So, I just learned about this the very, very hard way. After buying a second hand S10 and finding american ones can’t be unlocked, traveling 4 hours to buy another one after much research, much annoyances to unlock it (samsung requires you to be online, which I didn’t know) and testing multiple ROMs, I finally read this page more properly https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/beyond1lte/ which says “known quirks: IMS”. I thought it was just something like dolby sound.
What it means is that it doesn’t suport VoLTE and most currently used phone systems. Samsung made their proprietary mess, unlike most other developers, which means it will probably never have an open source version.
And that applies to ALL modern samsung phones. I had samsung phone before with a custom OS, but didn’t realize because VoLTE wasn’t mandatory back then. Now it is here in Australia, and many countries. So if you ever plan to buy a samsung phone to degoogle it, know that it won’t make phone calls. SMS and mobile data also doesn’t work.
I don’t know how I missed this. It should be talked more often given how popular samsung is. There should always be a warning “YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO MAKE PHONE CALLS IN THE FUTURE IF YOU CONTINUE”.
S10 was the last decent phone ever made (for me). Not too big, SD card, headphone jack (one of the most important things for me), good camera, etc, etc… That’s why I was so persistent to find one to degoogle.
So I’m stuck with my amazingly shitty pixel 5 (and other ones are even worse for me). And considering the possibility of a life without smartphones at all, since this is a losing battle. Mainstream doesn’t care and evil companies have every incentive to kill freedom. It has been getting really bad and it will just get worse. But anyway… this post is not about this.
Be warned, if you care about freedom don’t ever buy samsung again. Not because they are evil (they are), but because you won’t be able to make phone calls on your “phone”.
I had a Note 3, Note 4, S9+, S21u, S24u, My wife/kids have Note 3, s9+, s23u, A series and a tab 4.
I’ve had Samsung 360 cameras, tv’s, galaxy watches
It stops here.
The biggest thing i’m going to miss is a decent camera. I don’t feel like carying around a 5x camera everywhere I go and most of the phones i’m looking at are kinda crap for cameras
Yup. I bought a camera after google play killing my s21 ultra.
Paid 800 dollars for the camera. It’s inferior to the old s21 in almost every way, and I could get one for 300 dollars. Inferior as in a camera, not even considering how the s21 is great as a gaming phone, computer, etc. Plus the camera is fragile and bigger, so I never carry it, so it’s never there when I need to capture something nice.
It’s weird how hardware wise we reached such an amazing point, but the software has enshitified to levels I would never even imagine.
We have to choose between being a slave of samsung/google or let go of amazing hardware. But they can only afford to make such amazing stuff precisely because of their evil practices. So it will get worse. Hardware will become more amazing, the more evil these companies get.
I used to have a Pentax that would fit in an Altoids tin. Absolutely inferior to anything I have now, but I kinda miss it now.
My brother in christ, if you cannot control the software, then you never truly had the hardware in the first place.
Yes and no. If you never connect the ultra series to the internet, you still have some great cameras and a great (offline) video game, and even a great gps and other things.
You don’t have a “phone” as samsung sold. But phones are nowadays much more than that.
Like the old film cameras. It didn’t matter how the company wanted you to use them. But yeah, it’s still something we should fight against. In may case for instance I need connection, so for the main purpose, being a phone, I don’t have the hardware because I don’t control the software.