Ask Paul: March 8 (Premium)

Happy Friday! After a one-week hiatus, Ask Paul is back with some great questions from readers.
My real opinion of Samsung
wolters asks:

Paul, what is your true opinion on Samsung Phones and Devices? When they are mentioned on Windows Weekly, I've heard varying degrees of options from you and I'm interested to see what you think. Every year since Note 5, I tend to go with a Note phone but within weeks, I go to a Pixel. My reason is plain and simple...the camera is the most important thing to me. Samsung cameras, on paper, always sound good but tend to also always disappoint. Over-saturation, blurry shots and buggy camera app seem to be the deal breaker for me. I truly believe the Note phone is a powerhouse of mobile productivity but the camera always disappoints.

I feel like this information is out there, but all over the place. Long story short, Samsung is a force to be reckoned with, and the quality of their smartphones---especially the displays---is unparalleled. Like you, I find that camera quality is right at the top of my own little decision matrix, and that’s where Samsung performs well but has never really exceled. (If you look back at my Galaxy S9+ review, I felt that the camera would satisfy most users. But it feel short for me, specifically because I had experience with the Pixel cameras. Most people don’t.)

I’ve not used a Galaxy S10/S10+ but DxOMark rates that camera in the same range as the Huawei Mate 20 Pro, which I’ve found to have the best camera among smartphones. I would need to see this for myself, but it appears that they’ve improved the camera quite a bit in this new model.

There are other issues with Samsung’s phones, like the rampant crapware and app/services duplication, which is more about them out-doing Google than serving customers properly. And the UI, which has always been a mixed bag. They just replaced their UI, however, and the new one is reportedly pretty good. I would like to take a look at it, just to see what’s happening there.

Ultimately, we all need to make decisions that are right for us. And for me, now that Google Fi compatibility is essentially universal, the biggest deal is indeed the camera. That may or may not leave Samsung out of the running. But it’s probably not as big a deal for most people. And it’s certainly understandable to me why so many people do choose Samsung phones.
Which tech giant is most likely to implode first?
christian.hvid asks:

Which, if any, of the tech giants do you believe is most likely to implode within the next five years? (Hint: it's Facebook).

Yep, Facebook. In fact, I was just collecting links for a premium post about this topic, so that’s all I’ll say about that for the moment. But yes. Facebook.

And by the way - since this article will be published on International Women's Day - how many women do you count as subscribers or regulars at Thurrott.com? 1%? 0.1%? 0.001%? Mary Jo? :)

I don’t believe we have that ...

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