TL;DR Don't bother. The only reason to stick with Samsung was the smart stylus and they killed it in favor of bad AI.
Personally I'm now thinking Pixel plus GrapheneOS after a decade of Samsung loyalty due to the stylus.
this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2025
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Woo! Took them just a decade to realize the smart stuff in the stylus is bullshit and go back to passive inductives? I'm so happy it happened.
Passive inductive styluses: have touch force, angle, button(s) Active inductive styluses: have touch force, angle, button(s), the selfie button, extra thickness, extra weight and an extra battery to manage.
Pixel plus GrapheneOS
This is the current gold standard.
First they took the swappable battery, then the IR emmiter, then the magnetic card swipe, then the SD card, then the headphone jack, then added Bixby.... They have zero value proposition anymore. Everything else I do is on apple hardware, and so will be my next phone.
Definitely understand. I'm not in the Apple environment other than my SO who has a Mac and an iPhone.
I haven't bought a new phone because I refuse to give up my S10's removable storage. Won't do it. Runnin this fucker til the wheels come off.
There are current gen phones that have an sd card slot
but do they ave a headphone jack too?
Sony phones
Does your phone receive security updates?
after not getting them for about a year and a half, got a suprise security update this past august outta the blue
Yes, for example some oneplus phones have an sd card slot and headphone jack
Only the Nord CE4 Lite, which is their lowest end model
Same here, my Note9 just doesn't want to give up after 5 years and 2 screen replacements. No wonder it's LTT's daily driver – the best Galaxy ever created. I would've moved to Sony a while ago... if not for the damn stylus!
Are you not worried about the phone no longer receiving security updates?
Not really, I'm rocking it as long as it works
My previous phone was an S10e. When it broke I got another S10e, second hand. I still keep it around as a work phone. I'm using a Pixel 7 with Graphene now. Not perfect, i honestly don't love the crappy fingerprint reader, but eh. I appreciate the privacy and the extra control.
What do you use the stylus for? I'm on the s24 ultra and I didn't think I've ever touched it
S22 Ultra here. Selecting text, taking cropped screenshots, placing the text writing cursor precisely where I want it, hovering over web elements to view tooltips or alt text, playing Slay the Spire and Balatro, emulating the Nintendo DS, using the button as a camera shutter, hovering over the bottom of a scrollable element to smooth-scroll without repeatedly finger-flicking, and doing anything that benefits from a touchpoint more fine than a big fat thumb. The S pen is the only reason I'm still on Samsung instead of the greener true FOSS pastures.
When its cold outside. Touch sensitive gloves just never work right or well.
It's for those really small x that my fat fingers can't get to. Lol
Using the stylus with swype/swipe keyboards is really intuitive imo.
I briefly had an S22 Ultra because there were Pixel shortages at the time, and I hated that piece of shit. Not only was it way too large, extremely heavy, and loaded to the gills with far more unremovable bloatware than the common Google variety, but the camera for which it was touted for being "the best on the market" was absolute dogshit. The white balance was awful, and the shutter speed was slower than a hot turd sliding down the onramp. I returned it after only a week and settled for a budget 4A that actually captured clear photos of my daughter in motion.
So the S23 was the final phone with all features upgraded from the previous phone, whereas this one removes features in favor of AI bullshit
I'd argue S10 was the peak - headphone jack and SD card slot. Everything since then has been enshittified aside from minor spec upgrades.
Note9 was peak – all of the stuff you mentioned AND a stylus. Not to mention no stupid notch :)
I would argue the S24U's flat screen was a massive upgrade. Curved screens are such a headache
They are definitely stagnating.