Technology Android

[dilla]

Google did the same. Pixel 6 didn't come with a charger

Right, I think everyone followed suit after Apple did it "for the environment." On the one hand, it seems cheap for an OEM to do just to save a few bucks. On the other hand, it allows us users to have an excuse to buy some of the nicer, third party chargers out there. I like Anker as a company and I was thinking of getting a multi-port charger that was 60W or something like that, and keep that one charger for charging my phone, Buds, and one other accessory. This might be reason enough to do that now and maybe even look in to the GaN chargers as well.

I'm hoping TMo ships the phones out some time this week as the expected date was March 1-3 since it was back-ordered.


I think the SD was expected to continue being the better performer over the Exynos model but it's pretty shitty for non-US markets to continue to get the weaker Exynos model. https://www.xda-developers.com/samsung-galaxy-s22-ultra-snapdragon-vs-exynos/

I was surprised to see India got the SD variant as well as the US so it looks like they'll enjoy the better performance too but it can't be good for Euro users that stick with Samsung and Android and still get the shaft. I don't know what the breakdown is for Asian and European users of Android and what OEMs they choose but I'd be upset with Samsung and look for other options. You guys get better options over there compared to use, like the Xiaomi and Huawei brands that tend to cost less but offer more. Maybe that's why it's not as big of a deal from what I've seen on Reddit. Users in those regions just vote with their wallets and choose an OEM that doesn't dog-dick them.

Also completely unrelated, I bought an antenna for the TV to get OTA broadcasts of local channels. What I didn't realize is either the LG TV or the antenna itself had some offers included that not only brought about local broadcasts but also included Pluto TV and one other service that is giving me cable channels as well. Pluto is owned by CBS/Viacom, I learned, and so I get MTV, Nickelodeon, and some CBS movie channels included. There's another service that gives me CNN and some other news/weather channels as well as a few other movie channels too. I'm wondering if this is a trial but Pluto TV, apparently, is a free service. I can't distinguish between Pluto and the other service because I just use the guide to browse the channels and it's all mixed in together.

Long story short, a $50 antenna just gave us 100+ channels and about 40 of those channels are channels normally included with a paid cable package. The only thing I don't get that I miss is ESPN but that's it.

 

[dilla]

I was interested at the prospect of an HTC revival but after reading it's going to be geared towards Facebook services, it's kind of a bummer.

https://winfuture-de.translate.goog/news,128363.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US

Still no word on my 22U. The range of the expected shipping date ends tomorrow, the 4th, but I was hoping it was going to be early on in the March 1-4 range, or even earlier. I guess the backorder/shortage situation didn't budge.

I can't complain too much, though; there are people who ordered from Samsung or their carriers as soon as the S22 was unveiled and are still waiting on a ship date. I just hope it doesn't turn in to a month-long wait.

 

[dilla]

Also, I think UI 4.0 added a battery charging limit at 85% so I can leave it on charger overnight and it'll stop at 85. Pretty neat and I always wanted this feature to save the health of the battery.

 

[dilla]

Stupid shitter UPS must have dunked the box with the phones in a bucket of water or something because when it was delivered, some of the brown box was soggy and dented and then the boxes with the phones in them were also soggy to the point that the labels peeled off part of the box too when opening them. Even the phones themselves had water droplets on the screen protector and the ports and speakers were wet.

Phones powered on but I still called TMO and told them it was delivered like this so they're sending out a replacement. On March 18th because, like the phones I got today, they are backordered.

Probably not going to see it until the end of March or early-April.

Fucking guys...

 

[dilla]

NVM, they overnighted it to me along with the return labels and box for the damaged ones. Feels like a slightly plump-er S10+ lol.

I'm going to miss MST through Samsung Pay though. Left my wallet in the car not remembering I no longer can use Pay at any card reader. Now I have to pay attention to which places have NFC and start using either Samsung or Google Pay.

 

[masta247]

Do it. Or go Apple and wait for the 14. You and masta read about phone tech all the time and then don't upgrade for years. I understand about being practical and needs, but you can rationalize keeping almost anything too long, like a Blackberry or flip phone. We all do it and we even convince ourselves that what we have is superior. Just upgrade, you'll adjust.

