Mishaal Rahman and FragmentedChicken are in South Korea for Samsung Unpacked!
It’s weird with time zones but they’ll be on for the next hour or so. They’re juggling on-the-ground stuff at the press conference so post any questions here and they’ll respond once they can!
Edit: We’ve left the hands-on area, but feel free to continue posting your questions. We’ll continue to answer them if we can, and might have another opportunity with some of the devices.
For articles about Samsung’s latest announcements, see the Megathread sticky at !android@lemdro.id.
Thanks for joining us here in our new home, so happy to have big names help to validate it!
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the watches, it feels like the 5 was kind of an incremental upgrade, and it’s looking like 6 might be similar, anything that’s not captured on the spec sheet that makes it a worthwhile upgrade?
My first question for @FragmentedChicken is, are you able to comment? Welcome to Lemdro.id!
No
Excellent. Not sure how many folks are awake over on our end of the world! How’s the energy over there?
I thought it was pretty overwhelming with how many people there were. Everyone was just recording with their phone or camera, a bunch of flashes constantly going off. Apparently that’s business as usual for this type of thing.
Do they have any catering at those events? Post up venue photos!
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Luckily, Universal Android Debloater works like a charm. I mean, it is a bit annoying that you even run it in the first place, but it’s mostly a one-time thing so I’m not complaining anymore.
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Really good for you!
What exactly do you expect us to do lol? Sneak into TM Roh’s bedroom and whisper that in his ear?
It’s always good to keep in mind that one app might be considered bloatware for one person, while it might not be for another person. Bloatware is subjective.
Agreed but in my opinion only what’s essential should be pre-installed everything else should be optional to install and definitely can be uninstalled easily.
I believe even the essential apps should be uninstallable (the messaging app, the dialer, the browser, etc…)
I’m really interested in the tab s9 series. Anything stand out to you such as performance or screen quality? I really want to get another Android tablet to replace my old tab s6 but I really want something more performant for the money.
We mostly focused on the foldables, but I imagine the switch from 8 Gen 1 to 8 Gen 2 will make a big difference. The 8 Gen 1 is a hot inefficient mess of a chip, while the 8 Gen 2 is an ideal cool efficient chip. It will definitely do wonders for performance and battery life. The peak brightness for all the tablets have improved as well. They’re advertised with 750/650/930 nits for the Tab S9/S9+/S9 Ultra.
Another question now, how do the hinges in the new foldables feel? We’ve had some good competition in that space so I’m hoping we see some refinement from Samsung this year. Which of the two would you most like to daily drive?
I’m also curious about this. I wonder whether there seem to be any noticeable durability improvements as well.
It looks like it’s just as durable in terms of fold testing (150k at 60°C, 200k at 25°C, and 30k at -20°C). No improvement, but passing the same tests as the Fold4 with a different hinge is notable.
Are there still pre-applied screen protectors on the foldables and can you still see the edge of the protector?
Yes and yes for the Flip5 and Fold5 inner displays. The outer displays for both didn’t have a screen protector, but that may not be indicative of what you’ll get with a retail unit. Also, IIRC, the Fold4 did away with the screen protector on the outer display.
Thx! Did you notice any difference in the texture of the display surface in the area covered by the screen protector? Does it feel like you could leave an indentation if pressing with your fingernail?
The screen protector feels like glass. It’s been improved ever since the Fold4. I used the Fold3 and Fold4 for around 6 months, and managed to keep the screen protector pristine. You can probably indent it if you try hard enough, but something like fingernail scrolling is fine.
Will Samsung ever rethink Knox and allow custom roms without losing warranty coverage and negatively affect resale value? What about allowing banking apps to work again if you go back to the default rom?
I highly doubt it unless there is constant pressure put on them to do so because Knox at this point has been set in stone, only a niche minority still discusses it (us) and talk about it
Highly unlikely. The root/ROM community has always been a small niche - and these days, it’s even smaller that it has ever been. Such a minor audience means nothing for Samsung.
It’s pretty unfortunate. I’d love to see some regulations put into place that would ensure the option for unlockable bootloaders. North American devices are stick without the option in the first place :(.
Unlockable bootloaders aren’t a big issue - you can buy devices with unlockable bootloaders in NA, depending on your carrier - the bigger problem these days is the likes of SafteyNet and KNOX, which makes it a pain to live with an unlocked bootloader. What we really need is a change in thinking that an unlocked bootloader doesn’t necessarily mean a device is insecure, and instead of not giving the user a choice and locking them out, they should pass on the responsibility to the user. Eg, a banking app could make a user accept an agreement that the bank will not be held responsible for any hacking related losses etc, instead of straight up prevent the app from running. For this, Google needs to take the lead - they were the ones who introduced SafteyNet and caused this whole mess in the first place. Once Google takes the lead, Samsung and other manufacturers could follow, and the dev ecosystem will follow too. But I’m afraid it’s all a bit too late now, the best one could do, as an individual, is to boycott apps which use the likes of SafteyNet, leave bad reviews, complain to the CEO etc, but all this is unlikely to have any impact, given that we root/ROM users are a small minority.
It is worth mentioning that google does allow for re locking the bootloader on their Pixel line up on custom ROMs and unlike Samsung they did not put a fuse in the Pixels that explodes to permanently disable the device’s TEE and its security hardware
I should clarify I’m referring to Samsung and their flagships. I bought my S23 Ultra directly from Samsung Canada and unfortunately can’t unlock the bootloader.
Why in some countries they sell their devices with unlockable bootloaders and in other countries they don’t? I can’t make sense of doing such a thing
It’s an interesting question this and whether Samsung is willing to use GSI’s / DSU.
Last time I checked that was a negative?
Most OEMs aren’t willing to preload Google’s AVB keys for their GSIs. DSU is only really supposed to be used by app developers (and even then most app devs don’t know it even exists or use it) which is why most OEMs don’t bother with it.
