Ask Paul: July 11 (Premium)

Happy Friday! We're back in Mexico, the weather is cool and wet, and I'm exhausted from a lack of sleep. So this is the ideal time to get the weekend started a bit early so I can wind down. But first...
? It ain't over until the fat lady Samsungs
dremy1011 asks:

Curious how your move to Samsung went, and when you think you'll release you're "final" thoughts (is anything ever final)?

In From the Editor’s Desk: Interstitial (Premium), I mentioned that I wanted to finish up as many laptop reviews as possible before we came to Mexico because the logistics of bringing these things back and forth can be a nightmare. What I didn't mention was that my Samsung Galaxy S25+ review was impacted by this as well. Phones are much easier to travel with, so I brought three of those here as well.

I don't write device reviews in a single sitting, of course, and as with my laptop reviews, I start with a template-based empty document so I can keep notes in there as I go. So I've worked quite a bit on that review over the past two months. But I've also been thinking about tackling this from a different angle.

Back in May, I wrote about how much I like One UI 7, which Samsung first delivered with the Galaxy S25 family of phones, and since then, I've been using the One UI 8 beta, which is tied to Android 16, with new features being rolled out over time. (I'm also using the latest Android betas on my Pixel 9 Pro XL.)

Also, there's a story in there somewhere about how OS releases are no longer events for the most part (Apple being a partial exception) because all the big platform makers just release features over time now, and there are pros and cons to that. JR Raphael touches on this in his latest article about Android, and that starts off with an interesting overview of the differences between Android and iPhone, or really those two ecosystems, which is something I think about a lot. "When people ask me about the difference between Android devices and an iPhone these days, my answer is almost shockingly simple: It’s all about choice," he writes. And then expands on.

I find that moving between platforms, desktop or mobile, can be instructive. For Mexico, I moved my phone number to the iPhone for a few reasons, including its superior battery life and the major changes coming in iOS 26 (and across the board with Apple's other products). But I have a Google Fi data eSIM in the Samsung and enough notes and experiences over two months for the review. And I do keep using it. And switching between those phones, and to the Pixel as well, is always interesting. It's a mix of pros and cons. Which I guess is why I wrote The Perfect Phone (Premium). My opinion of which is "best" (for me) shifts as new features arrive on whatever platform, but my opinion that none of them are really best continues. They all have things I like and things I miss when I'm using a different device.

For the Galaxy S25+ specifically, the two biggest wins are its incredible...