Samsung

Samsung

Basic information
Founded	1938
Legal Structure	Public
Industry	Manufacturing congolomerate
Also known as
Official website	https://samsung.com/

Samsung Group is a international conglomerate founded in 1938. Their product portfolio ranges from consumer electronics to heavy equipment. The company is best known to consumers for their electronics such as televisions and mobile phones, as well as their home appliances such as refrigerators and washing machines.

Concerns have been raised about Samsung's business practices regarding serviceability, which have been criticized by trade organizations such as iFixit, and Repair.org^[1] as well as industry professionals such as Jesse Cruz the owner of VCC Board Repairs,^{[citation needed]} and former technicians from Samsung's Independent Genuine Service Program, including ADRDaniel owner of Advanced Device Repair.^[2]

• The majority of Samsung Phones have components glued in place, making disassembly and reassembly difficult.^[4][5]
• Samsung has imposed strict conditions on Authorized repair vendors, such as requiring technicians to fully dismantle devices,^[6] and submit handwritten letters if they encounter non-genuine parts during repairs.^[7]
• Genuine self-repair smartphone displays available through Samsung's self-service parts store^[3] are two times more expensive (Samsung Genuine Part: $370.95^[3] Mobilesentrix: $182.02^[8]) than identical, new parts from third parties such as Mobilesentrix, who have allegedly purchased from Samsung's own manufacturing or service partners having 95% of the global market share of OLED display manufacturing.^[8][9] "These 'service packs' from Mobilesentrix are without a doubt new OEM Samsung displays," according to a former Samsung authorized technician.^{[citation needed]} "With no viable aftermarket parts and few refurbished screens to compete with, alongside control of the pricing and supply, Samsung has few reasons to make replacements affordable for phones it and its shareholders want people to keep buying new."^[9]
  • Samsung's self-service repair part selection for their flagship models (such as the Galaxy S24 Ultra, for example) provide no photos, detailed descriptions or distinction between tools^[10] for these models services or parts^[11] for said model.
    • Samsung's genuine-parts store lists exactly 100 sub models of Galaxy S24, using their alternate, longer, and more confusing model numbers in their part-compatibility charts. These numbers specify carrier, region, sub-region, and color distinctions, which are unnecessary for buyers of self-service parts.^[3] An equally comprehensive list of all models (in the table below) from all regions lists only nine distinct models with their legible 7-digit part numbers.^[12] for the display replacement in question the part is universal to all sub models.^[8]
• Newer Samsung TV models have parts with encrypted keys which lock parts to a specific TV set. Service personnel have to enter a passcode to "unlock" major parts when they are replaced, therefore requiring Samsung's permission and potentially restricting the use of second hand parts or even preventing repair of TVs.^[13]

Unlocking the bootloader of an Android device allows tech-savvy users to install a custom Android ROM (Archived), which replaces the whole system of the device.^{[14]← [Wikipedia reference!]} Many Samsung mobile devices outside the US and Canada can have their bootloader unlocked by various means, but this feature comes with many restrictions:^[15]

• When the bootloader is unlocked, Samsung devices have their KNOX fuse tripped if users decided to flash an unsigned file from Samsung, which voids the warranty and restricts access to apps such as: Secure Folder, Samsung Wallet, Samsung Pass and Samsung Health. If an unsigned file haven't been flashed when the bootloader was unlocked, re-locking the bootloader re-gains all KNOX functionalities. These restrictions apply even after re-locking the bootloader after the KNOX E-fuse has been tripped, meaning that gaining control over your own device requires you to give away some of the functionality you paid for and possibly hurting its after-market value.^[16]
• In some instances, Samsung has sold devices capable of bootloader unlocking, but further restricted it with an update. This happened with the Galaxy Tab A 2019 (SM-T290), which had an update to its bootloader that restricted both the ability to flash new firmware and to downgrade to an older, working firmware,^[17][18] therefore restricting users to the sluggish One UI which runs notoriously bad on this device.^[19][20]
• Devices that have shipped with OneUI 8 stable (which includes the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7) or that will be updated to OneUI 8 stable already had or will have their bootloader unlocking mechanisms removed, even if the device was purchased outside of the US and Canada. This makes it impossible to downgrade or flash a new OS.^[21]

Category: Home appliances

• According to iFixit's documentation of Samsung repair, schematic diagrams and service parts were cited in their survey, in collaboration with PIRG^[22] and Repair.org,^[23] of professional repair technicians as "difficult to find service documentation"^[24]
• Repair.org surveyed repair professionals who were able to acquire service manuals from manufactures including Samsung: "Even when they get access to those manuals, technicians sometimes don’t find the information they need. Repair manuals are often lacking fault codes and schematic diagrams needed to complete repairs."^[24][25]

Samsung has refused to implement features highly requested by its user base on several occasions.

For example, a highly requested feature has been an option to always open the rear camera when the camera application is launched, regardless of which camera was in use when the camera application was last exited, to prevent the front camera from opening, resulting in missed pictures.

A "settings to remember" page already exists in the camera settings, but it only includes a setting for the camera mode (Photo, Video, ...), not the camera side (rear, front).

