Samsung has 21 day exchange policy for replacing defective tablet.

I hope to help someone interested in buying a device from Samsung. I was lucky for many years with Samsung products.

Smart phones, TVs, Bluray players, Refrigerators.

First sign of trouble was Microwaves which started failing just after the warranty period.

In Dec 2018 I bought Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 from Costco. Barely few months later I noticed random failure of Apps and random  reboots many times a day. I was hoping that software update would fix it. All it got was security updates and it is running Android 7 when 10 is now the current release. I sent it for repair in October. Here is their repair process.

1. They send you shipping label and it takes up to 1 week for them to receive the unit.
2. They take 5 to 7 business days to repair and another 5 days in shipping. So, from the time you send the device to the time you get it back can be more than 2 weeks.

I found that the Tablet still shuts down after charge to 100% and can suddenly reboot. I sent it back on Nov 2 and 10 days later I was sent back the unit saying there is nothing wrong. On Nov 13 they agreed to send me replacement. I was told to expect a shipping label to return the device. On Nov 15 Friday morning, I was told that they need receipt. I went to Costco and got a duplicate receipt and sent it. On Nov 18th Mon, the status is RMA was approved and when I called, I was told to just wait for the shipping label to return my unit. On Nov 19th, I was told that it would be 21 business days from Nov 13th for the replacement for identical and equivalent device. That makes it mid Dec for me to receive a replacement.

Very disappointing that both quality and customer service have gone down.

Dropbox alternative is working fine for me

Recently I got a new phone and found out and tried to install Dropbox on it. New limitation imposed is that I have unlink other devices so that I have max of only 3 devices on the account or pay $10 per month for whopping 1TB of cloud storage and have more devices on the account.

Most working people these days have one office computer, a personal computer, a personal phone or phone provided by the office (sometimes 2 phones) and some have a tablet.

I already have a Google One shared account with my wife sharing 200GB and we really use 100GB with head room. Dropbox would cost us $240 per year if we switched to the Dropbox plus 1TB plan.

I found 2 alternatives. Phones and Tablet (Android and IOS) can connect to Google Drive App anyway. Google Sync works on PC and Mac and you have replacement for Dropbox. If you use Linux such as easy to use ubuntu with much less concern about virus (I had zero virus attack issued with Ubuntu since 2006) and more stable than Mac, Google Sync is not available on Ubuntu or any linux. However, there is a one time paid product called inSync for $29 which can be installed on multiple machines using the same google account to sync. It makes your Google storage work like Dropbox.

There is an alternative to Dropbox if you need no more than 10GB. It is called pCloud from a small Swiss company and it has App for Android, IOS and works on Windows, Mac and Linux. I tried that it works fine.

I will provide some links here to help you migrate from Dropbox. Be aware that these links may change.

Google Free storage: 15GB https://www.google.com/drive/using-drive/
Google One storage: $20 per yr individual 100GB or $30 per yr shared 200GB https://one.google.com/

Google Backup and Sync: https://www.google.com/drive/download/backup-and-sync/

insync for Linux to sync to Google storage: https://www.insynchq.com/pricing

pCloud: https://www.pcloud.com/

Is it time to buy OLED TV? Do you need 8K TV?

LG was the first to market with OLED and Sony uses LG panels. Sony is known to have the best video processor. For a 65" TV Sony is about 50% more than LG and you really may not see the difference IMHO.

However, it has been documented and observed that 2018 model LG OLED TVs have burnin. If you watch a channel like CNN for a long time and you change channel, you will see the CNN logo on the bottom right.  I followed all the announcements by LG on the 2019 OLED TVs and I see no mention of a fix. So, buy it at your own risk.

What is the next best?

It is Quantom Dot LED. Samsung calls it QLED. You can get it for much less if you buy Vizio P series Quantum.

I own a Vizio P Series non-Quantum and it is more than OK. In fact a friend bought Vizio M series 65" for $800 and if I have to comment on visual quality with 10 for Vizio P Series non-Quantum, I would say Vizo M Series is a 7 and QLED or P series Quantum is probably a 12 and OLED a 15 (but there is burnin).

Want to get the best bang for the buck? Look into TCL 6 Series.

Do you need 8K? Hardly any content even at 4K for video. Forget about 8K. In fact, quite a bit of broadcast, cable and streaming is 720p and some 1080i, 1080p and I cannot tell the difference on 4k TV. My photos and video clips are the only use case for 4K TV. For 8K TV, the only use case would be photos. Unless you have lot of cash to burn and want to be the bleeding edge adopter, I would wait for 8K  TV 65" to come down to $3k and then buy a 4K Quantum LED for a bargain. When LG and Sony do not even mention the burnin issue, I am not sure when they would find a solution.

Hope this helps a bit.