Now I'm going to watch some TV on my 25" Sony WEGA because the flatscreen TVs are plasticky in comparison and the performance gap doesn't make up for it. I even prefer the 480p resolution to 1080 or 4K. Makes me dizzy. Plus, I need the RCA connections to hook up my PS1 and VCR. (There are literally people just like that.)

I understand where you're coming from and you would be right about many other things I may not be upgrading due to sentiment or because "it still works well". Like me still using my now 8-year-old iPad Air. And as a side-note it is crazy that this 8-year-old device is still something I can reliably read my news on. And even crazier that Apple is still selling the very same design on their base iPad.
So with the iPad frankly I just don't want to spend money on something I rarely use.. and I'm sentimental about that old thing. New iPads are certainly a huge upgrade, and the iPad Air 5 runs circles around the first gen in all possible regards no doubt. You'd have a solid point there.

Things are much more tricky with phones. The S10 genuinely is still an excellent phone and the S22 is in many ways a side-grade. As Dilla noticed after upgrading. You are losing a range of things that matter due to Samsung's cost-cutting measures with their latest flagships, and the performance improvements are nowhere close to what they once were. You aren't unlocking any new killer tricks (except for the zoom camera on the Ultras), while you're losing a bunch.

The S10 and S20 were the final "all out" Samsung flagships where they really delivered their best. And so the design and the features were more fleshed out than what you'd be getting with a Samsung flagship today. The S22 is similar in most ways, better in some ways, but yet using it doesn't feel like you're using a phone that's as complete. It doesn't even look better, just newer in some regards, although the curved screen of the S10 imho gave it that extra edge that the S22 series don't have anymore. It's different than with the Pixel series or the iPhones where every new generation is clearly an improvement over the previous one. With the S21 and S22 Samsung took a step back in many ways and delivered phones that are just much less exciting. And that's completely aside from the fact that the way I feel about my S10 reminds me of the way I felt about my Nokia 3310 back in the days. At this point I can say I really like using that phone a lot, and it's never let me down.

 

[dilla]

I understand where you're coming from and you would be right about many other things I may not be upgrading due to sentiment or because "it still works well". Like me still using my now 8-year-old iPad Air. And as a side-note it is crazy that this 8-year-old device is still something I can reliably read my news on. And even crazier that Apple is still selling the very same design on their base iPad.
So with the iPad frankly I just don't want to spend money on something I rarely use.. and I'm sentimental about that old thing. New iPads are certainly a huge upgrade, and the iPad Air 5 runs circles around the first gen in all possible regards no doubt. You'd have a solid point there.

Things are much more tricky with phones. The S10 genuinely is still an excellent phone and the S22 is in many ways a side-grade. As Dilla noticed after upgrading. You are losing a range of things that matter due to Samsung's cost-cutting measures with their latest flagships, and the performance improvements are nowhere close to what they once were. You aren't unlocking any new killer tricks (except for the zoom camera on the Ultras), while you're losing a bunch.

The S10 and S20 were the final "all out" Samsung flagships where they really delivered their best. And so the design and the features were more fleshed out than what you'd be getting with a Samsung flagship today. The S22 is similar in most ways, better in some ways, but yet using it doesn't feel like you're using a phone that's as complete. It doesn't even look better, just newer in some regards, although the curved screen of the S10 imho gave it that extra edge that the S22 series don't have anymore. It's different than with the Pixel series or the iPhones where every new generation is clearly an improvement over the previous one. With the S21 and S22 Samsung took a step back in many ways and delivered phones that are just much less exciting. And that's completely aside from the fact that the way I feel about my S10 reminds me of the way I felt about my Nokia 3310 back in the days. At this point I can say I really like using that phone a lot, and it's never let me down.

I remember when the 20, or maybe 21, came out, people were saying that Samsung was shifting the "flagship" moniker from the Galaxy line to the Galaxy Fold line and that the S20 Ultra wasn't even the best phone Samsung was going to make in that release cycle. People also accused Samsung of doing the same with their TVs when the "T" models of their TVs were worse than the previous year's "R" models; people suggested Samsung was trying to push people towards their 8K offerings and were gimping the 4K QLEDs they had to force that change. I don't know if it's true but judging by the reviews and complaints people have with the S22 and its features, it may be the case.

