How do you think they got their lower budget models to be so successful? By using the R&D and marketing budget on their flagships. Do you think Samsung would still be selling as many lower end phones if they couldn’t advertise and actually entice consumers? They would be competing for scraps along with Moto, Asus, and other niche brands. Hell, there might not even be an Android presence in the US if they only made $200 phones! Apple’s domination would be complete.
Right!? I’ve used over 8 SD Cards since I first got the Samsung Galaxy S2, starting from 64GB to a 1TB one. Never experienced a single issue! You know what I did see happen though? A buddy’s Samsung S21 completely brick and he couldn’t retrieve any of his data since everything was stored internally. Luckily for him, at least his photos were backed up on the cloud. Lost his entire music and emulation collection in the process though.
This is my first non-Samsung phone, and after a lot of tweaking and using Nova Launcher (yes, yes, they got bought out by Branch) for the first time in a while, I can say I absolutely love this phone! I won’t say it’s better than a Samsung, but I can say that it’s more or less on par, which is enough for a phone that’s a few hundred bucks cheaper. Let me know if you want a more detailed breakdown between Pixels and Samsung (at least as of Note 20 Ultra’s specs)!
Yup! I really wanted a Sony Xperia for the hardware, but the 2 years of updates were a deal breaker. So for the price of a base model 128GB (lol) S23U, I got a 1TB Pixel 8 Pro and a case with enough money leftover for dinner with the price difference. Their holiday sales were pretty generous!
No, Samsung has lost the plot for the origins of their success - hardware supremacy and overwhelming features (e.g. SD card slot, headphone jacks). As I mentioned in another post discussing Apple overtaking Samsung for the first time in a decade in volume of sales, they removed everything that made their phones a compelling device, and decided to be an equally expensive iPhone clone. In an era where consumers are so starved for hardware features that Nothing Phone made a living out of glowing back plates, and iPhone got applauded for an action button, Samsung’s leadership has seriously miscalculated and failed.
I knew this would happen around the S21 series when they removed the last hardware item of consequence, the SD Card slot. After that, Samsung focused on being Android’s iPhone, except they imitated all of Apple’s shortcomings instead of playing to their core values that got them here in the first place: hardware supremacy. Now that the only discernable difference between Samsung and Apple is the OS (folding screens aside), people’s choices became binary (iPhone or equally expensive iPhone clone) instead of multifaceted (headphone jacks, SD card slot, etc. vs iPhone). Actually, scratch that - Apple actually added more hardware features* (action button and USB-C) on their latest model, making Samsung look dumber for regressing.
On top of that, other OEMs, like Google, caught up with the only hardware that Samsung has been improving on - the cameras and folding screens - and soaked in customers that feel spurned by Samsung (myself included as of 2 weeks ago), for a lower price. If they don’t reverse course and begin concentrating on hardware advantages, especially in an era where consumers are so starved for features that Nothing Phone made a living out of glowing back lights, this may be the beginning of the Korean giant’s death knell since younger generations are choosing iPhones.
*Side note - I’m even more pissed about the removal of expandable storage on Android since Apple actually brought them back for the recent MacBooks! So people who claim it’s an outdated technology can try and explain why it’s making a return on $2K laptops, but not mobile devices other than for greed.
Only to start off with the main quest and follow their instruction to start. It leads to you interest points, and you can gradually explore on your own from there. Talk to all the named characters you come across and check out everything you can. The scenic story telling is absolutely fantastic, especially once you soak in all the little details!
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Speaking for my favorite game of all time, New Vegas, you need to push through until you find something that captures your attention. There’s nothing you can really reach in the first 2 hours (for a first play through) that will pop out at you. But once you get that first “whoa” moment, you’re completely immersed. But you definitely need to be a patient gamer in the beginning, because a vast desert provides a lot of empty, forlorn landscape (a lot of people hate this, but I love the desolate atmosphere).
Thanks for the tip, but I was referring to the battery drain while using the wireless device. Not sure if native wireless Android Auto drains as much battery, but using these 3rd party dongles drains about 15% every 30 mins on my phone, even when not actively using navigation.
Great device, with long term support. Occasionally buggy for periods of time, but somehow fixes itself randomly. I only wish it didn’t use up as much of my phone’s battery.
Another year holding onto my Note 20 Ultra, I guess. God, I hate what Samsung has become.
Amen! The only thing keeping me from upgrading from my Note 20 Ultra is the lack of options for SD card slots! The idea of having to pay a premium for storage each time I upgrade my device is insulting and terrible for personal finances. And with all the recent headlines about cloud storage being hacked, or how it was inaccessible, I wouldn’t trust it even if I always had access to an internet connection (which I don’t always have, especially when out and about).
Hell, they could upcharge this “feature” and have it available only on the Ultra models to help justify the exhorbitant cost and I would pay it.
Even if they manage to get big players like Spotify to develop apps for them, a lot of people - at least on the Android side - have smaller, niche apps for audiobooks and podcasts that would never bother to port their apps to GM services. Heck, even Apple Music and YouTube Music wouldn’t bother. I smell an upcoming BOGO deal on their overstocked dealerships, just before they get another bailout check.
I’m a big fan of Podcast Republic. Great dev, feature-rich, and a much improved UI from when I first started using it.
Finally! I just hope it’s precise when updating scores, and that it’s customizable to some degree. But knowing Google, you may get one, but not the other.
For those who prefer an app, so they aren’t tied to an OEM’s settings, I use BuzzKill for notification history, along with it’s more infamous tool set - deep notification management. Its a paid app, but it’s a one time purchase of less than $5 when I bought it.
You just made me put on my tinfoil hat. Because AI uses so much RAM and resources, and all these OS’s are implementing them on-device, this would be the ideal way to slow down all previous generation devices and force customers to buy new ones! Heck, even if they do onboard the AI software efficiently, they’d probably use it as the perfect excuse to slow them down anyway. Imagine how big the OneUI 7.0 update with AI would be. 30GB of internal storage and occupying 90% of RAM at all times, perhaps?
/Tinfoil rant
Someone mentioned a rumor on Reddit about the possibility of the Ultra having the SD Card returning. Anyone have the Vegas odds on that, because that would be the most exciting news a Samsung release would have had in years.
PiP won’t work with two media apps? Ugh, I was hoping I could watch two sports games concurrently! Especially during times like now and October, where you have playoff games of one sport and the regular season swing of your favorite teams in the other. I can do this with my Tab S8! If only it could work natively.