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Samsung users are fed up with obnoxious and unwanted ads in OneUI
If you pay for the product, you're not supposed to be the product
Nobody likes ads. But as the online world has matured, people have come to understand that certain ads are necessary to fund their favorite sites that are free to access (hello). And while it's one thing to see ads on a website, but quite another matter when they start showing up in your phone's built-in apps. That's just what's happening for a number of users with Samsung phones in the US and other regions across the globe.
With the Galaxy S11 S20 launch fast approaching, it's not surprising to see older Samsung phones being discounted. The Galaxy S9 is almost two years old now, though it's still a perfectly usable phone with a ton of features. Brand-new T-Mobile S9 units are currently being offered for just $349.99 — that's a lot of bang for the buck.
Just last month, Samsung revealed its One UI 2.0 roadmap that outlined plans to push Android 10 to flagship Galaxy devices from the past two years, most notably the S10, Note10, S9, and Note9 series. With this year quickly coming to a close, Samsung has ramped up efforts to finalize One UI 2.0 for its January 2020 launch. Just one week after beta 3 dropped for the Galaxy S9/S9+, the fourth Android 10 beta for these devices is now available in India and the UK.
Samsung has been aggressively pushing to release Android 10 on all its recent handsets, and it's continuing its barrage of betas and beta updates with an patch for the Galaxy S9 and S9+, Samsung's 2018 flagship series. The update launched in India initially and includes a number of bug fixes and a security patch, bringing the January 2020 update to the series a few weeks early.
[Update: Note9 too] Samsung Galaxy S9 gets Night Mode and other camera improvements in latest update
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Samsung isn't known for gracefully aging devices, with previous generations quickly falling out of the company's favor. However, the firm is getting better at providing timely updates, as the Galaxy S9 received the rethought TouchWiz One UI along with Android Pie in December, giving it the same software as its successor. Now, the aging flagship received another update that improves the camera, giving it a dedicated Night Mode and further refinements.
Linux on DeX, announced at a developer conference last year, is a program that lets you run Linux (Ubuntu, in this case) on your Samsung smartphone or tablet, turning it into a full-fledged computer. Initially, it only worked on the Galaxy Note 9 and Tab S4, but with today's update, both Galaxy S9 and S10 families are now supported (along with, for some reason, the mid-range Tab S5e).
It may be the last major network operator in the US to push its Android 9 Pie update out to Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ units, but T-Mobile can at least boast the inclusion of support for RCS Universal Profile 1.0 with its build.
Smartphones are all the same; boring black slabs of glass, metal, and/or plastic, with no character, no soul. That's where we were at a couple of years ago, before Huawei and others decided to change things up and introduce bright colors and gradient designs. Now they're all at it, even OnePlus, and Samsung has decided to join the party with an Ice Blue option for the Galaxy S9.
Getting updated to the latest version of Android as quickly as possible is something a lot of users care about, with good reason, but it tends to be a bit of a lottery depending on which device you own. Samsung is usually one of the better OEMs for updates, and it looks like its Android 9 Pie beta program is going to launch imminently.
Samsung is well known for its prowess in OLED display technology, but in case you need a secondary source to provide a glowing and detailed review, DisplayMate has come out with its analysis of the Note9.
Early this month, Samsung began offering free microSD cards up to 256GB in size with the purchase of a Galaxy S9, S9+, or Note8. In other words, you'd get a microSD card that matched your new phone (64GB, 128GB, or 256GB), effectively doubling your storage. Samsung is now combining that offer with a free Chromebook 3 11.6" (or $200 off any Samsung Chromebook), which is pretty enticing.
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- According to some details posted to one of the relevant threads by a T-Mobile representative, the update began rolling out again on July 17th. Whatever may have caused the initial delay, it's now been rectified. Furthermore, T-Mobile expects to have full deployment over a period of days, so you should all be seeing it shortly (if you haven't already).
Most of us get pretty excited when we see a new update announced for our phones. But for Samsung Galaxy flagship owners on T-Mobile, that excitement is often short-lived. John Legere and co. are beginning to build a track record for prematurely announcing updates that aren't available, primarily for Galaxy phones.
With the existence of services like Google Photos, a large amount of local storage is becoming less and less of a necessity these days. But if you do need lots of gee-bees on your phone and you're in the market for a new one, you might want to look into Samsung's flagships. The company is currently offering a free microSD card, up to 256GB in size, with purchases of the Galaxy S9, Galaxy S9+, and Galaxy Note8.
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- There's now a 0 off the Verizon Galaxy Note8 as well, which discounts it down to $660. That's almost as good as the few Note8 deals we've seen on eBay lately.
If you're on Verizon Wireless and are interested in Samsung's latest flagship smartphones, here's a fairly straightforward deal for you: Get a Galaxy S9 for $519.99 or an S9+ for $639.99 if you sign up for a 24-month device payment plan via Samsung.com. No trade-in or down payment is required to get this $200 discount on each of these phones.
Samsung is no stranger to releasing new colors for its phones, but the US usually misses out on these new colors. Sunrise Gold and Burgundy Red were announced for the Galaxy S9 and S9+ last month, but the United States hadn't been name-dropped in Samsung's press release. However, it looks like the US will be getting the S9/S9+ in Sunrise Gold after all (though there's unfortunately no mention of Burgundy Red coming as well).
In the past few years, Samsung has been launching new colors for its flagship phones a few months after release to keep things fresh. The company has just announced two new colors for the Galaxy S9 and S9+: Sunrise Gold and Burgundy Red. Unfortunately, neither is coming stateside.
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- At some point in the past few days, ARCore was finally added to the Galaxy S9 and S9+. Make sure to install the ARCore app to start playing around with it.
ARCore first came onto the scene in August of last year with support for the Pixel and Galaxy S8, with more phones added late last month to the official compatibility list. The Galaxy S9 and S9+, which were announced shortly after that latest update, aren't on that list yet. That'll change "in the coming weeks," though.
We're not even two months away from the first day the Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ officially went on sale, but we've already seen plenty of deals on these smartphones. Both of Samsung's latest flagship phones are solid contenders for the contents of your wallet, and now the dual-SIM variant of the S9+ is here to tempt you at 9.99 on eBay. That's the lowest price we've seen so far.
For a couple of years now, Samsung has sold their flagships with Snapdragon chips in the US and Exynos chips everywhere else. The performance (and development, interestingly enough) is superior on the Exynos models nowadays, and the dual-SIM capabilities of these SM-G965F/DS variants can often come in handy. You can now pick up a dual-SIM S9+ for 4.99, which is lower than previous deals we've posted about.
The Galaxy S9 and S9+, Samsung's flagships for 2018, went on sale last month (just three weeks ago, in fact), but you can already find good deals online if you don't want to pay the full MSRP. Just last week, eBay posted a deal on the Galaxy S9 and S9+ for $709.99 and $819.99, respectively, which comes out to between $10 and $20 less than buying directly from Samsung, plus any additional tax savings. Today, we've got another eBay deal on the dual-SIM version of the Galaxy S9+ for just $769.99, a total savings of $70.