Samsung - Galaxy S9 64GB - Midnight Black (Verizon)

The S9 is a solidly great phone from Samsung. The screen is bright and clear and the camera features will help you take great looking pictures every time. It features really fast processor performance and battery life, plus fast charging. Take advantage of the wireless charging features and never have to fumble with USB cables again! I had a S6 Edge for about three years. I loved that phone, and it served me well until its battery stopped holding charge. It's a bit sad that these batteries are not replaceable - I could have kept that phone for a few more years if they let me swap out the battery. But the S9 is a huge step up (no surprise) from the S6 edge and I guess it's about time to get with the times! The only downside is the amount of bloatware that comes with the phone. Take a few minutes and uninstall everything that you can - some things are Samsung-required and only allow you to disable them. I'd pay ten dollars extra for a phone without bloatware. I don't really use the Samsung apps that much - it's all about Google, which is where Droid really shines. If you're coming from the iPhone universe, congratulations on finally avoiding the Apple tax. My wife switched over and it has taken her a while to adjust to the Droid way of doing things. It is admittedly a little less intuitive than the iPhone, but if you work at it you can always find a solution to any issues you might have with the operating system, whether it's lock screen behavior, tactile keyboard feedback, or auto-contrast settings. After a few months you'll find you don't even remember why you didn't like it in the first place.

When my original Pixel fell out of warranty and continually failed to make/receive phone calls, it was time for a new device. My choice was between a Pixel 2 and a Galaxy S9. Despite lots of research, what ultimately made the choice for me was my experience with the Pixel and Google's inability to resolve my phone issue. My last Samsung was an S5 so I haven't had any recent experiences with a Samsung but I never had any issues with the S5 so I figured why not. I've had the phone for a week now and am quite happy with it. Despite claims of bloatware, I haven't found too many non useful Samsung apps. Bixby is a disaster for sure but many of the apps I didn't need weren't "locked" and were removed with a simple uninstall. I do miss Google Assistant but that is still reachable in two clicks. The camera is fantastic. Battery life is average. The Samsung quick menu is incredible and made me wonder how I lived without it. I like the fingerprint scanner being under the camera lens instead of in the middle of the device like the Pixel. I also like wireless Qi charging which neither the Pixel 1 or 2 has. So much easier placing my phone down on a large pad at night instead of fumbling for a cord when I'm half asleep. Overall I'm quite happy with my purchase. Before the S9 arrived I had contemplated returning it for a Pixel 2 but after hearing the Pixel 2 hardware was made by HTC and the issues I see people reporting, I decided to at least try the S9 before returning it. Needless to say, the S9 is a keeper.

I have always used iPhone, but wanted to switch things up a bit. I sold my iPhone 8 to purchase this phone will Best Buy was running a promo for $20 per month payments, which was less than my 8! I have been using it for a week and my only complaint has been the battery life and a weird speaker phone issue I have been having. The battery life is about the same as my iPhone 8, which I was expecting to be a little bit better, however from what I have read it will take a week or two for things to get optimized, and I have already experienced a boost in the week that I have had it. The speaker phone issue started day 1. I would make a call and the receiving end would say I sounded like the phone was underwater, only on speaker phone though. After extensive troubleshooting, I have found that turning off the HD Voice Calling feature fixed the issue. Other than those two things, everything thing else is positive. The screen is fantastic, I love the customizability and features that the S9 has compared to iPhone. Overall, if you are looking for a change from iPhone, or upgrading your Android phone, this is a great and consistent phone to be using!

First let me say that the camera on this phone is great and I enjoyed making the emojis. However, I take very few pictures. I do use the phone for surfing. The bixby button is annoying and I have disabled it several times, only for it to start working again whenever the phone updates The housing of the phone is too slick and hard to hold on to. Then there is the biggest pain with this phone and that is the edge. If your hand holding the phone is even slightly touching the edge, you cannot scroll the page. You then are zooming instead of scrolling and it is a pain. You have to flat palm it and I had to put a pop socket on the back of the case, to hold this very slick phone and keep from dropping it, so I can scroll. Of course having the pop socket means that I cannot use the wireless charging feature. Why can't they just give us the option to turn of the edge touch? Lastly is the latest software update. When I buy a phone it is as much because I like the appearance as it is the function. I like the appearance of the icons when I first purchased this phone but this new update changed all of the icons on the phone to something cheap looking and cartoon-like. I hate these new icons and the appearance of this phone now and with the other features that I have described, I am seriously considering going back to my J7 Prime phone. Much fewer headaches.

