Bought an S9. One thousand times better than an iPhone. Thank fuck. Finally rid of apple after 6 years. Took long enough.

@irene or have you tried a device without bloatware?

BTW I recommend you try OnePlus6, half price, same performance :) although the display/image quality that I saw on Samsung's AMOLED is yet to be matched!

@irene well I've used the Redmi Note 4X, and although I was positively surprised in the first 6 months than it tuned out to be mediocre device!

@irene :(

@7Raiden flash pixel experience on it and it'll be golden

Which iphone did you have before switch and why do you think it is so much better? I’m considering myself that’s why I’m asking.

So now you're stuck with Samsung's Knox, and can't @root the thing without tripping that craptacular eFuse and permanently void the warranty 🤔 improvement I guess? Instead of getting the fsck from Apple, it's one from Samsung?

@irene Even with such laws in place, you can bet your ass that they'll make you prove your case to the point where you can take them to court if you want your warranty repair. The eFuse doesn't sit in there without a reason. Advertised as a "security feature", it's a way for Samsung to see what they can get away with. The supposedly "secure" eFuse isn't even all that relevant, because SafetyNet does exactly the same in software already. But isn't it convenient for Samsung to be able to reject warranty repair for devices that have been tampered with by rooting and such, yet restored to their factory image (and thereby unrooted) because software wasn't the real issue for which warranty repair is requested?

It's the whole idea of right to repair and the concept of ownership that it opposes. If I'm not a goof and fuck up when I get into my device to take a peek under the skirt and see what's inside, what stops me from doing so, and should warranty repair be rejected when done so? I *own* the device, I can do with it whatever I want as long as it isn't subjected to user error such as *improper* repair attempts, liquid damage and so forth.

That aside, software changes that softbrick the device or something like that (which can be recovered from as long as the prebootloader is unaffected) should not in any way affect the warranty repair of hardware issues from the factory. For example, Google's Nexus 6P (one of whose dead units I have on my desk) has a hardware issue on the CPU's big cores, causing it to bootloop. Should me having rooted the device affect an RMA of that? Of course it shouldn't! But that eFuse in Samsung devices does, because it deliberately changes the hardware over a software modification. That is nothing short of vile on Samsung's end.

@Condor It would be wonderful if I could favorite that comment.

@neriald iPhone 5s. Honestly it's the OS and the phone combined. There are so many little things that I just can't explain them all right now. I'll try to link you to my blog post later.

@irene I liked the S9's look and design. I could afford it. No big deal.

@Condor Android's experience is way better than Apple's, and I can already do enough things non rooted to satisfy me until my warranty is up naturally. The only thing root would do is give me access to the XPosed modules to add iPhone overscroll animations back or something. Otherwise I'm fine. I already have YouTube Vanced and Lucky Patcher.

@GMR516 I really can't argue with that, Android has come a very long way and rooting is progressively becoming less and less of a requirement to suit even the most die-hard modders' needs. Theming for example became a thing in Android 8, for which previously Substratum would need root access. Or backups, which nowadays you could use non-root adb backup for just fine.

There are a few upsides to root access though. Firstly it's the idea of being able to modify system files including system apps (*ahem, bloatware*), to clean up the system. For example, I don't use Gmail as I have my own mail servers, so I naturally wouldn't want to have it around to bug me with notifications of spam mail. Or Chrome which I don't use either, as I'm a Firefox and less extensively a Brave user. Debloating is still a huge problem, for which rooting could be needed.

Additionally, I personally find it quite delighting to be able to script certain things in Termux such as a toggle to enable and disable the Facebook apps as needed. Or to be able to change CPU governors when the battery runs low, or changing the init to load Dropbear SSHD on boot, so that I can access my device when it gets stolen with full root access, unlike the default Android recovery stuff which to me at least is quite limited.

Tasker is another one, several of the functions of which require root access. It's a very powerful utility that a single comment would be insufficient for, but suffice to say that Google isn't there yet when it comes to suiting all of those needs.

All in all, Android is definitely a lot more customizable than Apple's iOS is, and that's a great thing. Seriously, Android's open source nature is something that despite it being not very Linux-y, it does come quite close to it. Imagination is the limit when it comes to Android modification. That's something that I find amazing. Root is still required for many things, but Android allowing for those is very admirable indeed.

Still though, Samsung's inability to realize this by implementing Knox is something that I find very concerning. Even if it's not really needed for many, modifying the system shouldn't be prevented, especially by an OEM like Samsung.

Side note: The init's SSHD stuff when stolen is documented pretty well by this DEFCON speaker for example. I don't quite agree with his use of single-user mode or DDNS over the solution that I use and find more elegant - OpenVPN - but it does sketch a scenario in which remote access would be very useful. The Dropbear SSHD coupled with my permanent VPN connection illustrates that.
https://youtube.com/watch/...

@Condor I definitely see that there can be instances where you'd still want to root, as some people want to eke out every last customizable atom from a device, but most of the things you named I don't have much of a use for, at least for now. Samsung at least allows you to disable the bloat they come with, which is good enough for me. Sure, it still takes up a microscopic amount of data, but going to 64 GB from 16 GB is already so overwhelming and awesome I don't care, even if I maybe should. Also, I do agree that Samsung should not use or have Knox, because I support freedom and being able to do whatever you wish to your phone, but I don't think I'm getting "the fuck" from Samsung (which I believe you meant in your original comment).

Oh yeah, I really like the edge to edge display, too. 😀

@thighbaugh I'll glue and solder in your battery and lock down your system so that you'll have to buy a whole new device if anything goes wrong, if that's what you prefer 😉

@irene why not just pot everything in resin? So that peeks can't be taken, and it'd be great for thermal performance.. Apple is doing great in that regard already but they might be able to up it just a bit 🙃

And I mean, potting could be justified towards users by "introducing waterproofing feature" or something like that 😛 because fuck conformal coating, the only way to waterproof electronics by potting it entirely in resin!!!

@irene oh, even better then 😁 yep, let's pot it in epoxy! Waterproofing, increased drop resistance, so many things that adding such a feature would be good for!! Users would love it for sure! Repairability on the other hand, who cares about that, right 😄