# New phone woes again aka why is it so hard to make decent phones? <rant>



## Frick (Apr 20, 2017)

This is largely just a rant, but one question will be asked at the end.

After nearly two years of heavy abuse (and many, many drops on hard surfaces) my Sony Z3 has reached a stage where I have to smack it pretty hard for it to work. Something about the video I assume. So it was time for a new one, and as I'm wont to do, I got a decent deal on last years flagship: the Samsung Galaxy S7. And ... I'm dissapointed.

Note that I've only had it for a few days though, but I have used it quite a lot in that time.

But first I will list the good things about it.

The camera. It is definitely quite nice, in every way possible.
Fingerprint thingy that is not annoying.
No covers to open when charging. The rubber thing around those were always the first things to go in Sonys.
Now for the things I'm neutral about:

The screen. It's supposed to be great, but to be honest I don't see it. I mean obviously it's better than something from 2014, but for what I do I can't really appreciate it. I can tell the difference, but it doesn't matter much to me.
It's much louder than the Z3. The ringtones and such I mean. More on that below.
Sound quality is ... about the same.
Speed increase is unnoticeable in general use. It behaves the same as the Z3, roughly.
Android 7.0. It's newer, so I assume it's better.
Now for the things that makes it a downgrade (from a 2014 Sony) for me:

It is super easy to accidentally cover the single speaker and it requires very little to make it completely inaudible. You better have pockets that does not allow the phone to move at all.
General design. The looks does nothing for me, and while it doesn't feel cheap as such it is a far cry from the solid slab of darkness which is Sony.
No magnetic charging. But everyone has moved from that, and I cannot fathom why. Wireless charging is fine, but a magnetic dock is so much simpler, and cheaper, and just better IMO. 
The dimensions are slightly off. Slightly narrower and slightly taller makes two handed use awkward (I have pretty big hands) and single hand use is also a bit more difficult. Not to mention it makes my hand hurt and sort of cramp up. This might go away in time though. The dimensions also makes the keyboard narrower, meaning more misses for me. Also something that can be trained away, but I am really, really bad at mechanical learning.
The UI is also ... slightly off. Only four rows if icons is annoying, and the polish is not as good as it was on the Sony. Texting and adding recipents requires more taps further away, I haven't found a way to silence the camera shutter noise, I can't move the app button from the right most position, it manages to combine small details with large details. Things take up space, but are somehow at the same time annoyingly small.
Worse battery life. Another reason I chose the S7 was that it was supposed to have decent battery life, but so far it's actually worse than a two year old severely beat up phone. And this is with the screen set to 1080p (as opposed to 1440p), much lowered brightness and all the toys turned off. Set the phone to a saver mode (lowering the max CPUI frequency) and you can't use the GPS.
No multiple Do not disturb profiles. This can be added with apps, but I hate apps. People give MS flak for their diverse ecosystem, but hoooboy the Play Store is a cesspit of terrible design ideas.
And did I mention it actually hurts my hands, and that it's very slippery?
It gets hot, even in normal use. It is spring here in northern Sweden, meaning about zero degrees (C, you heathens) and changing weather, and just talking in it makes it uncomfortably warm. I can't imagine what it'll be like in high summer.
WiFi is slower and has worse range.

Some things I can learn to live with, and we'll see how it is to handle with a ... thing (I have forgotten what it's called, but you know the protector things), around it, but I actually am _dissapointed_. While writing this I looked up my carriers website and it turns out they're run out of Sony XZ which I could replace the S7 with. Poooooooooooop. I was seriously thinking about that despite the worse camera. Blergh. So now I'm stuck with a cheap Huyndai when I was used to Volvo. Because that's how it feels. There are cars from 2013 that are vastly inferior to my 1991 Volvo, and that makes no sense at all to me. It feels like that with the Z3 vs S7, I just can't get over the feeling of the S7 being an inferior device, while it checks all the boxes for improvement: better specs, better screen, better camera, technically better everything ... yet still somehow worse.

Anyway. Yeah. tl;dr get a haircut and a shave you snob. Maybe I should.

</rant>


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## Caring1 (Apr 21, 2017)

I'll join in and complain about my ZTE Blade, it's plastic, flimsy and overheats, making calls very uncomfortable, and to top that off, it has started shutting down when near 50% battery. I was never impressed by it, apart from the bargain price, but it shows you get what you pay for in most cases.
If I knew where I had the receipt I would take it back to the store as i'm sure it's only about 6 months old.


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## JATownes (Apr 21, 2017)

I'll join in on this rant: 

I made the mistake of getting an S7 Edge last year.  While I like the phone and it does everything I need to and more, besides a whole lot of your complaints, my biggest one is the "Edge" screen.  I take very good care of my devices and in all my years, have never broken the screen on a phone.  I have broken the screen on this thing 3 times in the past year.  It seems even the slightest bump to the screen will cause it to crack or spiderweb.  

Luckily they are not that big of a pain to change, but I just find it ridiculous.  Add to that the fact that most screen protectors are a joke on the "Edge" screen, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know to avoid the Edge screen.  Wish I would have done a little more research before pulling the trigger.