This is a great phone. Easy to use and mostly responsive though it freezes a bit sometimes - definitely more than my S4 used to. It's larger than my old phone as well. I wish cell phone companies would stop making screens larger - it's incredibly annoying as phones no longer fit in pockets, wallets etc. The biggest drawback by far is the awful Swype keyboard. I think it's because they used to use Nuance's keyboard (which was incredible) but Samsung decided to create their own horrible, poorly-made keyboard and foist that on their users. This keyboard is absolutely terrible at predicting words. What's worse is that it changes words from the correct word to the wrong word *after* you've already typed several more words making it difficult to catch mistakes because you've already read through the previous message and *falsely* assume it's still correct. This is with autocorrect turned off!!! Writing this reminded me of that and I went back to double check my previous text - lo and behold, "words" had been switched to "weird". Anyways, with the exception of the very, very bad keyboard, it's a good phone which is why I'm giving it four stars. Also, warning: like other Samsung phones it has a bunch of useless bloatware installed (think NFL app, IMBD app) some of which you can uninstall but most of which you cannot.

Bought the phone in store as an upgrade to my wife's S7. Took 10 minutes in store. Got home, opened up Smartswitch on both the new and old phones, followed promt to connect wire (with adapter) between the old phone and new phone, checked off the boxes of what my wife asked be carried over from the old phone to new (contacts, calendar, last 6 months of text msgs, just the 3rd party apps she wants ). Then pulled the micro SD out of the old phone, put it in this new one, set camera app storage to the SD, boom - her whole phone world as she likes it was on a brand new device in 15 minutes with ease. Smartswitch is awesome. Phone is super fast, super smooth, getsures like side swipe for screen shot, and double tab the power button for camera... my wifes absolute faves. P.s. for camera, I showed her how to quickly swipe to pro mode, set ISO way up and shutter speed way to left around 1/1500, and she absolutley loves the awesome low light and fast moving pics the phone will take of our kids running by. And pro mode saves your last setting. So gone are the days of a great pic ruined by a blurred kids head... The samsung phones are killer, totally customizable, and super easy for keeping a happy wife happy life.

After being a part of the iPhone cult for my last two phones I decided to switch over to Android, especially after the whole slowdown issue due to Apple's batteries aging. I really wish I shelled out the extra $10 a month to get the iPhone X now because the S9 is the worst phone I have ever owned. That's not just hyperbole... I've owned a cell phone pretty much since they became commercially available and I am having a hard time thinking of a worse phone I've had. Texting on an Android phone is a nightmare. The autocorrect is bafflingly bad. It autocorrects words that I've spelled correctly into WORDS THAT AREN'T REAL all the time. I suppose the silver lining to this is it's getting me to stop texting and start calling people more often. Bixby is the most useless and bloated phone assistant on the market. Within a week of owning this phone I looked up tutorials on how to completely disable Bixby and it's moronically placed button on the side of the phone which I've accidentally pressed several times and been kicked out of apps I was working in. Out of the box there were several mainstream apps that simply did not work with the phone. I exclusively use Spotify and was unable to install it without figuring out a workaround. Coincidentally the phone comes with Tidal pre-installed. Tidal is trash. This is without a shadow of a doubt the LAST Android phone I will ever own. Apple has its flaws but at least their phones work the way they're intended.

Picked up this phone a few weeks ago because my S5 was really annoying me with lack of memory and battery issues including the battery getting hot while discharging. It was 3 1\2 years old, so it was time for a new phone. I'm getting used to subtle differences ( swipe left/right to change pages, up to access apps) and the the addion of the Bixby button. I am enjoying using Bixby voice commands and to show me things I'm interested in. I also like this camera better than the old one (although the one in the S3 was pretty good too.). I took some great fireworks videos and stills last week. The super slowmo created some neat effects. Very good in low light, and there is a pro mode I'm just exploring. One warning - get a cover, the finish is very smooth and easily slides off slightly tilted surfaces.