Also, I don't notice the performance change compared to my S10's 3 year old chip. I do notice the benefits of 5G, though, as I get it in my house and get 80+ Mbps. And my house is buried in the woods so I imagine I'll see 200+ Mbps when I'm around town and maybe faster the closer I get to downtown.

 

[masta247]

I remember when the 20, or maybe 21, came out, people were saying that Samsung was shifting the "flagship" moniker from the Galaxy line to the Galaxy Fold line and that the S20 Ultra wasn't even the best phone Samsung was going to make in that release cycle. People also accused Samsung of doing the same with their TVs when the "T" models of their TVs were worse than the previous year's "R" models; people suggested Samsung was trying to push people towards their 8K offerings and were gimping the 4K QLEDs they had to force that change. I don't know if it's true but judging by the reviews and complaints people have with the S22 and its features, it may be the case.

Also, I don't notice the performance change compared to my S10's 3 year old chip. I do notice the benefits of 5G, though, as I get it in my house and get 80+ Mbps. And my house is buried in the woods so I imagine I'll see 200+ Mbps when I'm around town and maybe faster the closer I get to downtown.

Right, I forgot about 5G - it's something my carrier isn't even offering, and in my city I'm getting LTE-A speeds in line with what you're getting on 5G, so the presence of a 5G modem would in no way affect me.

And yeah, Samsung's strategy was once to deliver swiss army knives across their top product ranges. They made sure that they had every feature that any competing product could have had, to tick all boxes that any buyer in the product category could be looking for, to make sure they will find what they were looking for with Samsung. It's specifically what made the Galaxy series into the biggest line of Android devices imho. Samsung's marketing (and reviewers) would always point out things the iPhones/HTC phones or any other competitor couldn't do that Samsung devices could.

They changed that strategy to now be more like Apple - where they are narrowing the scope of what they are delivering to offer a simpler, polished experience. Use their superior numbers of engineering hours to deliver fewer features, but focus on getting them to work better than others can. I have no idea how this will work out for them as times have changed, but I'm certain that if they followed this strategy with the S2, S3 or S4, the Galaxy series wouldn't have been anywhere as big as they are.

 

[Pittsey]

NVM, they overnighted it to me along with the return labels and box for the damaged ones. Feels like a slightly plump-er S10+ lol.

I'm going to miss MST through Samsung Pay though. Left my wallet in the car not remembering I no longer can use Pay at any card reader. Now I have to pay attention to which places have NFC and start using either Samsung or Google Pay.

You can't use Google pay everywhere in the US?

 

[dilla]

You can't use Google pay everywhere in the US?

Things may be changing but I don't think most places have an NFC kiosk. Some of the big franchises, like Starbucks and Panera and Walgreens have them but I don't shop at those places often. I relied on MST to pay at the grocery store or most other brick and mortar stores.

GPay does work in-app so if I order food from a restaurant's app or GrubHub, it works, but that's nothing special.

But no, I don't think NFC tech is as widespread in the States. I'll have to keep a better eye out now that I'm without MST and then get back to you to see if things have changed.

Right, I forgot about 5G - it's something my carrier isn't even offering, and in my city I'm getting LTE-A speeds in line with what you're getting on 5G, so the presence of a 5G modem would in no way affect me.

And yeah, Samsung's strategy was once to deliver swiss army knives across their top product ranges. They made sure that they had every feature that any competing product could have had, to tick all boxes that any buyer in the product category could be looking for, to make sure they will find what they were looking for with Samsung. It's specifically what made the Galaxy series into the biggest line of Android devices imho. Samsung's marketing (and reviewers) would always point out things the iPhones/HTC phones or any other competitor couldn't do that Samsung devices could.

They changed that strategy to now be more like Apple - where they are narrowing the scope of what they are delivering to offer a simpler, polished experience. Use their superior numbers of engineering hours to deliver fewer features, but focus on getting them to work better than others can. I have no idea how this will work out for them as times have changed, but I'm certain that if they followed this strategy with the S2, S3 or S4, the Galaxy series wouldn't have been anywhere as big as they are.

