Samsung Galaxy S8+: Seriously. What were they thinking?

Re: Never again

Note 3 here. First android phone I've had. Before that webos and before that (2008), blackberry.

I have a note 4 too but see nothing in it that makes me want to switch. Mainly it's a backup to my two note 3s ( my daily driver is android 4.4 and my backup(also used as a burner phone for travel) is 5.0. Much prefer 4.x). Haven't seen any other phones since that make me want to upgrade.

Happy with the new att unlimited plan(so far only 2gb of usage past month), cut my bill from 150 to 99/mo (company pays regardless ) .

More importantly I have not turned on wifi since March. Having wifi on is dangerous, allows the carrier to upgrade me to android 5 which I do not want. Before this i turned wifi on when I needed it then turned off again. Though sometimes I would forget. Managed to keep android 5 away from my phone for maybe close to 2 years now. Had a few close calls in that time.

I'd happily pay a subscription fee for actual android security updates to 4.4x though. Google was still putting them out there not too long ago (relative to the age of android 4 and 5 builds available to note 3 on ATT anyway). I am very careful with what i use my phones for so i feel pretty safe security wise. No social media, no banking, no mobile purchases outside of the very occasional google app store buy using protected virtual crefit cards.

One time I tried to root my backup note 3 wanting to flash android 4.4 on it (i had the file to flash with), but it appears Knox stopped me. Came close to bricking it I think. Haven't tried again yet.

About to go on a 3 week vacation. Put in a 256gb SD card in my backup note 3, works great, have another 128gig in my regular note 3 too. MHL to hdmi works well too.

Re: Never again

@SquidEmperor

"They've literally become Apple - sacrificing usability and utility for pointless gimmicks that actually devalue the customer experience"

You must know a different Apple to the rest of the planet. Apple's whole raison d'être is usability and utility (they frequently get bashed for focusing on this at the expense of functionality and customisation).

And pointless gimmicks like.... Iris scanners? Photo unlocking?

Re: Never again

Never again for another reason.

I have a Note 3 on my desk which is a hopeless brick.

The reviewer asked the question of "Why not TouchWiz". There is a simple answer - if you by mistake disable some of the Samsung apps Touchwiz will go into an endless reboot cycle on the next reboot. The cretinous imbecile who wrote it did not include any error handling for an exception if you try and fail send an intent to another bundled Samsung app. It is an immediate reboot.

That would have been fine if the software itself was sound, which it is not - the sole software update the tablet ever got from Samsung corrupted the recovery in such a way that it cannot be reflashed neither with stock, nor with clockworkmod. So the tablet is a brick. Thanks to f*** TochWiz which was written by someone who failed their sophomore CS class. The part called "handle errors".

So sorry - no Samsung ever enters this house ever again. I actually like phones that do not corrupt their recovery partition the first time they update and phones which do not fail on first reboot if you disable some of the factory bundled crap.

Re: Hahahaha!

>Fingerprint reader more secure than facial or iris recognition?

With the Samsung Galaxy 8 implementation - yes. You can fool most of the fingerprint sensors with an image of the fingerprint, but it has to be obtained with a high enough quality and printed to scale first. Whereby you can readily get a picture of a persons face from facebook, Photo ID and what not.

The Iris recognition is more secure, but unreliably implemented here, so not really convenient for unlocking.

As for your claim that PINs are more secure than fingerprint sensors, you would be amazed how easy is for someone to spy your PIN even from a low angle, then lift your phone on the spot, rather than having to procure print outs of your face/fingerprint in advance.

Re: Hahahaha!

Right! My Note 4's finger print thingy likes blow dried fingers, so I use the 9 dots puzzle thingy. Takes ~ 2 secs to open. Who's got such precious secrets on a phone? Keep them in safety deposit box at your bank.

Re: Battery life from the 35000mAh pack

Only one of DOZENS of spelling, grammar, and content errors in this pathetic excuse for information dissemination.

Re: Battery life from the 35000mAh pack

I want one of those!

No problem, if that coat you're fetching has big pockets...

Re: Battery life from the 35000mAh pack

That was the Note 7 I think.

Re: Battery life from the 35000mAh pack

Isn't it about time we dispensed with the 'milli' designation for something with this many zeroes?

3.5Ah is surely more correct? (and less easy to mis-type)

Re: How much?!

Much the same here. The WileyFox has done me well for 18 months or so, I've got a spare battery for it as well, and it takes SD cards and dual SIMs.

Not quite so good since it "upgraded" to Android Nougat from Cyanogen though so when I do replace I'll consider alternatives.

Re: How much?!

"My last mainstream was a newly released Galaxy 5, and very nice it was too, but a free upgrade from retentions."

Just curious - did retentions actually give you a handset, or did they 'give' you a handset in return for voluntarily handcuffing yourself to their contract for another year?

Re: Pure hipster wankery

Samsung managerial techniques leak out to the customers in the real world. I'm surprised they didn't say you had to learn Korean too.

Re: Pure hipster wankery

"I could hardly believe my eyes when I read "force users to revert back to old habits (eg the touch interface)"."

I raged too when I read that, but for me it was the tautology 'revert back'. Makes me want to go full Bill Bixby.

Re: Pure hipster wankery

You could have put that post in all caps and I'd have still upvoted you.