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Why I will never buy another Samsung device

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Re: Why I will never buy another Samsung device

#611

Post by tzs »

jiggawatts wrote: post #160

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.…

My current TV is and prior two TVs were Samsungs. This one will probably be my last because this is the first one I've tried to use as an actual television and it sucks at that.

The prior ones, and this one up until about 18 months ago, were only used as displays for my cable TV box, DVD player, Blu-ray player, game consoles, and streaming boxes. I then cancelled cable and hooked up an antenna to watch actual TV broadcasts on it thus actually using it as a television instead of just a monitor.

It's terrible at that. First, it doesn't have a good way to quickly check the signal strength of multiple channels, so it is awkward and tedious to deal with setting up channels where you need careful antenna positioning to receive them.

Second, when you bring up the channel guide it continues to show the current channel you were watching in a picture-in-picture (PIP) inset. This is good so you can check the guide without interrupting what you are watching. However, if any of the channels listed in the visible part of the guide do not have a good signal the PIP inset freezes for 5-10 seconds while it apparently tries to get information about those channels. You only get the uninterrupted PIP is all the channels on the guide are giving good signals. I've got some that vary depending on weather and atmospheric conditions, and I've got some that I need to change antenna aim to get, and these are scattered throughout the guide so I tend to get the interruption on every page of the guide.

Third, there doesn't seem to be any way to delete a channel. Some of those weak channels causing some of the problems mentioned above were channels I don't care about, but happened to be strong enough when I did the channel setup scan that it added them. Nor is there a way to explicitly add a channel, although I think that if you manually direct it to a channel that it has not auto programmed and it finds a good signal, and you repeatedly do this, it might add it.

Re: Why I will never buy another Samsung device

#612

Post by jay_kyburz »

pph wrote: post #369
jay_kyburz wrote: post #302

My Samsung TV is not connected to the internet, but every night about 2am it turns the panel on. Its black, but glowing. I have to turn it off at the wall if I want it to stay off. I'm convinced its trying to shorten its own lifespan.

I'd consider that a defect and return it.

Its about 10 years out of warranty :)

Re: Why I will never buy another Samsung device

#613

Post by 0ldskool »

jeegsy wrote: post #458
ragesh wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> need to pull out a wireless keyboard & mouse to watch netflix I run Kodi on a Raspberry Pi for this exact reason. The Pi's HDMI has CEC support built-in, which means the TV's remote works seamlessly with Kodi's UI. This works great for my Netflix needs. Unfortunately, most (all?) PC graphics don't do CEC out of the box. I've seen USB adapters that can add this functionality to PCs but I've never tried any of them.

Kodi can do netflix now?

I think there is a plugin for it. Pretty sure its probably just a wrapper around netflix over some browser. Netflix killed their 3rd party API awhile ago and killed support for all the platforms techies would use.

Re: Why I will never buy another Samsung device

#614

Post by syntheticcorp »

carleton wrote: post #521
mod wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, some TVs have been known to scan for open networks, and use those without permission.

Do you have a source on this?

There is none. This has been asserted for years on HN but I’ve never seen a modicum of evidence for it.

Re: Why I will never buy another Samsung device

#615

Post by abandonliberty »

jmyeet wrote: post #405

So the author had a folding phone that failed and couldn't get it repaired/replaced. The narrow take is that you're kinda crazy to buy a folding phone but Samsung was selling them so is really on the hook for the inevitable issues. The story of getting it fixed is really why people love Apple and even Amazon. I've had the Wifi go unreliable on an iPad. I got a Genius appointment for later that day. They confirmed the…

>Dell charger? Not so much.

Everything now runs on usb-c, Apple included, with the ridiculous exception of iPhones.

Re: Why I will never buy another Samsung device

#617

Post by tonyedgecombe »

sorokod wrote: post #535
swamp40 wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Apple make money off your private data?

A slightly better question: does apple make money off your private data now or will it ever try to do so in the future?

You have to consider the incentives. Apple gains a lot by talking about and pushing privacy because their competition can't do anything about that. If Google or FB were to start taking privacy seriously then it would undermine their whole business model. That isn't the case for Apple.

Re: Why I will never buy another Samsung device

#618

Post by tonyedgecombe »

southerntofu wrote: post #426
Hnrobert42 wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are placing a much higher bar than GP. Yes, by your standard almost all companies fail. But I think GP’s point is fair that Samsung goes well beyond Apple’s screws and glue by also collecting collecting a ton of data that you wouldn’t expect.

I'm placing a much higher bar yes, but don't you believe it's a very low bar that should be a legal requirement? It's not like i'm asking for the phone to have 10y warranty and available spare parts for 20 years... although wait i'm actually asking for that it sounds plenty reasonable to tackle the electronics waste problem which is uncomfortably related to climate change. So yes relative to the current market, my ex…

>I'm placing a much higher bar yes, but don't you believe it's a very low bar that should be a legal requirement?

I don't. I want my phone to be reliable and receive updates for a long time. I have no intention of taking it apart and I think that is the case for most people.

If more glue makes the phone more resistant to water damage or breakage when I drop it then that is better for me.

Re: Why I will never buy another Samsung device

#619

Post by sorokod »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #617
sorokod wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A slightly better question: does apple make money off your private data now or will it ever try to do so in the future?

You have to consider the incentives. Apple gains a lot by talking about and pushing privacy because their competition can't do anything about that. If Google or FB were to start taking privacy seriously then it would undermine their whole business model. That isn't the case for Apple.

Perhaps that isn't the case for apple now. How about in the next few years?

Re: Why I will never buy another Samsung device

#620

Post by llampx »

abandonliberty wrote: post #615
jmyeet wrote: post #405

So the author had a folding phone that failed and couldn't get it repaired/replaced. The narrow take is that you're kinda crazy to buy a folding phone but Samsung was selling them so is really on the hook for the inevitable issues. The story of getting it fixed is really why people love Apple and even Amazon. I've had the Wifi go unreliable on an iPad. I got a Genius appointment for later that day. They confirmed the…

>Dell charger? Not so much. Everything now runs on usb-c, Apple included, with the ridiculous exception of iPhones.

Dell still has models with barrel chargers. Some of them do support USB-C charging as well but only have one USB-C port. I own one of those, regrettably.
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