• phx@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Young Koreans favor whatever is new and cool from year to year. One year I was there everyone had iDevices, a couple years later it was Samsungs. Trendiness with electronics is a big thing.

        • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Personally I don’t think I could handle the device whiplash that much. I use my phones and laptops until they break or become unbearable. This year, I finally bought a new MSI laptop to replace my 2013 MacBook Pro which, other than battery issues, was still going strong.

          I own a lot of different kinds of devices, sure, but I spend a long time getting my phones and PCs set up just right after I get them. Going through that on a yearly basis just seems needlessly stressful, to be honest.

      • phx@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, although to some extent stuff like app-store lock-in does restrict easily jumping from one ecosphere to another.

        If one is an Android user, there is at least some flexibility in switching between different phone vendors and styles, but in many places Samsung is pretty dominant, while others like LG have dropped out of the game entirely.

          • angstylittlecatboy@reddthat.com
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            1 year ago

            Honestly at least a lot of Apple products from 1998 ~ 2017 were actually stylish. Now Apple products just look boring and yet they’re still treated as fashion accessories. Like, I could actually see how an iPod Classic or an iMac G4 was a fashion accessory. iPhone 14 or the M1 iMac, no.

            Also RGB looks garish and I wish it weren’t the predominant look of PC customization, but also it’s admittedly one of the only forms that’s accessible.

    • WiseThat@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      My first thought was this was a punk thing, like, if you want to think of yourself as a bit rebellious you can buy the American phone instead of the phone made by the company that owns your nation.

  • hark@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’ve used samsung for all of my smartphones until my latest (when I switched to oneplus), but it’s still an android phone. No way would I switch to ultra-locked-down apple.

    • hismajesty@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Ye oneplus is great you just need a dns to block those chinese queries over vpn for example because it wont allow you to change the dns manually. (op8)

    • rm_dash_r_star@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Yeah I have some serious ethical issues with Apple. I’ve never bought any of their products and never will. Aside from the anti-competitive walled garden of their tech and exorbitant cost of their products, their labor practices violate human rights in low cost labor markets. However Google and their partners such as Samsung are not free from guilt either. Unfortunately there’s little choice in phone products, Android or iOS, pick your poison.

      • hark@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The major brands selling Android phones also lock things down, but at least I can do things like install apps outside the app store. I can also do Android development without having to buy a Mac and pay a license fee.

        • Colitas92
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          1 year ago

          You have root access in pixel phone and can install custom ROMs like graphene OS.

      • vzq@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I’m an Apple person, but for customizability you can’t beat a google pixel with an unlocked boot loader. You can literally run anything you want.

      • PlexSheep@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        So are you saying that apple is better, or just saying proprietary mobile OSes Bad?

  • SpruceBringsteen@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    There was a time where Samsung flagships had features that iPhone didn’t. Samsung slowly stripped their phones of these features.

    If you don’t need an android platform, and aren’t after a foldable, there’s a lot less of an argument to be made to be on Samsung these days.

  • LoganNineFingers@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    I’ve had Samsung for around nine years. The thing that kept me married to them was the SD card slot. Now that it’s gone, after my Note 10+ stops getting updates, I’ll be looking at something else. I have the Samsung watch, buds and tablet but I’m assuming they’ll work with a pixle if that’s what I land on. I like the Samsung nearby share but that’s such a small thing and doesn’t keep brand loyalty. Otherwise, what do they offer that say the pixle doesn’t?

    • weew@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      It’s basically the reason I’m using a mid-range Samsung. But they got rid of the headphone jack on the last generation A-series and it’s only a matter of time before the SD card disappears too. Gonna look elsewhere for me next upgrade

    • Ferris@discuss.online
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      1 year ago

      Galaxy S10 with 128GB internal & 256GB microSD. Play anything from the entire music collection with the aux port in the car. Frequently listen to podcasts with bone conduction headphones. Couldn’t be happier with a pocket computer.

    • Ibaudia@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’m just hoping either Fairphone irons out it’s kinks or legislation catches up with removable batteries and locked-down operating systems. I’m tired of feeling like I’m owning a device just until the manufacturer decides to turn it into e-waste.

