I thought we should restart the brand discussion with something more popular to give this community relaunch a bit more oomph. So, Samsung it is.
I've never really used a Samsung phone much before, despite them being so popular in the States. Have friends who used them, they usually look nice and high quality, and the Galaxy S Active are the only high-end phones I know that doesn't shatter when you look at them wrong without a case, so, props to Samsung.
There are may reasons I don't like Samsung phones: Hardware fuse disabling Knox on bootloader unlock, Exynos vs Snapdragon models, the mandatory Bixby button, the Galaxy Note 7 that really blew up. To me, Samsung phones are trying so hard to go against what makes Android good, which is the customizability to do whatever you wanted. Android is everything; Samsung is just Samsung.
Personally, I think Samsung is only worth buying at the very high end for the Galaxy S series. I've heard that A series have gotten better, but there always seems to be better choices from Moto/Pixel/Chinese brands on Amazon that it's not worth considering their low tier offering.
What should we do next week? I'm thinking Microsoft, just to make fun of them for the very idea of making a Surface Duo 2.
The flagships seem good. But the cheap Samsungs are a nightmare. I set up an M14 for my sister and it kept installing Candy Crush and some gambling apps every night. I found this practice predatory and wouldn't trust a company that did this
I'd say that the exception flagship (base S22) was not good due to its chip.
I'd spent months Googling for battery life fixes. I'd come across a myriad of comments blaming users for not "optimising" their phones, and Ultra users saying that the poor battery life and overheating throttling of the base model are just myths.
One day, I decided that enough is enough. I switched to a phone with the S8G2 and I couldn't be happier.
While I haven't used it before, the S23 seems to be what the S22 should be, and I would've continued using it if that was true.