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Why I will never buy another Samsung device

lehtimaeki.medium.com

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Re: Why I will never buy another Samsung device

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gosh. I hate Apple’s right to repair BS, but to this day Apple remains the only consumer electronics company that has provided a consistently positive technical support experience for me. It’s so hard to step out the Apple ecosystem when these other manufacturers have consistently screwed me over with repairs. I’m specifically calling out Dell, Samsung and LG here. All were utterly terrible experiences. Dell was the…

> If anyone can suggest non-Apple OEMs that at least provide a competitive support experience, I’m all ears. Here in Norway it used to be (at least with HP) that if you bought the professional line you'd get professional service. I had a personal nc6320 bought some 17 years ago and they would literally come to my desk and replace the monitor free of charge. (No, I didn't have a paid support plan, this was included in…

If they have a professional line with good support, there is an incentive to ensure the consumer products get moderately bad support.

Re: Why I will never buy another Samsung device

#313
post #11

I remember fondly when I had an iPod, the one time I had an issue with it (can’t remember what, honestly), I just walked into an apple store and probably 5-10 minutes later walked out with a new device, free of charge, no questions asked (after they tried resetting it once) I’m sure someone in these companies has made a spreadsheet that shows permissive repair and replacement policies cost $X million a year, but it p…

Gosh. I hate Apple’s right to repair BS, but to this day Apple remains the only consumer electronics company that has provided a consistently positive technical support experience for me. It’s so hard to step out the Apple ecosystem when these other manufacturers have consistently screwed me over with repairs. I’m specifically calling out Dell, Samsung and LG here. All were utterly terrible experiences. Dell was the…

But to be honest I agree with people having mixed experiences, like for me Apple has been awful, a macbook of just few months was not fixed because I allegedly caused the issue (I had horizontal lines on the display, that happened by itself just while I was watching a 4k movie), so I kinda have adopted the policy that I don't buy anything unless it's extremely needed, so like I have had a oneplus for few years now (since it came out?) and have some bluetooth issues, every now and then I just go on some ecommerce website to try to scroll around for smartphones but to be honest after a while I just leave because I start thinking about customer service specifically, if I have to spend money but then I have to factor in the price the time to solve issues, to be ignored by customer service, to see like all the hidden and minuscule written points in the terms of service that are there just to make you regret buying something, I just get demotivated and think that it's probably better to think about keeping the bluetooth issue rather than be frustrated after having spent a sum of money to have new issues, I am not sure vendors care, but sometimes I feel like that they as a whole are just alienating customers

Re: Why I will never buy another Samsung device

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An alternative to have a company fix your expensive gadget is to do it yourself. I think about the Framework laptop. In your situation even if the company declined payment (then I wold be disappointed), I would have sucked it up and ordered a new trackpad and installed it myself. It's not the same but at least the consequences would not be so distastrous.

Im a software engineer, the last thing I want to do is take days waiting for X part to arrive, then spend hours figuring out how to remove/install X part without breaking my machine worse. If I wanted to tinker, I'd buy a Raspbery PI. I want to get work done while giving as little thought as possible to the hardware I'm using to facilitate the work.

Lenovo. With whatever level of support you want to pay for.

If speed and downtime and hands-off are the most important features that trump all others, then this whole post about the cost of a bad warranty policy wasn't for you in the first place.

You don't have time for warrantys!

You just pull out the spare laptop you got at the same time as the one that broke, or your old one wich is only 1 year old and still more than good enough to work on while the new one is down. Or you just immediately go down to Staples or BestBuy or Microcenter and buy a new one.

Apple is not a magic better option where you can have your cake and eat it too. They routinely deny warranty or even reasonable paid repair for things they shipped defective. I have several unfortunate friends with laptops and all-in-ones over the years with dead video cards that Apple refused to repair, and they are not self repairable because even for the desktop model the video card is non-standard so you can't just replace it, and thanks to Apple's unique actions wrt getting the government to seize things at the border, no one else is even allowed to make a replacement either. And those keyboards...they stopped making them, yet did they ever make good on all those people they sold those models to? Apple routinely, routinely, absolutely screws over people who believed the marketing about how great the support is. That high premium you pay for the device goes to sending high paid lawyers to every small town to make sure they win in court against petty warranty suits from ordinary individuals.

They spend $10k just make sure that a warranty for a $50 part does not win in court. That is not better than the article's terrible Samsung experience.

Re: Why I will never buy another Samsung device

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument#Criti...

