Samsung S9 - any good?
 

I want to grab new phones for the wife and I as our current S7's are starting to be a bit glitchy when recording 1080p60 videos which is no bueno when all the videos are of our kids. The easy choice for an upgrade is to grab a couple of used S9's but when I look at them online I see lots of cheaper ones with "screen burn" and such.

Is this fairly uncommon and they're usually decent phones, or should I look at something else? Is there a better option on the used market for a sub-$250 (could bump it to $300 if it's worth it) phone? Are there other brands that can be switched to from a Samsung as easily as I can use Smart Switch to hop to another Samsung? The main requirement is a good camera that can record at least 1080p60 and a headphone jack. I prefer physical buttons on the phone but it seems like those days are gone now.

Go S20 (this is the S10)

You won't regret it over the S9

Doh. You want q headphones jack. Ignore what I said ha ha

Dont go for s9 because it's the same as s8. I currently have s8 and I'm hoping to either get an s10 or wait until s20 gets cheaper.


My s8 batteries last for 8 hours with nominal usage.

If you're holding onto phones for 3+ years. You might as well get the S10 or S20.

Still hanging onto my S10 since it's the last one to offer both expandable memory and headphone jack (for external microphone). S20 still has expandable memory, but the headphone jack's been deleted.

The last phone I got new was an S4 mini lol, we got the current S7's about 2.5 years ago but that still seems to be longer than most people these days. We're still perfectly happy with them aside from the glitchy videos.

A quick look on eBay and it seems I'm looking at ~$350 for a decent S10? Is it really worth paying nearly 50% more than an S9? I'm not jazzed on the extra size either but I don't think there's any getting away from that with phones now.

One other thing I thought of, can you disable Samsung Pay on the 9 and 10? I have no use for it and I hate that stupid bar on my screen to the point I disabled auto updates and manually update all my apps on both of my phones so the stupid thing can't reenable itself.

I used the S8 and S9 before sticking with the S10.

S8 and S9 was literally the same. If you're thinking S9, you might as well get the S8 to possibly save some money. USB-C will be a big step up from your S7 in terms of charging speed.

Between the S9 and S10, the thing that made me say 'wow' was really the 3 camera lens setup. When I was still using the S9, and my wife an S10, we happened to take pictures of the same thing (in a lower light environment) and the image from the S9 was pretty subpar. In regular light, it's fine though, but that goes for pretty much any camera.

End of the day, you know your budget best. But I thought I'd share my experience with you. Considering the headphone jack's pretty much obsolete and you're planning to keep it for several years, why not get the best one available.

Recommend the S10. I'm on the S10e, got it right when the S20 was about to be announced and the S9 wasn't too long in the tooth so was seriously considering that too.

The S10 is a pretty good generational bump from the S7/S8/S9 series and worth the extra money IMO. S10e was the underrated phone from the S10/S10+/S10e lineup. All the same internals, but drops the first generation under-screen fingerprint and adds a side-mounted fingerprint scanner that also acts as a button. Also doesn't have the aggressive curve of the other phones screens so screen protectors actually work on it.

Alright you guys convinced me, I picked up an S10 this morning. We'll see how the wife likes it and if she's happy I'll grab another for myself. Thanks for all the input.

If she isn't happy with it.

Nothing will make her happy haha

Try out the S20 FE.

A week in now and she's still happy with it so I'll call this a success. Thanks again guys.

I have this, upgraded from a S9. I was going to recommend it, but he said headphone jack required.

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https://forums.redflagdeals.com/cost...-ymmv-2473600/

This thread seems like it might fit in here?

so just to summarize, my best option and keeping the head phone jack is the S10?

I have an S8 now and it's time to get a new one

my wife has an s10 so i'll take a better look

It seems like it yep. I ordered myself one off eBay out of the US because it was far cheaper than buying one locally. It showed up Monday and so far I'm pretty happy with it. Being super picky the screen seems to have a little more glare and the rounded edges are a bit annoying but that's about it. Other than when I'm trying to fire up the camera I'm not really noticing the lack of a physical home button which is nice.

lack of home button?

similar to the S8?

it looks like it's the same yeah, so no real difference for you there.