I've been using my new Samsung Galaxy S10+ for a little while now, and I really like it. I was a bit concerned that it might come preloaded with a bunch of Samsung bloatware and it sort of does — I had to give it quite a stern talking to to get rid of something called "MirrorLink" every time I wanted to charge it up in my car, for example — but it's easy enough to disable the stuff you don't want and get it working the way you want it to.
This has been the main benefit of Android that I've found since I switched from iOS after my iPhone 4S. I'm not big into like "hacking" your phone and doing crazy shit with it (mine isn't even rooted) but I appreciate the slightly greater level of control that Android affords you… and the fact it's a bit more inclined to tell you what is actually going on.
One thing I noticed with Apple products in general the last time I used them is that in the never-ending pursuit of user-friendliness, they made a point of simply not telling you stuff. A Mac might be doing something, but good luck getting it to tell you what. Your phone might save a file, but good luck finding it. This might have gotten better in the last few years, but it was offputting; I like to know what my computers and computer-like devices are up to.
Of course, this is an issue all around computing at the minute. Windows is getting bad for it too, with its "something went wrong" error messages and the like; since everyone uses computers now, it seems a lot of hardware and software manufacturers like to appeal to the lowest common denominator in terms of technical knowledge. Which I suppose isn't so bad; it'd just be better if it was a bit easier to get a bit more information.
But I digress. I like the phone. I haven't used a ton of its features, but then I don't really need to. It seems to run smoothly, access the Internet reliably, connect to my car's Bluetooth without issue, and the camera is lovely.
The camera was the main reason I bought it, to be honest. I nearly went with whatever the Huawei with the nice camera is, but several reviews I'd seen had suggested steering clear of Huawei in general while the whole trade ban or whatever it is continues, so, with O2 offering the S10+ at a total of £200 cheaper than it normally would be over the complete term of the contract, it seemed like a good choice.
There are technically five cameras. I don't really know why, but there are. From what I understand, each side has at least two so you can create blurred-background "bokeh" effects by basically taking a picture of the background with a blurry lens and taking a picture of the foreground with a focused lens. Or something. The back camera also has a third lens for wide-angle shots, which is pretty neat.
The back camera(s) are also capable of shooting slow motion video, which is a lot of fun. Super-slow motion can only shoot 0.4 or 0.8 seconds of video (slowed down, obviously) but it looks really cool if you time it right, while normal slow motion can, I believe, go indefinitely. It's not something I'll likely use all that much, but it's fun for the odd silly message to send on WhatsApp.
The thing that I mainly wanted to use the camera(s) for — shooting video — is great. The quality is noticeably better than my old phone (you might have noticed in more recent Atari A to Z videos) and even the microphone quality is better. Not quite enough to eliminate my desire to use the lavalier mic when speaking to the camera, but pretty good.
Anyway, I'm pleased with it, and glad I signed my soul over to the Devil for another fixed-term contract. Hopefully the device will last the duration!
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