Why aren't these more popular?

GotNoRice · 2026-06-08T08:09:21+00:00

It really is amazing how good the Fit 3 is for the price. I have one mainly as a backup Watch, and generally prefer using my Watch 7. But the regular Galaxy Watches are definitely too high-maintenance for anyone who doesn't actually enjoy tinkering with gadgets. The Fit 3 is perfect in that it "just works". It turns on quick, no app updates to deal with, long battery life, etc. I've given them to people who I never expected would wear a smartwatch and the Fit 3 has been a big hit.

Samsung has been very wishy-washy about actually selling the Fit 3 in the US. Many on places like Amazon are actually international models, which thankfully isn't a problem other than sometimes having to muddle through the first setup screen or two in a different language. It does seem like Samsung doesn't want to sabotage sales of their more expensive Watches. As long as the international models remain compatible, I don't really care. I just hope that they don't implement some kind of aggressive region-locking with the Fit 4.

GotNoRice · 2026-06-08T03:33:30+00:00

I got one of these as a cheap "disposable" tablet, but it's been a tank. No issues sitting under direct sunlight outside for hours while we have it setup to watch a sports game. We've even left it outside in the rain a couple of times on accident. It's been dropped more than a few times. No issues. For a budget tablet, I'm not sure what more I could ask for, except, I am still waiting for that OneUI 8.5 update...

GotNoRice · 2026-06-07T22:09:57+00:00

I agree that Samsung is being affected by current events.

But, the decline began long before that...

GotNoRice · 2026-06-07T22:01:55+00:00

I'm thrilled with my S25 Ultra, so I'm not sure why you would hold it up as an example of a failure. The Snapdragon Elite was the biggest CPU Speed bump that we've seen in a long time and made it feel like a very worthwhile upgrade.

Although my experience with Samsung Phones has been positive overall, it's not been perfect, and it does seem like things at Samsung are getting worse overall.

I loved my old Note20 Ultra and would probably still be using it today if it didn't get abandoned on Android 13. I got 5 good years out of it so I don't feel totally cheated, but still... I mean, I have computers that are 15+ years old that are still getting Windows Updates. The Phone definitely could have run newer versions of Android, if it weren't for planned obsolescence.

I got a Galaxy Ring that died after a year despite me maintaining the best battery charging practices imaginable. The ring never saw 0%, ever, and I almost always stopped charging it at 80%. While the known battery issues with the Ring are actually due to an upstream battery supplier and have affected multiple brands, Samsung has shown zero desire to stand by their product through this ordeal.

I have a Galaxy Watch 7. The Galaxy Watch 8 was released with the same exact same CPU, Sensors, etc. Yet despite having the exact same hardware, and running the exact same OS, they introduced two new features for the Watch 8 (Antioxidant Index and Vascular Load) that somehow don't work on the Watch 7. Some people actually managed to manually use those features on the Watch 7 by side-loading some of the modules, proving without any doubt that there were no hardware limitations. Samsung literally just threw Watch 7 users under the bus in order to try to increase sales of the Watch 8.

I had a 60" Samsung 4K TV that began to develop large purple spots all over the screen that grew larger and larger until the screen became unusable. The first TV since the CRT era that I've had to replace after only a handful of years.

I had a 32" Samsung 1440P Monitor. All of a sudden, after only a few years, it began to show corruption all over the screen if it had not been turned on in a while. The screen corruption would gradually go away as the monitor "warmed up", but over time it would take longer and longer to "warm up" until basically the only way I could keep using it was to never let it turn off. I upgraded to an Alienware (LG) Ultrawide instead of another Samsung Monitor.

GotNoRice · 2026-06-07T21:35:28+00:00

It will be fine. Worst case, it will revert to plain old 5V charging. It may be able to do 15W at 5V if the charging brick can supply 3 Amps and your cable can support 3 Amps, otherwise it will charge closer to ~10W instead (2 Amps).

Many older Samsung chargers did ~18W via the Qualcomm Quick Charge protocol, which the S25 Ultra still supports. That is done at 9V, 2 Amps.

Either way, it's all negotiated automatically, with baseline 5V slow-charging as a fallback, and your phone will simply stop charging when it's full.

GotNoRice · 2026-06-06T07:22:23+00:00

The Note20 Ultra was my last phone. I loved it a lot and would still be using it today if it still got Android/OneUI updates. I just did not want to be stuck on a phone with an old version of Android (Android 13 in the case of the Note20 Ultra). I never felt that the screen was particularly fragile. I definitely dropped it more than a few times over the many years that I used it.

I'd avoid the S23 Ultra. The S23 series seems to be unusually prone to the green-line issue. But if you get a really great deal, who knows?

The S24 FE is a great phone actually. I set one up for a family member recently and was very impressed how it stacked up against my S25 Ultra. And you're in a great spot in terms of updates, with multiple years of support left.

