How's Samsung's Android experience these days?

About a year ago i got a 128gb iPhone SE, marvelous and speedy little phone if it weren’t for the poor in general signal reception (both in 3G and Wi-Fi) and poor battery life, a year was time enough with it, i’m ready to change. I also managed to bevel a side of it on a recent drop and that bevel keeps getting caught on my pocket, its very annoying.
I’ve been eyeing the Samsungs lately, especially the S9+ and the Note 9, thing is, i hated TouchWiz when i had to use it and i heard through the grapevine that the experience is more or less the same with Samsung’s “Experience” UI these days.
In the past that wouldn’t be a problem, i would just root it, install a custom ROM and be a happy camper, but my bank app doesn’t work on rooted devices, so there’s that.
I also really enjoyed my general experience with iOS, such a clean and easy to use system, Airplay was a joy to use on my Hi-Fi and i really never had a software crash on that SE, if it weren’t for the cool Samsungs i’d be picking another iPhone for sure.
So, how is Samsung’s android experience these days?

One UI is great now. Has a night theme, not laggy, is great.

But. You don’t need to Root to change it, just install another launcher. I use Nova. I’m on the S8 with the android Pi Beta. Everything is fine, no lag spikes or glitchyness.

Give “OneUI” a search on youtube to see how it’s doing, and if it’s something you’d like.

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Haven’t seen it yet, i’ll take a look at the videos, but the pictures already look more promising!
Also, how’s the bloatware on it?

From samsung alone, not terrible. Calender, clock, notes, some services, samsungs helpdesk app. Most can be uninstalled or disabled.

As for Carrier bloat, that’s another story. Though most can be removed.

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Oh, that’s great then!
Shouldn’t have carrier bloat either, i’m picking up an unlocked version if its the case.

TouchWiz used to be one of the shittest Android forks, but now it’s quite good, both in looks and performance.

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Still touch wizzy as ever , so if you dont like touch wiz. . . BUT switching to something like nova and spending a bit customizing it the way you want makes it well worth it .

The Note 9 is the Phone to beat as far as im concerned.

its fast smooth and beautiful to look at it .
it takes good pictures and has nice storage options.
also the phone kills off back grounds apps to conserve battery adding to its battery life while also keeping the phone speedy .

signal reception seems to be ok while this is subjective to location, circumstances and carrier the phone seems to to do ok while not unbelievable, it works but it could also be better.
considering our state here post disaster, we are hampered by a carrier not doing their best to get service back to what it was. so i can say if your area is under serviced you may have reception issues and may need to make arrangements to keep a good signal .

with that said once we get back to the area that our carrier ‘feels’ important enough to service the phone gets good signal and speed.

Before the disaster never had signal issues but our carrier was the strongest before disaster.

In summary the Note 9 is an awesome phone. while expensive it does give you a hassle free user experience even more so with a custom launcher and great carrier.

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