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Galaxy S4: A good phone crippled by bloatware

I've been living with the S4 for several months now. It is a very nice phone with powerful processing features and a very attractive display.

The downside, however, is the inordinate amount of bloatware that comes pre-loaded on this phone and which can not be uninstalled.

The resulting effect on the phones performance is where the disappointment comes in to play. Simply swiping home screens results in stutters. Opening apps creates pregnant pauses. Even dialing a phone number on the phone pad dialer must be done at a measured pace or else a number will be skipped.

It's a pity that, between Verizon and Samsung, they collectively stuff nearly 8 gigabytes of unnecessary and/or unwanted software that cannot be removed.

The S4 is a very nice phone crippled by bloatware. When it comes time to replace/upgrade this phone, I will surely be looking at alternatives.

Comments

tikibar1

Unfortunately, all phones have bloatware, regardless of carrier. And no, you can't uninstall them, but you can disable them (or turn them off, depending on which OS you have).

JGwiz

So, as consumers, we should accept the products as they are pushed? I believe is consumes where less docile, marketers would be more inclined to listen...but then, most of us consumers are sheep :smileyhappy:

verizonisoverpriced

I get irritated by bloatware as well. My friend recently got the S4 and has had similar problems with it.

Ann154

JGwiz wrote:
So, as consumers, we should accept the products as they are pushed? I believe is consumes where less docile, marketers would be more inclined to listen...but then, most of us consumers are sheep :smileyhappy:

For carrier branded phones yes, you might have to accept it. Now if the majority of consumers chose instead to purchase unlocked devices directly from the manufacturer, the carriers might start to notice people aren't buying the branded versions. For example, you could purchase a Nexus 5 and activate it on the local GSM carrier, you will be getting a phone without the carrier and manufacturer bloatware plus the freedom to cancel your line of service at any time. As someone else who likes to write on this community, "Vote with your wallet."

I will say this about the Galaxy S4, the carrier branded bloatware is actually less than the manufacturer applications that are "supposed" to improve the experience. Both kinds were junk IMO so disabled they went. If I could have disabled the TouchWiz UI too, I would have.

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