In October 2020, a Samsung representative stated "We are taking this as your suggestion. Thanks for providing your valuable suggestion and your suggestion is very important for us". As of late 2025, Samsung has not implemented this feature.^[26]

Another highly requested feature was for Samsung's web browser "Samsung Internet" to store saved pages in the download folder without data lock-in. This was requested at least since 2020, yet the request has not been acted upon as of late 2025. Some users have stored thousands of web pages using Samsung Internet before realizing they are unable to create backups or move them to external storage.^[27]

As of 2025, the pre-installed camera software on Samsung smartphones is unable to turn on the device's built-in rear LED continuously in photo mode, even though this had been requested before and would be easy for Samsung to implement. This forces the user to rely on third-party applications to be able to use a built-in device feature that the hardware already is capable of, or use an external light source.

A continuous torch light in photo mode has various uses such adjusting camera settings such as focus and exposure in close-up shots in darkness, QR code scanning in darkness with no external light source, and higher eye comfort compared to the short flash. Xiaomi smartphones have had this feature since the 2010s.^[28]

SmartSwitch for PC is now only available via the Windows Store. This updated version is not compatible with older Samsung phones thus syncing with Outlook is no longer possible. Samsung's response to this is that this user's phone is "old and unreliable" despite the fact that it was syncing perfectly just prior to the update of SmartSwitch for PC. When asked if an older version of SmartSwitch can be provided their reponse is "We can't do that." So, yet another example of attempts to force obsolescence of working hardware.

Samsung sometimes imposes restrictions on their users that are technically not necessary. Two examples of such restrictions are on the Galaxy A series, the the lack of a manual flash option at the highest photo resolution of 50 or 64 megapixels depending on the model, meaning only automatic flash is possible, as well as the inability to set the resolution to 50 or 64 megapixels in manual mode.^{[citation needed]}

This is a list of all consumer-protection incidents this company is involved in. Any incidents not mentioned here can be found in the Samsung category.

Main article: Samsung self-repair program restrictions

The terms of use provided to independent repair shop in exchange for parts has intrusive clauses regarding customer data and reporting of third-party components, which suggests forced disassembly when those components are used. The pricing structure of Samsung's self-repair program frequently makes repairs economically impractical. The high costs of official replacement parts, coupled with forced bundling of components, mean that purchasing a single replacement part is often more expensive than buying a working used device. Additionally, Samsung's repair program imposes severe limitations on independent repair shops, effectively preventing them from providing cost-effective, high-quality repair options.

Main article: Samsung sued over S22 performance throttle

In 2022, with the launch of their S22 line, it was discovered that Samsung's phones were thermal throttling while performing regular tasks. This was due to Samsung's Gaming Operation Service (GOS) software causing the phone to perform worse than expected across 10,000 different games.^[29] Citizens of South Korea filed a class-action lawsuit against Samsung on the basis of these claims and the court ultimately ruled in favor of Samsung.^[30]

Samsung completely removed support for it's Tizen-based Gear smartwatches in more recent Galaxy smartphones, completely preventing users of these devices (such as the Gear S, Gear S3, and Gear Sport) from connecting to these newer phones. Users of these smartwatches were notified of this change from a pop-up message in the Galaxy Wearable app.^[31] In addition, Samsung terminated Galaxy Store support for these devices, suspending sales of paid content on September 30th, 2024, downloads of free content on June 25th, 2025 and lastly; any downloads of all owned content on September 30th, 2025. Per Samsung's ToS, no refunds for paid content were to be issued.^[32]

Despite Samsung's dubious claim that "quality" was the reason for pulling support for Gear smartwatches on newer devices, several users found the inability for the watches to connect is merely a software-level restriction that can be circumvented by installing an older version of the Galaxy Wearable app and installing additional plugins if necessary.^[33][34]

Main article: Samsung ads in refrigerators

On September 16, 2025, Reddit user u/angrycatmeowmeow posted screenshots of a software update changelog for their Samsung Family Hub refrigerator that explicitly mentioned the addition of advertisements to the Cover Screen display.^[35] The update was delivered through an over-the-network (OTN) software update that users could not decline without losing smart functionality.^[36]

The advertisements appear on the Cover Screen when the refrigerator display is idle, specifically affecting the Weather, Color, and Daily Board themes.^[37] Users who select Art Mode or Gallery themes can currently avoid advertisements, though Samsung has not guaranteed these themes will remain ad-free.^[37]

Main article: Texas Attorney General sues multiple TV makers over ACR user data collection

On 15 December 2025, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Samsung,^[38] alleging that the manufacturer failed to adequately disclose the data collection capabilities of automatic content recognition (ACR) technology in their smart televisions^[39]. The lawsuit, filed under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, allege that ACR technology captures screenshots of television displays at frequent intervals and that the resulting viewing data is sold to advertisers and data brokers without meaningful consumer consent.^[40]

• Samsung Odyssey
• Samsung SmartCam
• Samsung TVs
• Samsung Smartphones
• Samsung Galaxy Watches