I’ll preface this with the fact that I’ve tasted superior product. I spent years as a Pixel user, and I know what a good phone feels like. That said, my current handheld device happens to be the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra. It’s also the phone that has me feeling desperate to run back to Pixel. What follows will be a rant about why my phone makes me hate Samsung and what Samsung can do about it.

When I first thought about contributing to the “Fuck Samsung” sphere, I figured I’d google “Why I’ll never use another Samsung phone” before writing, and I was immediately greeted by a Medium post that begins with “I’m a Pixel guy” followed by his experiences with Samsung. It reinforced my position, and I feel vindicated in my hatred of Samsung’s shitty idea of what a phone is.

There is no good reason that I should be required to create a Samsung account. I never intend to use their shitty galaxy store, and I don’t give a fucking good god damn about their awful cloud services. For all intents and purposes, Samsung can suck my cock. That said, it looks like they’ve literally rebadged a ton of stock Android applications with their own shitty versions that are only available on the Galaxy Store. So instead of getting the “Clock” app from AOSP that “just works”, you end up with the shitty Samsung variant, that in my experience has failed to make sounds when the alarm is intended to go off. I’ve slept through it at least three times, and twice I was awake to watch it flast a notification soundlessly. If you look at the Galaxy Store and search for “Clock”, you’ll see that the app is rated two and a half stars out of five. This tracks from my own personal experience.

And, honestly, that’s not the only problem. They’ve rebadged everything from Clock to Calendar to Phone and more, and none of it is even remotely as nice or refined as stock Android. It’s like they smeared shit everywhere to mark their territory. It’s really the worst user interface experience I’ve ever had. It makes me pine for my drastically underpowered Pixel 3a.

What good is a flagship phone if it makes you want to throw it out the window? None at all, and I think Samsung is going to see this trend continue if they don’t stop shitting these devices up with their awful software. Fuck Samsung. Never again.