About a year ago I spoke with the Fiance about making a scary move. This move was to get rid of our iPhone’s and switch to the Galaxy. At the time we had both just upgrade to the brand new iPhone Xs, and boy was I excited to pick it up. However, the newness quickly wore off.
Over 10 years ago I went and bought my very first smartphone. At the time the available options were pretty bleak, but I settled on a Motorola. For the life of me I cannot remember the model, but it had the slide up full keyboard that phone companies thought was the future. This phone lasted less than a year. I woke up one morning to a phone that would not make a single phone call. In fact it just said no service. Took it into the Verizon store and got a shrug. I guess the phone was dead and irreparable. So I got another phone. A small rectangular one. 6 months later this one too was dead in the water.
Finally by recommendation I went and bought a Samsung Galaxy S. I had heard many great things from Samsung’s new flagship phone and was eager to try it out. It was not long before I had an issue. Less than a month of having the phone my text messages began to wipe themselves once or twice a week. Back to the store I went. They told me to factory reset it, and a few other troubleshooting steps. Another week with the phone proved this not to work. Again, back to the store. They gave me a brand new Galaxy. Problem solved right? Wrong. 3 months later and my speaker died. Handed me over a new phone. This 3rd Galaxy S last about 6 months and it too stopped making phone calls.
I had had enough of Android at this point and purchased my very first iPhone. I believe it was the iPhone 4 that was available at the time. At first I had difficulty adjusting to the new interface. No more widgets or any customizing whatsoever. However, it grew on me and the perk of having a working phone quickly surpassed anything I felt I was missing. I went just under 10 years with some form of iPhone.
So back to the about a year ago. In my hand I had a $1,000 phone that was the latest and greatest from Apple. The problem though, it felt like the exact same phone for a hefty price tag.
So after mulling it over for a week or two and going back and forth we were no closer to making the leap. I kept telling myself well I will lose my continuity between phone and computer, or man I will have to reenter all my passwords, or where will I listen to music from. It finally dawned on me. This is where Apple gets you. They spend an exorbitant amount of money and time on marketing their products to make you feel like you cannot survive without them. The funny part is, I am not even mad about it. It is beyond smart of Apple to do this. Get people addicted to your products and they will never leave. They will keep upgrading for one or two new features you told them they cannot live without.
Well fast forward a couple more weeks, we were driving back from Seattle and saw an AT&T store. I looked over at my fiance and she already knew what I asking. “let’s go look,” she said.
Well……we did more than looking.
With a BOGO deal of buy one get one free, we really could not pass it up. Specially since the Galaxy phones we were looking at are hundreds cheaper than the iPhone.
Finally we had made the leap and started the breakup with Apple. We had brand new Galaxy S9 phones. So began my dreaded transition. However, it never came. Just like with Apple, Samsung has an app to transfer all data to the new phone. That was it. My new phone was ready to customize to my hearts content!
Now you may be asking what about my music I complained about earlier or the continuity. Well like I also said. I began the breakup, have not completed it. I still use Apple music since the play store had an app for it. The continuity is no longer an issue as well since I now use a Microsoft Surface computer. Between Onedrive and Google I have everything I need for continuity just a few clicks away.
So a year later as I write this and think back to my transition back to a Galaxy phone you may be wondering if I have had any issues. Well I have, but not like before. So far Samsung appears to have stepped up their game with hardware and I have had zero issues with the phone itself. The few software issues I have had were actually caught by Android itself. The new battery monitoring is a lifesaver.
There are a few things I still miss from my iPhone. Not enough at the moment to warrant a switch back, but still worth mentioning. The battery life is not great. Even with a bigger battery, the Galaxy phone does not compare to the iPhone. The Galaxy also requires you to pay a little more attention to app permissions, which I am aware is by design. Where closing apps and restarting your phone is a routine thing on Android, iPhone’s never need apps to be forced closed unless the app crashes. In fact doing this without a true problem with the app breaks the IOS software if done too much.
The last thing I miss is Siri. Mostly just my lazy side. Siri did a lot without having to even touch the phone. Set alarms, countdowns, reminders, etc by just asking her. I tried with Bixby to do all this and she keeps asking me to unlock the phone, slightly frustrating.
I do know that I can activate Google’s version of a personal assistant. I have yet to do this but will look into it in the near future. Let me know in the comments of your experience with this assistant.
Overall I am very pleased with my Galaxy. It is has come a long way since the original and is definitely worth picking up. For a flagship phone, the price, and the features it offers are second to none.