Maybe Samsung got too big and start getting cute and lazy with their products over the years. I still like their stuff but this is what happens when the underdog (compared to Apple) from a few years ago is no longer the underdog. It happened almost overnight with the OnePlus phones from "flagship killer" to just...whatever it is now. I agree Samsung switched from having a wide variety of offerings of features to basically just chasing Apple. But not before mocking them before doing it themselves.

These companies stick to just what works and what consumers don't complain about. Casual users probably didn't even use Samsung Pay as much as Samsung would have liked. Those same users didn't raise a stink about losing the headphone jack because they were instead attracted to the fad of wireless headphones when they first came out, so Samsung felt comfortable removing the jack too. Expandable storage? Everything is streamed and the average user, I bet, is fine streaming Spotify and not downloading songs, even though Spotify allows you to do that. So storage isn't an issue for them, either.

It kind of reminds me of manuals in cars. There are so many campaigns on the internet to "save the manuals" but the sales figures don't suggest to manufacturers to keep them around. Who will the manufacturers listen to, randos on the internet or the sales numbers?

It sucks but that's how it goes and no company is immune to getting a big head and forgetting what made them successful in the first place. Apple and Samsung won't be the biggest OEMs forever. It's just a matter of time before someone breaks through and becomes the new Samsung for Android. Although, it looks like other Android OEMs are dropping like flies (HTC and LG) and the ones still around are content with making mid range phones for prepaid services, like Moto.

Also, I just found out Vanced is shutting down. Google caught wind of them and sent a cease and desist. Hopefully someone continues to offer something similar in the future. I've read of some alternatives on Reddit but people are saying nothing does what Vanced did and that there are some tradeoffs in features between the several alternatives recommended.

Sad day. Maybe I'll use some of that Google Rewards credit to pay for YouTube Premium.

Also, you mentioned 5G; I now get 60+ Mbps in my house, which is pretty nice. I keep flip flopping between 5G and UC but it all feels the same to me, which is quite snappy. But the thing with US carriers is that video streaming is capped based on your plan and my plan is just for 480p streaming, or 2.5 Mbps. So everything loads at 50+Mbps until I stream YouTube or Hulu or any other video service, which then drops down to 2.5 Mbps. So I can do 1080p with minor buffering but 4K would require me to upgrade to a plan that's $20 more per month (for four lines) to get uncapped video streaming.

 

[masta247]

But the thing with US carriers is that video streaming is capped based on your plan and my plan is just for 480p streaming, or 2.5 Mbps. So everything loads at 50+Mbps until I stream YouTube or Hulu or any other video service, which then drops down to 2.5 Mbps. So I can do 1080p with minor buffering but 4K would require me to upgrade to a plan that's $20 more per month (for four lines) to get uncapped video streaming.

That's such an atrocious cash grab I have no words. Why would they have the right to do that? This violates the principles of net neutrality and is just pure fuckery. I can't imagine people putting down with this anywhere else in the world, so it's surprising that Americans, as freedom-loving and vocal as the stereotype is, are ok with that. So you're not paying for a technology, you're paying to remove artificial roadblocks on an existing technology that the carrier felt like imposing to literally milk you for no reason other than that they could. It costs them more to impose those artificial limits rather than just let you use the provided technology to its natural speed limits, which is just beyond me that it flies there.

You can literally stream 8K video (~20-50mpbs) with 4G/LTE . You can do 4K Youtube streaming with a solid 3G signal, since it rarely needs more than 20mbps. The base S22's screen is 1080p, and all you need to stream native content for that phone at 1080p is a 5mbps connection, which is even less than HSPA speed, which is the oldest and slowest protocol of.. 3G.

 

[dilla]

That's such an atrocious cash grab I have no words. Why would they have the right to do that? This violates the principles of net neutrality and is just pure fuckery. I can't imagine people putting down with this anywhere else in the world, so it's surprising that Americans, as freedom-loving and vocal as the stereotype is, are ok with that. So you're not paying for a technology, you're paying to remove artificial roadblocks on an existing technology that the carrier felt like imposing to literally milk you for no reason other than that they could. It costs them more to impose those artificial limits rather than just let you use the provided technology to its natural speed limits, which is just beyond me that it flies there.

