S8+ is by no means a cheap phone. But I've had to deal with 2 main issues for slightly more than a year.
1. Lousy gps tracking for my fitness tracking apps - Strava and S Health. The map and mileage goes haywire whenever the phone can't find gps location and I ended up with less mileage than what it should be. I also occasionally use Runkeeper when I really wanted to double check my activities data. I have contacted Samsung and the technician helped me troubleshoot the phone. It was OK once and then it happened again... and again... and again. I hated the fact that I can't properly track my fitness activities and get proper yearly record and average.
Turned out, probably the phone cannot be on Power Saving mode while tracking my activities. I realized when I turned on my Runkeeper, the app won't work unless I turned off the power saving mode. So with all the apps tracking, the map and mileage record was spot on, thanks to Runkeeper request to turn off power saving. So that could be it. Will try go remember this from now on. However, this will be an issue when I went hiking for days and want to track my route as well as conserve phone battery 🤔 Bringing 2 powerbanks once give me problem at Nepal airport.
2. Every now and then my rear camera will be blur. The front camera had no issue. I have no idea why this happened. I normally keep the phone in my pants pocket while doing my activities. I thought the moisture from sweat caused it. It is supposed to be ip68 phone. It will go away after few days. So I thought I should keep the phone away from my body heat... in a bag or on my bicycle. I just recovered from the blurry camera problem again which happened after cycling. The phone was nowhere near my body. It was on my bicycle. After reading through androidcentral forum, someone suggested tapping at the top right corner of the phone. Apparently it's because of the macro mode not switching to the normal mode. Duh! Did the tap and wallah.... problem gone.
Shouldn't happened on expensive phones right? Or so you thought. I almost change my phone brand because of these 2 problems. Imagine I went hiking somewhere and the view is breathtaking but the damn camera is blurry and I can't get accurate data about my hike 😲
I'm also using Gear Sport for my fitness tracking.
I almost denounce everything Samsung because of the 2 problems. Good thing I'm not iPhone fan and despite considering the best Huawei phone, too many issues on security and such in the news. Hopefully with the solution discovery, it can serve me for few more years. I was on Note 3 for 4 years, Note 2 for a year plus but the waterproof case malfunction on island hopping trip caused the upgrade.