Well, I held out as long as I could, but after a fall from my bedside, I was in desperate need of a new phone. My initial goal (going on six months) was to hold out for the Moto X phone, but, unfortunately, it was not to be. Instead, I picked up the pricey Samsung Galaxy S4 and made the switch to Verizon.
My biggest disappointment so far has been the overwhelming amount of bloatware that both Verizon and Samsung install on these devices before shipping. Having had the last Samsung Nexus, the transition is quite obvious. It is unfortunate that a user can only disable most of the bloatware and not uninstall it. And while I am still futzing around with Samsung Gestures, I am largely debating rooting the device to get the raw Android experience. Time will tell.
Some may ask what’s the point in getting a Samsung if you are going to wipe it with stock Android. But it’s a simple answer, it’s for the hardware. Samsung has done their part on providing customers with the best hardware available. But I believe it should be up to the customer to decide what software experience they desire. This was my initial quaff with Apple, who controlled the entire user experience, for good and for bad. The nice thing about Android devices is that the savvy user can decide for themselves which experience they prefer…
In the meantime, I’ll keep fooling around with the Samsung experience and see how it takes…
