Is It Just Me Or Has Samsung Quality Gone Down The Drain?

[Formaleins]

Previously I have bought Samsung products and found them to have been good value for the money, however over the last couple of years they seem to have turned into practically garbage. They seem to be designed to fail just outside their warranty period and then if you try to get service they do not want to know.

I currently have 2 Samsung 32"  flat screen TV's that both have problems just outside their warranty, remote does not work, black lines on the screen, not worth repairing. (I have a third that died a while back and is in the garden as a target practice piece) Hell, I have an old Sony Trinitron TUBE TV from about 16 years ago that is still working) Never get rid of it as no one can carry it!

 

I recently had a Samsung fridge die a death 4 months out of warranty. Then I had a T5 - 250 GB SSD fie a month before the warranty expired. We bought a 42" 4K flatscreen TV that died 3 hours after unboxing it, Galaxy phone died after 1 year.

 

A couple of days ago I had a weird problem with my desktop PC, all was working great and then suddenly the screen froze and I had to reboot it, the problems then really began. You could hear the machine go through POST (The one beep and the drives spinning up) however this thing went into the startup screen where it either boots into Windows or lets you enter the BIOS by pressing F2 or DEL.

 

Well like hell it would, you could not enter the BIOS, not would it boot to Windows, just sat there. Tried everything I could think of, (It is an ASUS Code IX motherboard and has a ton of features that can usually get round most hangups) not this  time, after disconnecting every drive (other than the boot drive) and all of the USB devices, add on graphics cards, so all that was connected was the monitor, keyboard and a mouse - Still the same problem, could not get into the BIOS, would not boot, just sat there at the splash screen.

 

I was thinking the motherboard had gone and was getting a bit worried as it is an older X270 Chipset with an Intel 7700K, and to replace this lot I was looking at around 40-50K Baht to get something similar as no one is selling the old ASUS Code anymore and the i7 7700K fits nothing these days.

 

Finally found a decent tech near me and he got into the BIOS after a few hours, turns out it was the SAMSUNG M.2 NVME 960 boot drive had gone. Contacted Samsung (Eventually - they make it very difficult) to see if it could be replaced (They state 5 year warranty for most SSD's) Well, turns out that the 960 has 3 year warranty, mine is 3 years and 3 months (cost almost 5000 Baht back then) . As you can guess they are not interested, out of warranty.

 

So, I will never buy another product from these people, terrible support, degrading quality.

I run Western Digital mechanical drives (4 TB Black series) I have 3 of them and never had an issue in more than 6 years (apart from one that looked like the post office had used it as a football and was dead on arrival) - So I have ordered a WD NVME M.2 - 250GB "Black" from that Banana IT place today, discounted down to 1490 Baht, going to give it a go. (I would have bought two to replace the damn Samsung 970 M.2 that is probably going to die as it gets near the end of warranty) but they only had one left.

 

Anyone have any experience with the M.2 drives from WD? be interesting to hear what you think - surely they can't be any worse than Samsung!

Edited November 27, 2020 by Formaleins

[clokwise]

I hear you, I've had a Samsung TV die just a couple months after the warranty expired, and a few other electronic items like HDs also died right after the warranty was up.

 

This is all intentional. The way I see it, Samsung quality has actually improved. They are so good at manufacturing electronics now that they are able to build a product is going to last only as long as the warranty, and not much longer. That's good for their bottom line because they don't overspec their design which would make their products more expensive, for them and for the consumer, plus they minimize warranty repair costs. And who knows, if you liked their TV before it died you'll buy another Samsung - another win for them!

 

As for HD, if you want to ensure your data is safe, keep backups! When HDs die there's usually little or no warning.

 

I use a Synology NAS with redundant hot-swappable RAID drives, and do rotating backups, plus I upload the most vital files to the Backblaze B2 cloud. All my devices and computers do automatic backups (eg Time Machine) to the NAS as well. Sound like overkill? Perhaps. This is the result of one too many HD failures in the past. I learned my lesson the hard way.

 

I just bought this Sandisk SSD from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08GV4YYV7/

 

There are cheaper versions but this one just went on sale for Black Friday and even with shipping+duty it's still cheaper then the older and slower model from Lazada. I'd prefer to buy internal SSD, like yourself, but my computer is a iMac, so no go...

 

[Susco]

Consumer electronics these days are designed to last only few years, that is the only way they can produce cheap and always keep selling.

[Gumballl]

Thank god the OP did not buy a Samsung car, otherwise we would really be reading some horrible words/thoughts.

 

[If you happen to be slow at things, Samsung does not make cars.]