They are not saying they are okay with it because they have nothing to hide; they are just saying that they don't mind. It just doesn't bother them. And they also aren't arguing that it shouldn't bother you if you don't watch anything wrong or that every TV should spy on their owner.

Saying "I'm not bothered by it" is a statement that suggests you should not be bothered by it too.

- I'm angry because people let their dogs poop on my garden

- People let their dogs poop on my garden too and I'm not bothered by it!

Re: Why I will never buy another Samsung device

#316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone making money off your data does not bother you? I mean you could sell it yourself, why let Samsung do it?

"Selling your data" is marketing nonsense created for disinformation. Companies like Facebook, Google or even Samsung don't sell data. They collect data and get advertisers to pay them to target ads on their behalf. The user data never leaves their system (unless hacked, but that's a different topic). No, it doesn't bother me that they show me ads about products I'm actually interested in based on what they know abou…

If ad brokers (the Googles of this digital world) ever wanted me to pay attention to them (and their ads), they would give me a toggle to switch ads on and off as I please. As long as a simple choice like this isn't made available to me, then it's uBlock all the way. Or zero interaction from my end with the ad broker's platforms.

I recon from an individual perspective, ads are not a game changer to consumer behavior. They only burden the individual with more decisions to make when choosing a product to buy. Infact, in today's standards they only serve as a way to guess-timate person X bought toothpaste B because of ad campaign Z. Therefore, give us (ad broker Y) some of that kickback. When I still would have bought the toothpaste anyway.

Re: Why I will never buy another Samsung device

#317

This is why I always go with Apple. I've always just walked in, yeeted my phone at them and gotten a new one. I've had four warranty issues since my original 3GS and every time the experience has been pleasant. I've also had an AirPod replaced when it no longer kept charge and was within the warranty period. The same has also applied to other family members who have had failing devices and Apple always replaces them…

Here's something I noticed: the fans of Apple hardware know they can do this, because they... have to do this. I've had 9 or so different laptops in my life over the last 2 decades, from bargain bin models to latest high-spec Lenovo. The only times I've had to fix a laptop was twice in the last 3 years on work-assigned MBP (once the motherboard failed, another time the keyboard fell apart), then had to replace a fail…

You are lucky. I had problems with samsung, motorola and with the new "nokia" android phones, All probably solvable, but support is not their priority.

Re: Why I will never buy another Samsung device

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been on the other side: Dealing with returns and warranty claims at scale, albeit at a much larger company. You're not alone. A lot of people will invest a lot of time into lying, playing dumb, making threats (think people with a lot of Twitter followers threatening to broadcast how terrible your company is unless you give them exactly what they want) and other manipulative tactics to abuse warranty claims. Ulti…

Apple understands something many retailers have lost. The way you deal with the customer when they’re not happy turns you into a lifetime customer. And if it doesn’t it’s a small price to pay. Costco, Nordstrom, Marine Layer, etc. To me this is a winning strategy. Even if it’s 1 in 5 or less.

It's a winning strategy for high-margin luxury goods, not for everything.

Re: Why I will never buy another Samsung device

#319

This is why I always go with Apple. I've always just walked in, yeeted my phone at them and gotten a new one. I've had four warranty issues since my original 3GS and every time the experience has been pleasant. I've also had an AirPod replaced when it no longer kept charge and was within the warranty period. The same has also applied to other family members who have had failing devices and Apple always replaces them…

Counterpoint: I've spent less on my 4 phones over the last ten years than a single new iPhone would cost today, including replacing a couple screens and batteries myself. I'm coming up on time for a new phone, but the iPhone prices have been keeping pace with my cumulative device total price so far. Multiple hours' drive to the nearest apple store, so they offer no timeline advantage for me

Depends on the iphone model. I have an Iphone SE 2 which cost me 400 €.

Re: Why I will never buy another Samsung device

#320
post #168

I avoid all things Samsung for a much more important reason: They spy on you mercilessly, up to about the same level as Facebook. For example, they take screenshots of what you watch on your Samsung Televisions! Don't believe me? Take it from them: https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/resources/tv-... and https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/insights/ You're not their customer, you're the product.…

Any alternatives? What would you recommend instead? I'm under the suspicion that every single Smart TV vendor has the same problems.

Prior discussion, hope it helps:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29990910

TL:DR- LG CX tv, never connected to the internet, "smart" functions come from a separate device. It's also behind a pihole for what it's worth.

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