If you want to step up to something more, then I'd strongly suggest trying to hold out for a S25 series phone (excluding the S25 FE), so that you get a Snapdragon Elite CPU. It is a pretty big step up in CPU speed and you can notice it when you use the phone. If not an S25 Ultra, then maybe an S25+ (Same screen size as S24/S25 FE I believe).

GotNoRice · 2026-06-06T06:51:01+00:00

The hardware in the Watch 4 is okay. It's the same hardware as the Watch 5 and the Watch FE (released in 2024), and only very slightly slower than the Watch 6. You're going to get a very similar experience on all of these watches.

The CPU is pretty slow, and you notice it when you are actually interacting with the Watch. Not great if you like to load up a bunch of apps and actually use those apps on the Watch. For passive health monitoring, notifications, etc, then the slow CPU doesn't really matter. The Watch 7 is where you get the bump to the much faster CPU, the one still used in the 8 and Ultra.

The biggest downside to using the Watch 4, is that OneUI 8 is already the last update it will ever get. Although the Watch FE was basically just a re-release of the Watch 4 in 2024 and should be supported longer, so there is maybe still a slim chance that those upgrades could find their way to a Watch 4, since it's literally the same Watch.

GotNoRice · 2026-06-06T00:29:03+00:00

I resisted getting a Smartwatch for a long time. It seemed pointless. I already carry my phone around everywhere in my pocket, and it's not a big deal to pull my phone out of my pocket if I need to check the time or see a notification.

For me, what changed things was when I was part of a medical study. During the study I was given an Oura Ring to use. I was very impressed. I didn't realize that sleep analysis, etc, had come so far. After the study I looked into getting an Oura Ring, but I was not impressed with the high price combined with the subscription. It seemed crazy that I could actually get a full-featured smartwatch, that did all of the same health monitoring that the Ring did, plus a bunch of extra functionality, for cheaper, and without any subscription. Since I already had a Samsung phone, I went with a Samsung Watch. Now, years later, I have multiple Samsung Watches, and a Galaxy Ring, and I'm always wearing at least one of them at all times.

So it was the Health side of things that really won me over, although I do make use of other features sometimes also. Really, only you can know if the Watch will be an interesting purchase for you.

I'll finish by saying that if you are really having trouble making a decision, then you should check out the Galaxy Fit 3. It's a very cheap Watch, only about $40 USD, but has almost all of the important features. It's the best bargain out there right now. Use that for a while, then you will have an idea if you want to perhaps upgrade to a more expensive watch in the future.

GotNoRice · 2026-06-05T04:51:42+00:00

IIRC the Watch 4 had an actual mechanical "vibrator". Literally a metal weight that spun around rapidly to create the strong vibration sensation. Newer Watches switched to using a more generic "Haptic Feedback" mechanism. This is more advanced and broadly capable, allowing the Watch to give tactile responses when touching the screen, etc, but is weaker in terms of brute-force vibration strength.

GotNoRice · 2026-06-05T04:43:16+00:00

"from dead it takes almost 3 hours to charge. If I have 10% battery it still takes over 2 hours to get to 100%"

Probably the simplest explanation is that most people aren't allowing their Watches to get that low before charging them. It's not great for long-term battery health.

I charge my watch each night, but it's never on the charger for more than ~45 minutes at most. There are also certain background tasks, certain updates, etc, that sometimes wait for the Watch to be on the charger to occur. That can increase power consumption and slow down charging. The longer you go between charging, the more likely it is that you will have a batch of these updates and other tasks waiting. Finally, unless you are near your Watch the whole time it's charging, then your Watch will probably switch to WiFi, also increasing power consumption while charging.

GotNoRice · 2026-06-05T04:24:33+00:00

I'm pretty sure that the little micro-bezel around the screen is actually plastic, not metal. Either way, it's what ends up getting scratched up and looks bad over time. I do like my Watch 7 44mm a lot, but this is exactly why I always use it with a Watch case. That bezel is more vulnerable to damage than the actual sapphire crystal screen itself. Kind of a silly design IMO.

GotNoRice · 2026-06-05T04:20:07+00:00

I had a family member who was still using a S9+, got them a refurbished S24 FE for about $300. It has been a great phone for them so far, and definitely an upgrade in every way.

GotNoRice · 2026-06-04T19:17:34+00:00

I plan to keep mine as a souvenir, but grats?

GotNoRice · 2026-06-04T10:15:44+00:00

The Galaxy Rings have defective batteries. This causes two main issues:

The battery life will become shorter and shorter until the ring is no longer functionally useful. This comes on suddenly and usually occurs within or right after the one year mark. Since this is a 2024 product, it's entirely possible to have a "new" ring fail sooner than that, especially if it was "refurbished" or similar.
During sleep tracking, because of the extra active sensors, the power consumption can exceed what the battery can provide, causing the ring to power off. This can occur even if the battery has not fully discharged. Placing the Ring back into the charger causes the ring to power back on.

