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[Android] Thread v.2015: Google tries to hardware. Effort: A+. Grade score: C-
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What are your thoughts on Bixby? Can you disable it? I'd rather use Google Assistant or whatever it is that triggers on "OK Google".
Do you have a case and/or screen protector?
Any issues with bloatware?
What are your complaints about the phone? Everyone talks about the good stuff, but I'm curious about the bad stuff.
you actually can outright disable bixby now. Samsung pushed an update that lets you turn off the button so it doesn't do anything. You can't actually remap it to do something else, but at least it doesn't launch bixby. (for the record, I actually used the bixby home a bit, but did stop becuase turning off the button was more important to me than looking at it once a day or so). Google Assistant is present and accounted for. The only limitation is that you cannot wake it with the hotword from the lock screen when the device is not plugged in. (this is a battery saving measure). Bixby and Google assistant co-exist, and actually do slightly different things. So if you do leave bixby enabled that doesn't mean you *can't* use google assistant.
I use several cases, from a cheap $8 amazon one to the Samsung standing view cover (folio style case that you can use as a stand) that I got for half price. Because of the glass back I highly recommend some kind of case. I don't use a screen protector, for reasons mentioned in previous posts.
For bloatware, not huge issues. There are some annoyances, but it isn't quite as bad as I was thinking it would be. And in some cases, I actually prefer the samsung app to the Google one. The browser is the big example. I vastly prefer the Samsung browser to Chrome on the phone. Not saying it's perfect, I have 2 calendar apps installed because I prefer google calendar to the stock one, already mentioned the browser situation, etc. but it's not as bad as it was several years ago.
Complaints: The bixby button being useless after I disable bixby. I'd love to map it to something. The Fingerprint sensor is not in the best location. You absolutely get used to it, but that doesn't mean it's not in a stupid location. I've said before after a week it became a non issue for me, but that doesn't mean it's not dumb. Major updates aren't a "concern" but they aren't as timely. I've been getting security updates on my unlocked model at the end of every month (so the september update came at the end of september, not the beginning), but Android 8 is nowhere to be found, yet. If we look at the pattern for the GS7 it'll be February or March before I see it. I wish it was faster. The last thing I can think of is the "Galaxy Apps" store. Some system apps update from there, while some update from the play store. It's annoying, but not the end of the world. With auto update turned on you don't really notice. Galaxy Apps is also Samsung's own android store, so you can download apps from there if you want instead of the play store, which is again stupid. If you have a Gear VR, Galaxy Apps is the app distribution method, not the play store. Again, it isn't the end of the world, but it's annoying, and a duplicate thing that isn't really necessary.
But honestly, past that I don't personally have many significant complaints. I had only run "google" phones sine 2011 (Galaxy Nexus-->Nexus 4-->Nexus 5-->Nexus 6P) so my S8+ is my first 3rd party Android phone since the original Galaxy S in 2010. I was terrified of it because it had been so long since I ran anything but google android, and honestly, it's been fine. Every phone, every launcher/skin has it's quirks, even Google's. I don't mind the Samsung spin on Android at all.
I think I've decided to wait a month before grabbing an S8 - I was reading about how on Black Friday last year, Samsung was selling unlocked S7 Edges for $350, with other incentives, so I may as well see what deals are going to be available. I've waited this long.
Best Buy's S8 for $625 deal is decent - the $575 deal a month ago was better - but if they can get under $500 and potentially even hit the $400 mark? I'll be happy I waited.
It's been a cat and mouse game with those workaround apps. Samsung usually tries to break them with the monthly updates. Because of the hassle I've never bothered.
Yeah, I would probably be in the same boat.
On another topic: Razer rumored (or, like, halfway-confirmed, based on exec comments and their purchase of a cell phone hardware company earlier this year) to be announcing a mobile phone on Nov. 1. Not sure if that's 100% the case or what it would look like/be, but the obvious choice would be a media & gaming centric device, and I imagine it'd run Android.
Not sure if there's a market for something like that, but new market entrants are always somewhat exciting.
That makes sense, to me. Is there a flaw in that logic I'm not seeing?
Kind of a loaded question. The improvements in hardware are definitely starting to hit on the subtle side, but definitely shouldn't be ignored. The snapdragon 835 might not seem like a huge leap from the 821, but it had huge improvements in the cellular radios and the image signal processing. Samsung actually really pushes hardware to the limit of what's possible every year. It's also way more efficient on battery than the 821 is. The GS8 has, objectively, the best screen on a mobile device. The taller aspect ratios you see in the flagships from Samsung and LG this year (and admittedly the Pixel 2 XL) are a subtle, but big change in phone hardware. It's a bunch of little things that really make the devices overall better experiences from a hardware perspective.
On the software side, this is where the question gets really loaded. The Pixel gets the *fastest* software support. If that alone makes it the best for you, than great. For a lot of people here, that's probably enough. They also develop a lot of the features that do eventually make it into phones, so if you want a feature first, than the Pixel line is the way to go. But updates from other device makers are absolutely getting better. Samsung has kept the GS6 up to date, and it currently runs on 7.0. I'm not sure if it will get 8, but it launched on 5.0 and got the same number of major OS updates as the Google device released that year got. Yes, it got them a couple months later, but that Samsung did keep it at parity should not be ignored.