 

I am on my second Samsung TV; first was a DLP, and after approximately 8 years, it failed. It was a thrill to toss it away at the landfill. I have bought another (still working to this day), and in addition, I also bought a stainless steel, french-door, style fridge. The latter works great, but I cannot say the same about the ice-maker.

 

In as far as my (second) TV, it is a 50" LED flat screen, and it still works fine after almost 5 years of usage. To replace it, with Samsung or other brand, will cost about $250-$350.... which I would classify as "whoop-tee-doo" money. My brother recently bought a 65" 4K LED (whatever) TV for $460.

Edited November 29, 2020 by Gumballl

[robblok]

Don't seem to have problems with Samsung, did have a 2TB ssd  m2 get destroyed but as it had a 5 year warrantee it was replaced. Samsung tv and monitors seem good. My Samsung phones seem to last long enough (more then 3 years)

[dddave]

When buying from Samsung, a large percentage of the price if for promotion expenses as they advertise and promote aggressively.  They also spend a lot on R&D.  You're paying for all that

Other companies, Xiaomi, One Plus, TCL for example, spend far less on promotion and more on quality components thus lower prices/better quality. 

[Susco]

3 hours ago, Gumballl said:

 

[If you happen to be slow at things, Samsung does not make cars.]

 

Talking about slow

 

https://carbuzz.com/news/look-samsung-has-built-a-car

Look! Samsung Has Built A Car

 

The Renault Samsung Motors XM3 Inspire Concept is currently enjoying its world premiere at the 2019 Seoul Motor Show whre keen observers will note that it bears more than a little in common with the Renault Arkana which debuted at the Moscow International Auto Salon in Russia last August.

 

[Formaleins]

On 11/29/2020 at 9:10 AM, Gumballl said:

Thank god the OP did not buy a Samsung car, otherwise we would really be reading some horrible words/thoughts.

 

[If you happen to be slow at things, Samsung does not make cars.]

 

I am on my second Samsung TV; first was a DLP, and after approximately 8 years, it failed. It was a thrill to toss it away at the landfill. I have bought another (still working to this day), and in addition, I also bought a stainless steel, french-door, style fridge. The latter works great, but I cannot say the same about the ice-maker.

 

In as far as my (second) TV, it is a 50" LED flat screen, and it still works fine after almost 5 years of usage. To replace it, with Samsung or other brand, will cost about $250-$350.... which I would classify as "whoop-tee-doo" money. My brother recently bought a 65" 4K LED (whatever) TV for $460.

Sorry for the late replies but my Samsung Boot Disk Failed! I forgot to mention that my Samsung vacuum cleaner also died recently and was set up at 50 yards for target practice, lovely to watch it get blown to bits, never buy Samsung again - Wait til you try their online customer "Support" they seem to get back to you after about 8 months!

[Formaleins]

On 11/29/2020 at 8:39 AM, clokwise said:

I hear you, I've had a Samsung TV die just a couple months after the warranty expired, and a few other electronic items like HDs also died right after the warranty was up.

 

This is all intentional. The way I see it, Samsung quality has actually improved. They are so good at manufacturing electronics now that they are able to build a product is going to last only as long as the warranty, and not much longer. That's good for their bottom line because they don't overspec their design which would make their products more expensive, for them and for the consumer, plus they minimize warranty repair costs. And who knows, if you liked their TV before it died you'll buy another Samsung - another win for them!

 

As for HD, if you want to ensure your data is safe, keep backups! When HDs die there's usually little or no warning.

 

I use a Synology NAS with redundant hot-swappable RAID drives, and do rotating backups, plus I upload the most vital files to the Backblaze B2 cloud. All my devices and computers do automatic backups (eg Time Machine) to the NAS as well. Sound like overkill? Perhaps. This is the result of one too many HD failures in the past. I learned my lesson the hard way.

 

I just bought this Sandisk SSD from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08GV4YYV7/

 

There are cheaper versions but this one just went on sale for Black Friday and even with shipping+duty it's still cheaper then the older and slower model from Lazada. I'd prefer to buy internal SSD, like yourself, but my computer is a iMac, so no go...

 

I went from Seagate mechanical drives that were guaranteed to fail after about 2 years, not worth the hassle despite warranty. I moved over to Samsung M.2, then I just changed over to Western Digital Black and apart from one that was DOA they are so much more reliable. The 4TB Blacks look like they will run forever. Just bought a WD 250GB NVME as my new boot drive, having a few issues with WD Support trying to activate the 5 year warranty as the drive I bought was made in 2018, but eventually they will come around and accept the warranty.

Edited December 14, 2020 by Formaleins