Thank you.....but yes & no - please don't misunderstand me... I want so much to love the Galaxy, and will almost surely be sticking around here. The Iphone has a LOT of deficiencies to it, in my book, some of which weren't addressed at all from 3 to 4, very very unfortunately.
But anyway, to clarify, I
stayed with AT&T, but went BACK to the known quantity of the Iphone (well, upgraded from 3 to 4). You're mostly right -- the phone wasn't the sole cause of it being what I described - but it WAS part of it - see what I wrote:
and
They want us to be their final-stage Beta monkeys - but sorry, I'd rather pass. They'll get that worked out to be sure, in time - this much we know, right? So the Galaxy S & its progeny WILL be a great superphone family, eventually - definitely.
So it most certainly was and is a turd right NOW, at least the Captivate version I had was (and I tried two different brand new ones - they swapped me out after the initial problems) -- but it only became a GIANT one through something that is no fault of Samsung's; but rather that of AT&T, unless you think it's fair to place some blame on Samsung for not "sticking to their guns" and demanding that the carriers not infest and plague their otherwise-fantastic phone with their proprietary crap via contract demands/negotiations - "hold out" for purity, if you will.** I do happen to blame them too somewhat for that, myself - YMMV.
The questions here, really, now, for ME, are these:
1. The Sprint Navigator bloatware on Epic: It is free, or pay-for? If it's free, then that's NOT a deal-breaker, and may very well cause me to end up switching carriers once the bugs are out of the Captivate (software/firmware update - 2.2 should do it quite nicely, I'm sure). Is there ANY non-deletable, pay-for bloatware at all on the Epic?
2. With the TMobile and Verizon versions of the Galaxy S: Is there any non-deletable, non-free carrier bloatware on either or both of THEM? If the answer is yes, then us anal-retentive folks are pretty much screwed, and I place *some* blame on Samsung. If the answer is No, then I'll remove most all the blame from Samsung and will most likely be saying goodbye to AT&T within a year, and going with one of the others (can you tell I hate bloatware?).
3. To go a different route, what about the Sprint EVO? Any such bloatware on that phone? It's interesting in its own right, though I'm not a big fan of HTC products.
mdtolic, you answered part of this, thank you, when you said "there's nothing I cannot delete". I may very well go back to T-Mobile to get the Galaxy when it's upgraded, - I was with T-mobile for 12-13 years (since the voicestream days) - they were so stupid in severing their connection with the people who made the best phone bar none at the time (Palm/Treo). But looks like T-Mobile may have learned a thing or two about getting & keeping good phones available; not just ones with slower-than-molasses Mobile Windows based junk.
Thanks again!
Lookit, even if you don't consider the bloatware issue to be even 1% Samsung's fault, it STILL makes sense to gripe and complain to them, IMO ... they have to base their business decisions in part on *what the end-user customers want*, and if they are convinced into thinking or knowing that a high *enough* percentage of users despise this type of bloatware (and I personally don't know what the percentage is, and don't much care - all I care about is trying to get what I want, and get the best product value for my money and my time on earth), then this belief *might* must just push them 'over the line' on the next contract negotiations with one or more of the carriers, when their current contract(s) expire(s), such that they can and will (hopefully) demand that for carrier A or B to use their device, they must agree to make pay-for bloatware deletable.
**Also, look, much of the advertising/marketing that's being done here is directly from Samsung themselves, right? And one of their top 3 or 4 basic high-point selling features (probably always top 3, regardless of version/carrier being adverstised) is this: "Our phone is extremely customizable to your tastes, and probably much more customizable than your Iphone or other phone you currently use." Right?
Well, having non-deletable bloatware is antithetical to the idea of customizable - in fact, it's about as 100% toward the opposite end of the spectrum of "customizable" as you can get, to not be able to take something which you know you will never need, use, or want OFF of this screen or that screen. So SAMSUNG is
bordering on misleading advertising then they say "super-customizable", and yet 'allow' this nonsense, as far as I am concerned. Yes, it's really customizable.... in many ways... but in SOME ways, it's not at all.
P.S. By the way, please don't even mention the Sony/AT&T Android phone to me. I had not one but TWO *extraordinarily bad* customer services experiences with Sony over the years, where they failed to repair or replace a defective product as promised, one of which was where I clearly proved to them that it was still under warranty (they even gave me a return authorization number). The other one I didn't have my receipt, but they still should have made it right & repaired their piece of junk, with the reputation they enjoyed at the time. Instead, both times they just mailed the product back with a simple brush off of "not under warranty" or some such.