You can literally stream 8K video (~20-50mpbs) with 4G/LTE . You can do 4K Youtube streaming with a solid 3G signal, since it rarely needs more than 20mbps. The base S22's screen is 1080p, and all you need to stream native content for that phone at 1080p is a 5mbps connection, which is even less than HSPA speed, which is the oldest and slowest protocol of.. 3G.

Yeah, it's some shit.

About 3G, I don't think I ever did a speed test on 3G so I can't say just how fast or slow it was but I don't think I ever got close to 20 Mbps lol. I haven't seen 3G on my phone since my area got LTE back in 2012. Sprint, and then TMo, said the reason they did this tiered pricing was to charge "heavy users" more and to avoid congestion. Or something like that. This is something that started only a few years ago which, now that I think about it, falls in line with Ajit Pai ending net neutrality back in 2017.

 

[masta247]

This is something that started only a few years ago which, now that I think about it, falls in line with Ajit Pai ending net neutrality back in 2017.

That makes sense, in the worst way. Basically you got a carrier-backed rat reaching a position of power to introduce legislation that fucks people over and allows carriers to milk users with artificial charges.

The entire rest of the world works just fine with planning a solid network architecture instead that mitigates congestion. It's not expensive if you're a nation-wide network, especially with 5G being mainly a benefit for carriers, as 5G supports traffic density you wouldn't even run into in the US, except maybe for places like NYC where you may need a higher density of towers (but not higher than that of LTE).

If congestion is an issue to the point they had to impose those limits, carriers probably wanted to get away with just upgrading existing towers with 5G without upgrading the network backbone to pocket as much profit as they can. Which means they don't have a proper 5G network - just 5G towers - a very cheap upgrade that wouldn't fly elsewhere.

 

[dilla]

That makes sense, in the worst way. Basically you got a carrier-backed rat reaching a position of power to introduce legislation that fucks people over and allows carriers to milk users with artificial charges.

The entire rest of the world works just fine with planning a solid network architecture instead that mitigates congestion. It's not expensive if you're a nation-wide network, especially with 5G being mainly a benefit for carriers, as 5G supports traffic density you wouldn't even run into in the US, except maybe for places like NYC where you may need a higher density of towers (but not higher than that of LTE).

If congestion is an issue to the point they had to impose those limits, carriers probably wanted to get away with just upgrading existing towers with 5G without upgrading the network backbone to pocket as much profit as they can. Which means they don't have a proper 5G network - just 5G towers - a very cheap upgrade that wouldn't fly elsewhere.

I haven't been keeping up with carrier news, nor did I ever. I read posts on the TMo an Sprint subreddit and some users are really in to it, so far as to take pictures of cell towers and asking for ID on if they're either 5G towers or specific LTE-band towers in their area. What I do know is after merging with Sprint, TMo has some solid 5G coverage. Whether it is true 5G, I'm not familiar enough with the technicalities of it. But I don't think I've seen LTE on my phone wherever I go. Even in my home, it's solid 5G in the notification bar and, like I mentioned earlier, 50+ Mbps downstream. Even while driving around, I'm on 5G, as per the notification on my car's screen via Android Auto. So at least the coverage is pretty wide even when I'm 20+ miles out of the city.

Still, to get that kind of coverage, I don't know what TMo did. You mention 5G towers vs a proper 5G network but I don't know the difference. I just know TMo claims to have the largest 5G network and using a site like Cell Mapper, I was able to see that Verizon and ATT do not have 5G in the suburbs or Chicago and instead its map shows coverage of the actual city. It's very sparse the further out you go, which is not the case for TMo.

I wouldn't doubt that the 5G speeds in the US are well below the worldwide average speeds.

Also, the battery life truly is horrendous on this thing. It's worse than my nearly-three-year-old S10+. Could be the 5G and the modem working to connect to it. Or it could be some software kink Samsung has to work out in the next month or two and push out an update that makes it better. My usage, as per Samsung's native battery app, puts me at about 5-6 hour of SOT. But I also have all options enabled, including the adaptive screen refresh, as opposed to capping it at 60hz. Never on WiFi and I do use Android Auto wirelessly and not plugged in for charging, so that takes its toll. Still, on-par, or worse, than the SOT I was getting on my S10+ not one week ago.