OEM's also do software things that Google doesn't do, that innovates in their own way. Some consider that bloatware, for some, it's value adds. I used to be 100% against OEM skins thinking they were terrible.... until I got a GS8. And sure, I wish Samsung would have left some of the things alone, but honestly, it's been fine. And some of the software things Samsung does I actually really do think are better than Google's way. Google is not the only one innovating on Android.
So yea, if you want fast, guaranteed updates, and live entirely in the google ecosystem, you cannot go wrong with a Pixel. I personally wouldn't buy the Pixel 2, but the 2 XL looks like a great device and I think anyone who buys it will have a great experience. But I would point out that other OEMs are doing software things that are just as good as Google, sometimes better, sometimes worse, you just might have to wait a couple months to get them. If you buy a GS8 you can be almost 100% certain that you'll get both Android 8, and Android 9. Just not as fast as the Pixel.
I still take that with a super grain of salt. Google has tried every other year to come up with a method that will get OEM's to update their phones faster, it has never worked. Project Treble is cool, but it won't make companies like LG care about updating their mid range phones.
My understanding is that they won't need to. It is supposed to separate the vendor specific code from android proper, so android can get updates independently from the vendor shit.
but the vendor still needs to push the update. the idea is that vendors won't have to modify the code as much, because most of their customization can be in a separate partition (for lack of a better term), which in theory would make it easier/faster for them to do updates.
Project Treble does not mean that Google can update code on a Samsung/LG/whoever phone without the OEM's consent/involvement. All it does is make things easier for the OEM's to do their own updates.
A) it's too expensive for the gain. Project treble should help with that
Worst case I could hard reset and reinstall everything and hope that makes a difference. Maybe I just say fuck it and hope the Oneplus 5 comes back in stock, or wait a few more weeks on the 5T.
This doesn't help you but should be a cautionary tale for others. IF you have 2 factor tied to a phone number, and then get rid of that phone number, you're screwed. Always remove 2 factor from any device that the phone is tied to before changing the number.
As for what you can do... yea it's a crappy situation, I'd just call project fi support and not hang up until they transfer you to the right people/person.
The 2XL looked really nice as a handset but had some sharp edges where the glass met the back of the device that was a little off putting at first but reminded me of older HTC devices. The 2XL ran as expected (super fast) and the front facing camera was very impressive at taking shots. The rear camera was a little hit and miss for me but might have been where I was trying it out but I felt had some similar issues the original had.
Any update. I am tired of getting battery drain warnings from Facebook
More importantly for me, I can "slow charge" and actually make progress on battery percentage without having to basically ignore the phone for 1-2 hours.
I'm not beholden to any of the apps, so try out the web wrapper of choice. Many like Swipe right now because it's getting regular updates.
My battery life is generally pretty good, but I usually don't leave my phone on the charger overnight, and once every about 4 nights my battery will drop 35% overnight when it's usually like 5%. I want to see if FB is actually the culprit for it.
Also, as a tip: if you use FB messenger, the lite version of the app is now available in most of the world. the only thing really missing are the plugins that let you send stickers and gifs. but if you *just* use it as a messaging app and don't need the extras, the lite version is way better.
Time will tell whether or not I can live with the performance under 8.0. If I cant I'll either have to look into custom rom's or consider just upgrading to a new phone and finding an alternative to Project Fi.
Just factory reset it if it is giving you issues. I know it's a pain in the butt, but it'll probably fix most of the issues.
Yeah, that's always an option. For now, everything is running pretty well, and after more use as the cache rebuilds it's getting better.
Took a bad review for my project fi interaction, but they finally came through with fixing this. Just. So now I have 2 factor back on and everything changed over. Also using the new backup code thing that wasnt around when I first started 2 factor.
I dunno if I could recommend Google services for normies anymore. I can't imagine my parents trying to navigate Google's customer service stuff. Also no way to contact someone by phone or email?
IMO you should stay away from 2fa that relies on a phone number for identification anyway.
the thing is your situation is actually the outlier. A normal human being won't be on Project Fi/Google Voice. Even if you were on say, T-Mobile, you wouldn't have had this issue, because Google's 2FA works without a phone number, except for the case of Project Fi. It's a weird thing with Fi that Google really needs to be a billion percent more clear about if you try to change your phone number while on GVoice/Fi.
Sadly, some services *only* do 2fa via SMS. It's not ideal, but I'd rather have that method than no 2FA at all. I'll take any other 2FA method over SMS, but if SMS is the only option, I'll use it.
https://fi.google.com/account#support
Phone and email are right there at the top of the page.
@Cormac keep me updated on this progress (forum PMs if need be) since this directly affects me (though ultimately I can ignore the 8.0 upgrade notification).
Regarding Project Fi: if it matters, the Moto X4 was added to their supported hardware; so that's potentially another option for a replacement phone. The ProjectFi subreddit may have other hardware suggestions (a fair number of them seem to be doing hoop jumping to get iPhones to work; with mixed results).
Ya and ultimately that was my vector to get relief. Though they didnt even help me directly. It was only after I left a bad review that they fixed the problem. To be clear I'm talkin google account stuff and not specifically projectfi. Project Fi was just my phone service that I had. Would they have cared if I had verizon?
Oh for sure my case was an extreme outlier but I'm sure many normal people have youtube red and google music and google play. I was freaking out about how much stuff I have wrapped up in just my google account. Just surprising there is literally no number to call or email address for account issues. Your google account does so much if you're in the android ecosystem or youtube.