wise, it just sucks. Sure, the build quality feels nice as Samsung uses the same design as the S7. But whatever component/combination of components Samsung put in there (be it the SoC, RAM, or storage), mine just lags like crap. It lags even when starting the camera app. The fingerprint sensor needs to be cleaned on every other usage. It's just ridiculous, and considering its price relative to other Android phones, it's not cheap. My $200 Xiaomi performs a TON better, but it's not IP68.

As for updates, yes, every updates, including security patches, will require a reboot, and that's also valid for iOS. And yes, I also agree on why they cannot have the latest update capable of updating any older version instead of having to download every single update. Not to worry though, there's not a lot. After the Oreo update, there's just one more security update (June 2018), and you probably won't get any more updates until next quarter. And the Oreo update is crap, with the UI force closing here and there.

Samsung is just going insane. The latest Galaxy A series are losing their IP rating (making them even less useful). And now Samsung is trying to sell a premium mid-range with an SD450 chip inside. And people think Apple is greedy.

Currently, the best bang for the buck Android phone is the Xiaomi Mi A1. Nothing beats it for the price (64GB storage, 4GB RAM, stock Android One) other than Xiaomi's own Redmi phones. Too bad it's not IP68 rated.

In this speed test video, the A5 that cost 1/2 the price of Iphone7+ totally demolished the Iphone 7+ in almost all apps/web browsing (except games) speed test.
Notice also the Iphone donkey slow web-browser scrolling speed compared to A5.

 

[Shanghaichica]

In this speed test video, the A5 that cost 1/2 the price of Iphone7+ totally demolished the Iphone 7+ in almost all apps/web browsing (except games) speed test.
Notice also the Iphone donkey slow web-browser scrolling speed compared to A5.

Well I wouldn't touch the A5 with a badge pole despite what this video shows. The iPhone 7 plus I'd take any day over that A5 phone. The A5 is simply not a good phone.

 

[mib1800]

Well I wouldn't touch the A5 with a badge pole despite what this video shows. The iPhone 7 plus I'd take any day over that A5 phone. The A5 is simply not a good phone.

What more you want for 1/2 the price of IP7+?

 

[Shanghaichica]

What more you want for 1/2 the price of IP7+?

Wouldn't buy either of them but if I had to pick one it would be the 7 plus becuase it still runs decently. The A5 would make me miserbale out of the box. Being that the 7 plus is so expensive I'd rather just pay more for the iPhone 8 plus or X. The A5 I wouldn't even consider. I'd rather have a used S8 plus or even an S7 edge.

 

[throAU]

Hi all,

because my 2012 iPhone 5 is becoming less usable (CPU and battery are really becoming limiting, no iOS updates etc.), I picked up a Galaxy A5 2017 for 180 €.

I was immediately impressed by how good this feels, by the large, pretty screen, by the water proofing, by the versatility of USB-C and by how easily I could expand the storage.

This thing is a price / performance beast! The camera, needless to say, is much better than my old iPhone one as well.

Then I spent some time with it and things went sour.

Updating the phone is a weird process. It's been installing apparently non-cumulative updates for days now, a new update notification popping up every couple of hours. Why not just download the most recent update?

Then there's multiple app stores. One for Android, one for Samsung. Why can't I remove the Samsung one?
Samsung also has a second browser, a weird contacts app that I don't quite trust, and moving my contacts from the iPhone to the Samsung seems like a tedious project. Some of the permissions apps ask for are straight up bewildering, by the way. Why can't I give permissions the moment they are needed?

Every moment I spend with the OS makes me miss iOS.

Welcome to the android experience.

Good hardware, crap software.

 

[mib1800]

Wouldn't buy either of them but if I had to pick one it would be the 7 plus becuase it still runs decently. The A5 would make me miserbale out of the box. Being that the 7 plus is so expensive I'd rather just pay more for the iPhone 8 plus or X. The A5 I wouldn't even consider. I'd rather have a used S8 plus or even an S7 edge.

Understood you are not in the market for an A5.

Considering an A5 can run faster than 7+ in certain aspects, it just showed how much iPhone has slacked over the years.

 

[Ffosse]

I wouldn't say that - my X feels as fast as anything.

Recently I've been surprised at how good my Honor 10 is for the price (£359) - it's one mid-range phone in terms of money but has plenty of flagship features. I'd sooner have that over any mid-range Samsung.

 

[FFR]

I wouldn't say that - my X feels as fast as anything.

Recently I've been surprised at how good my Honor 10 is for the price (£359) - it's one mid-range phone in terms of money but has plenty of flagship features. I'd sooner have that over any mid-range Samsung.

I’m not surprised honor and Huawei have been eating Samsung’s lunch in China and India.

Where are you based?

 

[Ffosse]

I’m not surprised honor and Huawei have been eating Samsung’s lunch in China and India.

Where are you based?

I'm in Edinburgh

 

[FFR]

I'm in Edinburgh

How’s the weather over there?
I’m based out of London and Switzerland myself.


Looks like Huawei might be eating into Samsung share in the Uk as well.

 

[Ffosse]

It's been cloudy but mild. Yes, I've seen one or two Huawei and Honor devices out in the wild.

 

[I7guy]

Understood you are not in the market for an A5.

Considering an A5 can run faster than 7+ in certain aspects, it just showed how much iPhone has slacked over the years.

Which aspects are those?

 

[Shanghaichica]

How’s the weather over there?
I’m based out of London and Switzerland myself.


Looks like Huawei might be eating into Samsung share in the Uk as well.

The p20 Pro is definitely gaining some traction.

 

[TomOSeven]

Okay, what the **** is this ****?

I'm trying to simply move my whatsapp contacts and chat history to my Android. Apparently that's more difficult than writing my dissertation.