 

[masta247]

I haven't been keeping up with carrier news, nor did I ever. I read posts on the TMo an Sprint subreddit and some users are really in to it, so far as to take pictures of cell towers and asking for ID on if they're either 5G towers or specific LTE-band towers in their area. What I do know is after merging with Sprint, TMo has some solid 5G coverage. Whether it is true 5G, I'm not familiar enough with the technicalities of it. But I don't think I've seen LTE on my phone wherever I go. Even in my home, it's solid 5G in the notification bar and, like I mentioned earlier, 50+ Mbps downstream. Even while driving around, I'm on 5G, as per the notification on my car's screen via Android Auto. So at least the coverage is pretty wide even when I'm 20+ miles out of the city.

Still, to get that kind of coverage, I don't know what TMo did. You mention 5G towers vs a proper 5G network but I don't know the difference. I just know TMo claims to have the largest 5G network and using a site like Cell Mapper, I was able to see that Verizon and ATT do not have 5G in the suburbs or Chicago and instead its map shows coverage of the actual city. It's very sparse the further out you go, which is not the case for TMo.

I wouldn't doubt that the 5G speeds in the US are well below the worldwide average speeds.

Also, the battery life truly is horrendous on this thing. It's worse than my nearly-three-year-old S10+. Could be the 5G and the modem working to connect to it. Or it could be some software kink Samsung has to work out in the next month or two and push out an update that makes it better. My usage, as per Samsung's native battery app, puts me at about 5-6 hour of SOT. But I also have all options enabled, including the adaptive screen refresh, as opposed to capping it at 60hz. Never on WiFi and I do use Android Auto wirelessly and not plugged in for charging, so that takes its toll. Still, on-par, or worse, than the SOT I was getting on my S10+ not one week ago.

The chipset's big core on the S22 also consumes exactly twice as much power as the S10's. You may not notice the heat because the device is bulkier, but the big core uses 4 watts vs S10's 1.98 watts.
Worst case scenario, a single-threaded workload running at max speed (like in-app scrolling) will drain the battery twice as fast on the S22 as it would on the S10 if battery capacity was the same.

The SD 855 and 865 were the last balanced chips that Qualcomm designed (used on the S10 and S20 respectively). The Arm X2 core, which is the primary big core that the Snapdragon 8gen1 on the S22 uses, is extremely inefficient to squeeze out just a bit more performance to try and chase Apple. The result is a core that's far behind Apple, barely faster than standard Arm big cores, while using much more power. It can also thermal throttle under heavy loads.

So the S22 is faster while sacrificing battery, but in the chart below you will see the chip on the S10 actually also has better performance per watt than that of the S22.
In this chart, the SD855 (S10) scores 13.86 in perf per watt, while SD8gen1's big core (S22) scores 12.06.
It means that for heavy tasks, the S22 is somewhat faster at peak (which translates to higher burst performance in benchmarks), but the S10's chip can actually do more work until its battery dies.

 

[dilla]

The chipset's big core on the S22 also consumes exactly twice as much power as the S10's. You may not notice the heat because the device is bulkier, but the big core uses 4 watts vs S10's 1.98 watts.
Worst case scenario, a single-threaded workload running at max speed (like in-app scrolling) will drain the battery twice as fast on the S22 as it would on the S10 if battery capacity was the same.

The SD 855 and 865 were the last balanced chips that Qualcomm designed (used on the S10 and S20 respectively). The Arm X2 core, which is the primary big core that the Snapdragon 8gen1 on the S22 uses, is extremely inefficient to squeeze out just a bit more performance to try and chase Apple. The result is a core that's far behind Apple, barely faster than standard Arm big cores, while using much more power. It can also thermal throttle under heavy loads.