JAT


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## Ferrum Master (Apr 21, 2017)

Man... you are a geek for sure. Such awkward demands, you knew them already before buying the thing. There is a return policy for all customers, you don't like it, give it back to the seller and take another one, in 2016 season there were simply no ideal phones, this one ain't that horrid, I have a G935 thou, but still... if you use them many in parallel you get used to diversity and such UI problems don't bother you at all, open up the bootloader and put a different OS meeting your usage pattern demands.

About the temps... certainly your specific unit soon will kick the bucket, do often backups. All flagship devices anno 2015 get hot.


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## remixedcat (Apr 22, 2017)

My S4 was ok till the screeen started to auto scroll and tap things on its own and I even clean the display and case and keep it spotless and I don't have too much open on it at any given time (just browser,skype,discord, denon heos, and media players) so it's not like it's too overworked or anything,... OS reinstalling does fuck all so it's hardware issue. I am about to either get a oneplus, motoG4 pure/plus, or nexux 6/p... anything that flashes easy and has unlockable bootloader that won't brick... 300 dollar budget without contract


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## Ferrum Master (Apr 22, 2017)

remixedcat said:


> nexux 6/p..



Skip on those... screen gets burns very fast and CPU also burns up, it is unfixable.

Quite rare that touch panel does like that... usually only on water damage.


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## remixedcat (Apr 22, 2017)

my s4 has been babied so no water damage  

what do you recommend that is easy to flash?


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## Ferrum Master (Apr 22, 2017)

remixedcat said:


> my s4 has been babied so no water damage
> 
> what do you recommend that is easy to flash?



PM me on discord... it really hard to suggest now. The problem is, they are all shit .


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## OneMoar (Apr 22, 2017)

there is pretty much nothing for he s4 don't bother
limited to stock kernels and modified stock roms and safestrap recovery

unless you have a true dev edition or non carrier device even then the chances of having a unlocked bl are spotty

if you want to play with all the nice romss and things you don't buy a samsung ever


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## Ferrum Master (Apr 22, 2017)

OneMoar said:


> there is pretty much nothing for he s4 don't bother
> limited to stock kernels and modified stock roms and safestrap recovery
> 
> unless you have a true dev edition or non carrier device even then the chances of having a unlocked bl are spotty



I forgot the funny things US units have... here in Europe we have freedom lol


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## OneMoar (Apr 22, 2017)

Ferrum Master said:


> I forgot the funny things US units have... here in Europe we have freedom lol


pretty much its not just the us variants tho the kanuckistan carriers all have the same deal

the s4 is old enough to be thrown in the trash or relegated to media playing duty


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## OneMoar (Apr 22, 2017)

id get like a oneplus or nexus or something with a active development platform


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## Ferrum Master (Apr 22, 2017)

OneMoar said:


> pretty much its not just the us variants tho the kanuckistan carriers all have the same deal



lol that's the reason we get exynos not snapdragons. We don't bother locking up the devices here anymore... anything made by man can be broken... sooner or later, I cannot understand the reason for locking the device and putting such efforts into it.


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## OneMoar (Apr 22, 2017)

Ferrum Master said:


> lol that's the reason we get exynos not snapdragons. We don't bother locking up the devices here anymore... anything made by man can be broken... sooner or later, I cannot understand the reason for locking the device and putting such efforts into it.



samsung secure boot is pretty much the final word in locking a device

its unbreakable in the sense baring some massive hack of samsung or ginormus fuck up by them you won't be bypassing it *EVER*

some devices like the s5 note 4 are vulnerable to converting into a dev edtion device by changing the NAND cid
but all that does it tell the EMMC firmware to turn it off

android pay/samsung pay sorta require a secure environment


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## remixedcat (Apr 22, 2017)

OneMoar said:


> there is pretty much nothing for he s4 don't bother
> limited to stock kernels and modified stock roms and safestrap recovery
> 
> unless you have a true dev edition or non carrier device even then the chances of having a unlocked bl are spotty
> ...


Mine is a i9507v so international and it's on cm13

I just got the house paid off so got an extra 300 to play with but the rest of the payment savings is going towards getting a central ac unit for my old house so...


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## OneMoar (Apr 22, 2017)

remixedcat said:


> Mine is a i9507v so international and it's on cm13
> 
> I just got the house paid off so got an extra 300 to play with but the rest of the payment savings is going towards getting a central ac unit for my old house so...


thats the odd duck of the s4s
you can try one of the 9505 based roms
https://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s4/i9505-orig-develop/official-lineageos-14-1-i9505-t3573386
if you can get LOS to fly then you are pretty much set everything is los based now that cm is dead and gone you might lose LTE-A 
but it should work no promised unsupported device is unsupported


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## Frick (Apr 23, 2017)

Ferrum Master said:


> Man... you are a geek for sure. Such awkward demands, you knew them already before buying the thing. There is a return policy for all customers, you don't like it, give it back to the seller and take another one, in 2016 season there were simply no ideal phones, this one ain't that horrid, I have a G935 thou, but still... if you use them many in parallel you get used to diversity and such UI problems don't bother you at all, open up the bootloader and put a different OS meeting your usage pattern demands.
> 
> About the temps... certainly your specific unit soon will kick the bucket, do often backups. All flagship devices anno 2015 get hot.



It's an awkward demand to be able to hold your phone without your hand cramping up? 

Battery life I've decided is probably better than the Z3 when I replaced it, but worse when compared to a new Z3.

I have gotten a bit used to it, but it still doesn't feel like an *upgrade*.


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