    • jBlight@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I agree with you. One thing that keeps me with Samsung though is Dex. Everything else is replaceable with a time adjustment, but Dex is pretty big for me and other phones don’t have it… Yet.

  • kamen@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    A bit weird to see LG in the charts (given that they’re out of the smartphone industry now) and yet none of the other big manufacturers (Xiaomi, Huawei, Google).

    • shoomba@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      I believe LG is also a South Korean company compared to the Chinese ones you mentioned so maybe there is a little patriotic incentive for LG over there.

    • miseducator@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The brands you mentioned aren’t widely available in Korea. Since LG left the market, all the carriers, to my knowledge, only offer Apple or Samsung devices.

      Source: I’ve lived in SoKo for a long time.

      • kamen@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Thanks for the insight. Is what you’re saying that there you can only buy a phone through a carrier?

        • miseducator@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          You can buy unlocked phones of other brands like Google or Xiaomi on the Korean equivalent of Amazon (Coupang), but they’re substantially more expensive. I’d bet you can get Chinese brands at the little mom and pop shops that cater to Chinese students and immigrants.

  • leekleak@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Not much of a surprise, at least to me. Granted, my knowledge of the place is limited, but from what I’ve heard they really care about symbols of status (Fancy watches, jewelry, and, of course, expensive phones). Add that to the fact that kids nowdays aren’t as patriotic (a good thing imo) and care less about local brands and the fact that tech literacy is not great either… Well it puts thing in perspective.

      • leekleak@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, sorry if I came out harsh. In all honesty I am just frustrated by the incredible growth of Apple. It really confuses me how with such a tight ecosystem and anti-consumer practices they have managed to attain such mindshare that it’s not even funny. And I am saying all that despite this very comment being sent out of an iPhone.

  • FrostyCaveman@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I think I was done with Samsung as a phone brand when the photos app asked me to sign in, rate it and send feedback. So much bloatware.

    Probably doesn’t help the perception of high end status.

  • scarabic@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’ve dealt with Samsung as the developer of a large app. They will pre-install your app on new phones if you pay them, which I think is pretty seedy. It’s also not very good for the dev because who knows if anyone will ever launch your preinstalled app. Samsung even claimed not to know. So we had no idea what we’d be paying for. Samsung’s Galaxy app store is also a totally laughable mess, far inferior to Google Play and AppStore in functionality. It even has spelling mistakes 😖

    However I’ll keep doing business with Samsung. They’re just janky and it’s not surprising that users think they’re just as janky as I do.

    Now Huawei…fuck Huawei. They created a big work mess for me by networking their way to a high ranking executive at our company and then telling them our app was “broken on millions of Huawei phones.” They made it sound like a bug in our code. But here’s what it actually was:

    Trump banned Huawei from doing business in the US due to their ties to the Chinese Communist Party. This meant Huawei had to stop using some very core Android code libraries, since Google is an American company and couldn’t allow use of those libraries. So Huawei whipped up their own replacements to these libraries, but developers basically need to customize and republish their app specially for Huawei.

    So because they got in trouble with Trump, Huawei needed all devs to rewrite their apps for Huawei phones. Instead of being honest about this, they got me in trouble, convincing an executive that something was wrong with our app. They generously offered to meet with our tech team and “help us fix it.”

    I met with them, and once I understood what they were doing, I told them to get fucked. Then I wrote up a memo about what happened and let our executive leaders know that we wouldn’t be on Huawei phones ever again, going forward.

    Samsung’s not THAT bad. Not even close.

  • gunpachi@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    2 months ago I bought a regular samsung galaxy s23 and it’s been running great so far. I expected MIUI levels of bloat, but surprisingly it is not that bad.

    I had to disable a few samsung apps and for the most part, the phone stays out of my way and lets me do whatever i want.

    I wish the s23 lineup gets good custom rom support. Would love to run a lean LineageOS / any AOSP based rom with MicroG on this phone.

  • alphacyberranger@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    If you can’t uninstall the bloatware, just disable it in settings. I have been doing that and works perfectly fine. And then I put all the bloatware into a single folder in the launcher and voila, it’s a clean experience. Stock android is the best, the next best thing is OneUI in my experience.

  • jerry@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’m 50, and I switched to an iPhone SE 2020 2 years ago, I’m never going back. It cost me 119$ and it’s worth every penny.