So the S22 is faster while sacrificing battery, but in the chart below you will see the chip on the S10 actually also has better performance per watt than that of the S22.
In this chart, the SD855 (S10) scores 13.86 in perf per watt, while SD8gen1's big core (S22) scores 12.06.
It means that for heavy tasks, the S22 is somewhat faster at peak (which translates to higher burst performance in benchmarks), but the S10's chip can actually do more work until its battery dies.

So it sounds like it's actually a hardware issue and software fixes will only do so much.

I've been finding reason to use the S Pen more and more and I'm surprised at how well it writes. It's on-par with the Apple Pencil on the iPad Pro. I tried the S Pen on one of the tabs in 2013 but I forget which model it was. Either way, it was not a fair comparison to use that experience compared with the writing experience on a 2017 iPad and Pencil.

If the Samsung Tab writes in a similar manner, I may consider one whenever I'm due for another tablet update. One that irks me is the Pencil's battery life even when it was new. And while the feel in your hand is definitely different between the S Pen and the Pencil, the writing experience feels the same. Perhaps batter? I don't want to extrapolate the experience on a phone to the tablet but can it actually be worse?

Realizing that my views on the S Pen and Android tablets in general were quite antiquated, I'll have to do some looking in to of how apps are optimized for Android tablets. I still have bad flashbacks to how some apps looked on the HP TouchPad I installed Android on to. But, again, that was 2013 and a lot has changed. And I'm not running Gingerbread or ICS anymore.

 

[dilla]

Also, what do you think of Ram Plus? Just stumbled on the feature today and skimmed some posts on Reddit about it. Set it to max and let apps run in the background and utilize the internal storage for RAM or keep it to a minimum and save battery, which is what one user claimed it did?

I had it on the default of 4 and bumped it up to 8GB. I'll see how it goes.

 

[masta247]

Also, what do you think of Ram Plus? Just stumbled on the feature today and skimmed some posts on Reddit about it. Set it to max and let apps run in the background and utilize the internal storage for RAM or keep it to a minimum and save battery, which is what one user claimed it did?

I had it on the default of 4 and bumped it up to 8GB. I'll see how it goes.

Ram plus doesn't really matter much unless you have a device with low RAM. It's similar to a Windows page file. Android's RAM management is horrendous, so I prefer having less rather than risk Android "spreading its wings" on the slower storage. I doubt you will notice much of a difference between 4 and 8 though, if any. Imho 8GB of real RAM covers bases for everything you need on a phone, and it's also why the phase of 12/16GB RAM phones is largely over, likely only to come back if/when Google bloats Android further.

So it sounds like it's actually a hardware issue and software fixes will only do so much.

Yeah any attempts to fix it in software will have people raging about Samsung nerfing performance. People love reading benchmarks without understanding what they're measuring, and will boycott any company bringing more sane performance/power profile to a.. mobile device.

It's how despite using much more power efficient manufacturing nodes we somehow ended up having chips that use twice as much power. On the S22 you could have had S10+ level performance and literally twice the battery life rather than slightly faster performance and similar or lower battery life. But phone makers and chip designers are in a pickle, because launching a flagship that performs even 15% slower than other flagships that chase highest benchmark scores is a marketing suicide. And lowering performance after launch or outside of benchmarks to make the phone run objectively better is even worse.
So we get inefficient mobile chipsets because your average user doesn't understand what's best for them. I bet if OnePlus launches yet another phone with an overclocked CPU and leads benchmarks by 2% at the expense of draining the battery twice as fast many people will still think it's better.

Case in point, people are hating on Samsung using their game mode that allows people to run around playing Pokemon Go all day on a single charge, and want their batteries to die in 2 hours rendering things they can't even perceive. And Samsung had to apologize and backtrack because saying "we know what you need better than your dumb ass" won't fly.

Honestly, on the S22 it's the X2 core that's the problem, and if there was a way to disable it altogether, you'd get a much more balanced mobile experience with a far longer battery life. It's just a bad core design for a mobile device by ARM/Qualcomm.

 

[dilla]

Just got the update that disables the GOS. We'll see how it performs after this.

 

[masta247]

Just got the update that disables the GOS. We'll see how it performs after this.

It's not a good thing if you're gaming on your phone and care about battery life. GOS is actually neat in a way that it caps framerate and occasionally resolution.