Samsung’s latest flagship phone, the Galaxy Note 9 was released not so long ago, and will soon be released in stores all over the globe, if not already. The flagship phone is a very powerful device. Coming with a very impressive battery and Samsung’s all so impressive display, it ticks all the boxes required for a good smartphone, however, it isn’t without its flaws, and even though they may be few, one huge flaw in particular regards the all so infamous Bixby, which quite frankly, just hasn’t caught up.
Previously we saw that most people were not looking to have Bixby on their phones. This was the case with the s8, Note 8 and s9, and if people weren’t all that excited for bixby to feature then it could simply be turned off. However, unlike its predecessor and its siblings, the Note 9 doesn’t quite follow the same pattern, as you cannot turn off Bixby on the Note 9.
Previously, Bixby could be switched off entirely, with the key disabled, so it did nothing, even if you had the misfortune of interacting with it. Unfortunately, Samsung doesn’t let you remap the key to another more useful function, and this looks set to be the feat for Samsung’s coming smartphones as well.
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Now Samsung might have justified integrating bixby the way it did on the Note 9 if it was clear that Bixby was ready for prime time. Comparing Bixby to other assistants, in particular to Google’s assistant, it really doesn’t stand a chance. There are plentiful problems with regards to Bixby. It’s quite frequent that Bixby misreads the user’s voice, and with comparison to all the other popular virtual assistants, including the likes of Alexa, Cortana, and Siri, it has the most robotic voice. So you really don’t get those assistant feels.
Bixby has been updated coming with the Note 9. Bixby adds a new interface and more third-party app integrations with comparison to the Bixby present on the s9, or the Note 8. However, even the updated version isn’t at all up to the mark like I said before, and it still suffers from many issues as the previous versions of the virtual assistant.
And if the assistant isn’t already a pain, then the placement of the button surely is or would be giving you nightmares. The button is placed right under the volume rocker, meaning you’ll probably trigger it many a times more than you intend to. There are reports flowing in that Samsung could issue an update which will allow Note 9 users to disable the button in the future, and if this turns out to be true, then it surely will come as good news for the Note 9 users, however, till then, the suffering will continue.
