Finally Switching To An Android S7 Edge From An iPhone

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Finally Switching To An Android S7 Edge From An iPhone

For a variety of factors, I've long used an Apple iPhone but two weeks ago switched to using a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge; finally running Android on my main mobile device!..

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=iPhone-To-S7-Edge

[meekteef]

Has Samsung improved it's security and OS updates track record? I was tempted to buy an S7 a couple of months ago, but bloatware and lack of guaranteed OS and security updates made me go with the Nexus 6p.

[andreano]

That's the phone I would buy if I was looking for one today. Nexus is not an option for me as long as they won't support microSD – to me, that's a must for a smartphone.

One nice thing with the S7 is that it has a hardware VP9 codec – let's hope that becomes the future of web video.

[vadix]

Did you consider getting a Oneplus 3?

[milkylainen]

The omission of an IR blaster in the S7 series is a major fubar for me. I use the IR blaster extensively.

[edoantonioco]

If I could afford an iPhone I would buy this one instead. But its too expensive, something like the nexus 5x has all what I would want and its cheap-enough

[kwahoo]

Has Samsung improved it's security and OS updates track record? I was tempted to buy an S7 a couple of months ago, but bloatware and lack of guaranteed OS and security updates made me go with the Nexus 6p.

For the first time Samsung’s and Google’s Android security fixes sync up

Michael, I bought S7 with Exynos 8890 and man, that's really impressive piece of tech. 8 cores driven by fancy Linux scheduler, fast and always cool. I can use Gear VR for hours, on battery, without overheating. It can drive pretty amazing experiences like OpenMovieVR Cinema in 60 fps.

But there are some bad news too:
- there is no Vulkan support yet.
- Dolphin emulator does not like Samsung M1 cores.

[Kushan]

The omission of an IR blaster in the S7 series is a major fubar for me. I use the IR blaster extensively.

If you use it to control your home cinema stuff, you could consider a Logitech Harmony device, which has an app you can use. You place the base station and IR blasters near your stuff and you can use the app (or universal remote) to control it all.

I say this because I don't think IR blasters are particularly practical on phones these days, in that there's only a few people who actually use them (like yourself).

[LinuxID10T]

For the first time Samsung’s and Google’s Android security fixes sync up

Michael, I bought S7 with Exynos 8890 and man, that's really impressive piece of tech. 8 cores driven by fancy Linux scheduler, fast and always cool. I can use Gear VR for hours, on battery, without overheating. It can drive pretty amazing experiences like OpenMovieVR Cinema in 60 fps.

But there are some bad news too:
- there is no Vulkan support yet.
- Dolphin emulator does not like Samsung M1 cores.

To be fair, there aren't exactly many (any) games on Android that support Vulkan anyway.

[milkylainen]

If you use it to control your home cinema stuff, you could consider a Logitech Harmony device, which has an app you can use. You place the base station and IR blasters near your stuff and you can use the app (or universal remote) to control it all.

I say this because I don't think IR blasters are particularly practical on phones these days, in that there's only a few people who actually use them (like yourself).

I don't use it at home. I use it everywhere else. Meetings, projectors, hospitals, public TV's somewhere with a sucky channel.. and people seem to have lost the remote somewhere. Which happens quite a lot. It beats trying to figure out the physical buttons on the device itself. Most often I want to switch sources, channel or volume. That's about it.