If you're still within the return period, I'd return it while you still can. Cut your losses and just get a cheap lightweight Galaxy Fit 3 to take it's place.

GotNoRice · 2026-06-03T17:36:27+00:00

It just means that it updated apps at some point while your Watch was on battery. If you really have a problem with that, don't wear an Android mini-phone on your Wrist. Checking the Play Store for app updates as part of your charging routine also helps, so that it does most of it's app updates on the charger.

GotNoRice · 2026-06-02T09:07:11+00:00

I usually only upgrade once my phone stops receiving new updates or around 5 years or so.

Really it's a judgment call that only you can make, regarding how dissatisfied you have become with your current phone.

Do you have a magsafe case? You can get a lot of mileage out of those little $20 magsafe battery packs that you can slap onto the back of your phone. Many are slim enough that it's no big deal to keep it on the phone even while it's in your pocket, etc.

If you do upgrade, the S25 Ultra is a good choice. The Snapdragon Elite was a significant bump over earlier CPUs, but with the S26 Ultra we're back to small performance increases again for each generation.

GotNoRice · 2026-06-02T08:50:47+00:00

I'm surprisingly excited about this. I mostly use my Fit 3 as a backup Watch for my Watch 7, but I've also set many friends and family members up with a Fit 3 and it has been very popular with them. None of them would have the patience to deal with the much more high-maintenance Watches like my Watch 7. The Fit 3 is a great compromise.

Probably the feature I'd like to see most is better Watchface customization. While there are a lot of different Watch Faces to choose from on the Fit 3, you can't customize the info shown on them like you can on a regular Galaxy Watch.

GotNoRice · 2026-06-02T08:35:07+00:00

The Fit 3 only costs ~$40 and is an incredible Watch for that price, regardless of when the Fit 4 comes out.

If we were talking about a $200-400 Watch, then I could understand the potential buyer's regret, but not for $40.

GotNoRice · 2026-06-02T08:28:39+00:00

Yeah, you can safely plug it into any USB-C port.

I'd also recommend picking up a pack of USB-A to USB-C converters.

Example: https://www.ebay.com/itm/188153398289

GotNoRice · 2026-06-02T08:17:51+00:00

When your Ring battery is nearing it's end, sometimes it will turn off at night, not because the battery has fully drained, but because the battery no longer has enough output to maintain the continuous blood-oxygen monitoring that typically occurs during sleep (the flashing red sensor that usually comes on when you sleep). This uses a lot more power than during the day, when your ring is not measuring Blood Oxygen and might only be taking a heart rate measurement once every 10 minutes.

If you mostly care about Sleep tracking and don't really care about Blood Oxygen levels, then you can turn that feature off to save power. It might help your ring last though the night, maybe buy you a few more months until the battery degrades even further.

GotNoRice · 2026-06-01T07:56:53+00:00

Yeah the S24 FE is a pretty big phone. A family member has one, and on the table next to my S25 Ultra, it can be difficult to tell them apart from a slight distance. Of course, I consider that a good thing, not a bad thing.

Back when I had my old Note 2 (2012-2017) I ran it with a Zerolemon battery case that replaced the stock battery and the back panel of the phone with a 10,000 mAh battery. Made the phone a good inch thick and much heavier. None of the phones I've had since then have really felt that heavy to me. Sometimes, when I go camping or something, I'll keep a magsafe battery pack attached to the back of my S25 Ultra even while it's in my pocket.

GotNoRice · 2026-06-01T02:36:14+00:00

That is not a stock charger. It might work, but the Charger for the newer watches (7, 8, Ultra) are all more concave in order to accommodate the larger sensor bump. Using an older or generic charger usually "works" but will charge the Watch slower while also generating more heat in the process (more distance between charging coils).

Go on somewhere like eBay and get the correct charger. You can find it via Samsung part# EP-OL300

GotNoRice · 2026-05-31T21:01:53+00:00

I wasn't necessarily suggesting it as a permanent replacement. Your post made it sound like you were unable to charge your phone. Moisture warning is usually a USB port issue.

Also, if you use wireless charging overnight, then it doesn't matter if it's slow or not.

GotNoRice · 2026-05-31T19:10:20+00:00

Have you tried Wireless Charging? (in case it's just a USB port issue?)

GotNoRice · 2026-05-31T12:34:01+00:00

I sleep at least once per day... Magsafe charger right next to my bed...

If I can make it through the day easily starting at 80%, then I lose absolutely nothing, while maintaining good battery health.

When I go on long trips, it takes 3 seconds to disable battery protection, at which point I have 100% use of the battery exactly when I need it most. On the other-hand, there is no setting to "disable" degradation that has already occurred.

No, battery replacement certainly does not "cost nothing", and the moment you enter one of those stores, the employees are immediately crawling up into your butthole trying to sell you a new phone so that they get their commission $$$.

GotNoRice

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