Hold on tight, we are almost back...
Previously on Lemmy: Sony
Past Discussions:
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.
FAQ:
First, price. The Samsung Galaxy Ultra is $1,299 for 256GB, $1,379 for 512GB, and $1,619 for 1TB (only available as an unlocked phone.
That's a $180 premium to add 256GB. You can get an SD card for that much for $25, also from Samsung. To go from 512 to 1TB is $240, while a 512GB SD card costs around $35. It's Apple levels of ridiculous markup.
Both SD cards and internal storage can vary in speed, but I would expect SD cards to be slower most of the time. And that's fine. I view it just like how in desktops you might have a large, cheap, SATA SSD or HDD for bulk storage and a fast NVME for things where speed matters.
Why would I bother with USB C file transfer? That seems like something annoying to manage- having to remember to go and back things up, transfer things over, and just generally maintain. Especially with WiFi speeds nowadays. But that is for backups for the sake of redundancy. Moving files off the phone to make room because of low storage means removing a layer of redundancy.
The Steam Deck has an SD card, as does the switch and all of their handheld competitors. My Xperia has an SD card. The Samsung A series still has an SD card, and so do most mid-tier phones. It's something useful that most people want, but Samsung and others know they can cut the $0.50/phone or whatever and the whales will still buy the newest flagship as a status symbol anyways.