So Whatsapp on the iPhone apparently can't create a backup when your iCloud is full. However those are connected, is quite beyond me.

No matter, I just copy my photos from my iCloud to my PC and all good, right? Yeah no, it's apparently not that easy.
I open iCloud in my browser and I can see all my photos. So I could copy them one at a time because for some insane reason, I can't select them all. How frustrating is that?

So I install iCloud on my computer, which looks like it's just a glorified web app, and runs as well, hoping it will just download my photos. Well, after fiddling around with it for a while it did download all of them, but now they're still in the god damn cloud, so I still don't have room.

I then disabled iCloud for photos on my iPhone, hoping that would delete them, no, apparently I graciously have 30 days to get those photos, which would be nice, except I still don't have access to any of the 5 GB worth of storage I just freed up.

So then I figured, **** the chat history, I just copy the contacts to my SIM and move them to the Android. That's so rudimentary, that should work easily. Now, I must be going crazy, but it seems like there's no god damn way to have the iPhone store contacts on the SIM card. WHY? My Nokia 3310 was able to do that! What's going on here?

So, creating V-Cards via iCloud, not elegant but functional. Putting them onto the Android, no problem, because lo and behold, Android phones actually support - gasp - drag and drop.

And here's where I gave up:

Apparently, one can't import these contacts without using a Samsung app, which requires one to NOT ONLY CREATE A GOD DAMN ACCOUNT but also UPLOAD THE CONTACTS TO SAMSUNG.

How is any of this acceptable?

I can literally create a tic-tac-toe app that runs on Android and iPhone in the same time it takes me to do something as simple and rudimentary as moving some contacts!
What do computer-illiterates do in such a situation?

Man this is the most frustrating experience I've had in front of a computer in ages.

 

[hallux]

I'm trying to simply move my whatsapp contacts and chat history to my Android. Apparently that's more difficult than writing my dissertation.

This is actually a Whatsapp limitation overall. You can't get chats to sync between platforms, it's been a "problem" for a while.

So, creating V-Cards via iCloud, not elegant but functional. Putting them onto the Android, no problem, because lo and behold, Android phones actually support - gasp - drag and drop.

And here's where I gave up:

Apparently, one can't import these contacts without using a Samsung app, which requires one to NOT ONLY CREATE A GOD DAMN ACCOUNT but also UPLOAD THE CONTACTS TO SAMSUNG.

Can you create a .vcf file and then "share" it from one to the other through Bluetooth? Android devices can import that file. Be aware - MANY devices (if not all) are not allowing contact storage on SIM cards, some don't even allow local contacts - only allowing cloud-synced contacts.

 

[mib1800]

Okay, what the **** is this ****?

I'm trying to simply move my whatsapp contacts and chat history to my Android. Apparently that's more difficult than writing my dissertation.

So Whatsapp on the iPhone apparently can't create a backup when your iCloud is full. However those are connected, is quite beyond me.

No matter, I just copy my photos from my iCloud to my PC and all good, right? Yeah no, it's apparently not that easy.
I open iCloud in my browser and I can see all my photos. So I could copy them one at a time because for some insane reason, I can't select them all. How frustrating is that?

So I install iCloud on my computer, which looks like it's just a glorified web app, and runs as well, hoping it will just download my photos. Well, after fiddling around with it for a while it did download all of them, but now they're still in the god damn cloud, so I still don't have room.

I then disabled iCloud for photos on my iPhone, hoping that would delete them, no, apparently I graciously have 30 days to get those photos, which would be nice, except I still don't have access to any of the 5 GB worth of storage I just freed up.

So then I figured, **** the chat history, I just copy the contacts to my SIM and move them to the Android. That's so rudimentary, that should work easily. Now, I must be going crazy, but it seems like there's no god damn way to have the iPhone store contacts on the SIM card. WHY? My Nokia 3310 was able to do that! What's going on here?

So, creating V-Cards via iCloud, not elegant but functional. Putting them onto the Android, no problem, because lo and behold, Android phones actually support - gasp - drag and drop.

And here's where I gave up:

Apparently, one can't import these contacts without using a Samsung app, which requires one to NOT ONLY CREATE A GOD DAMN ACCOUNT but also UPLOAD THE CONTACTS TO SAMSUNG.

How is any of this acceptable?

I can literally create a tic-tac-toe app that runs on Android and iPhone in the same time it takes me to do something as simple and rudimentary as moving some contacts!
What do computer-illiterates do in such a situation?

Man this is the most frustrating experience I've had in front of a computer in ages.

Did you try the Samsung Switch app? This app can transfer a lot of stuff from your iphone to a Galaxy.

Data that you can't transfer, blame it on Apple. Android to Android device transfer is a breeze.

 

[sunking101]

Sounds like a Whatsapp limitation. Probably the same the other way around too. I was quite happy to lose SMS and Whatsapp chats when I changed platforms. Nobody needs that old stuff and the spring clean was quite overdue.

 

[mib1800]

Sounds like a Whatsapp limitation. Probably the same the other way around too. I was quite happy to lose SMS and Whatsapp chats when I changed platforms. Nobody needs that old stuff and the spring clean was quite overdue.

It must be limitations of iOS that caused this issue. On Android, I just copy the Whatsapp folder over to new phone and that's it. Everything is transferred including photos/videos/other files

 

[Michael Goff]

It must be limitations of iOS that caused this issue. On Android, I just copy the Whatsapp folder over to new phone and that's it. Everything is transferred including photos/videos/other files

Most iOS apps back up to iCloud. Totally an iOS limitation. Even Allo backs up to iCloud. If you use Allo and move to an iPhone or from an iPhone you won’t have any of your stuff.