TaiKing

Well it took long enough to happen but an unlocked version for the US market supporting the major carriers has finally appeared. http://www.androidcentral.com/galaxy-s7-unlocked

Yeah, that's not exactly an uncommon thing I had a family member who had an M8 that I ended up having to replace the charging port on myself because I couldn't find anyone that would do it for any sort of reasonable amount. In the end it turned out not to be too bad of a process, the hardest part was making sure I was getting the part with the correct connections which ended up costing like $10 on Amazon.

I don't know about Amazon prime music but this sounds like a thing I've encountered on and off for a long time with Pandora on android. After the app is updated sometimes it gets to where when on wifi it will take forever to load a song and if it does load when it goes to the next song it will skip over multiple songs before it manages to play another one if it does at all. It always seems to work fine over mobile data though. Usually with Pandora an update usually fixes it at some point but over the past couple years they have broken it again multiple times after other updates to where these days if I'm on wifi and want to stream music on android I tend to just go for a different app.

That would be it, on Nexus Devices in the battery screen in the options menu it's "Battery Optimization" too.

This one? http://www.ispot.tv/ad/AkqR/sprint-the-worlds-best-network

I don't suppose they managed to fix the signal bar issue in removing the spinner?

Recurring monthly payment setup.

I just got the update to show up on my old 720T device after reactivating it and then doing a factory reset.

If you haven't done it and are able to you might try using Samsung's Smart Switch PC app that replaced Kies to see if it will let you update it through there.

I'm using one of Samsung's older wireless charging pads, I think the one designed for the S4. This one: http://www.shopandroid.com/samsung-wireless-charging-pad/5A233A16833.htm It works well and I like the raised edges around the outside of it. The S6 sits nicely on it easily getting optimal positioning and I've had no issues with it sliding around which the newer Samsung ones have been more prone to since the phone just sits on top and it uses rubber too try to hold it in place.

Mine appears to have improved decently with the phone sleeping much better. I was experiencing the cell standby issue where my cell standby would be by far my highest use unless i used the screen a lot. It wasn't uncommon for my standby to say it had used 10-15% of the battery by the end of the day and be number 1 use of battery. Since the update i haven't seen it go over 4-5% usage by the end of the day but it still seems a bit high. Before i was seeing with lighter use about 2 hours screen on and my total time not over about 16 hours much, since the update i've been able to get 3 hours out of the screen with the total time sitting closer to 20 hours pretty easily. It hasn't been a massive difference and i'm not sure if it might just be a placebo effect but it has felt better for sure. Though I feel like they still have some issues they could continue to work on to improve it where they have improved some issues draining the battery but have not completely fixed them.

What is the difference in signal strength that you're seeing on the g2 and note 2?

Lollipop update appears to be incoming on both versions of the S4. http://support.sprint.com/support/article/Find_and_update_the_software_version_on_your_Samsung_Galaxy_S_4/WServiceAdvisory_542_GKB51952?INTNAV=SU:DP:OV:UG:SamsungGalaxyS4NonsprintSpark:FindAndUpdateTheSoftwareVersionOnYourSamsungGalaxy#!/

Looks like they're going to give the update another shot. http://support.sprint.com/support/article/Find_and_update_the_software_version_on_your_Samsung_Galaxy_S_4/WServiceAdvisory_542_GKB65037?INTNAV=SU:DP:OV:UG:SamsungGalaxyS4:FindAndUpdateTheSoftwareVersionOnYourSamsungGalaxy#!/ The regular non-Spark S4 also appears to be getting this. http://support.sprint.com/support/article/Find_and_update_the_software_version_on_your_Samsung_Galaxy_S_4/WServiceAdvisory_542_GKB51952?INTNAV=SU:DP:OV:UG:SamsungGalaxyS4NonsprintSpark:FindAndUpdateTheSoftwareVersionOnYourSamsungGalaxy#!/

The online process can be found here: http://support.sprint.com/support/article/Customer_Instructions_for_Change_of_Ownership/2a4c5654-b645-4613-8262-a689a275e885#! This can also be done in corporate stores I know, both account holders just have to be present to sign stuff. I don't know if 3rd party stores can do it or not.

Is connections optimizer turned on under mobile networks in settings?

The one bar thing is a LTE calculation error or something that has existed on several different phones since tri-band devices started. On Samsung phones it goes back to the S4 tri-band even. So that's a completely different issue where if you look at the raw signal RSRP for LTE on like a nexus or a phone on another provider something around say -105 is still shown as a good signal with probably a good 2-3 bars where as on these devices on Sprint that have this issue anything from -100 on down is represented as 1 bar.

The Apple stock example isn't a good example of failing, that $700 to $129.40 example doesn't factor in the 7-1 stock split that happened which brought that price down. So one share when it was at $700 is the same as 7 shares now which actually makes their stock higher value now than when it was at $700 per share.

This is similar to an issue I saw from time to time with my S5 when I would bring back up apps that were running in the background when the data connection was idle. Sometimes they just wouldn't get data and I'd have to completely close them and reopen them or open another app to trigger a data session then they would work fine. It was like the phone refused to bring the data connection out of idle to connect at the apps request when it had been running in the background. On the S6 I don't think I've had this happen or it isn't nearly as prevalent and hasn't caught my attention.

I guess I've been lucky with mine, I haven't had any of the major issues with dropped calls people are having and the RF performance has been performing on par with the S5 i was using so I'm happy, the only issue I've really got is the couple bugs relating to battery life with wifi causing cell standby to shoot up and the google bug with location services that people are experiencing on multiple carriers but I've been able to work around both of those pretty well so even my battery isn't terrible but I'm hoping for an update to address those sometime soon, maybe even 5.1 which should help too.

That's not actually the flipboard app it's a launcher panel Samsung calls "Briefing" that's powered by flipboard. You can turn it off so it doesn't appear by long pressing the home screen until it enters the mode where you can edit the home screens and swiping over to it where there's a checkbox at the top.

Yeah this has been an issue on the flagship Galaxy S devices since they went tri-band with the S4. The only way I can think that this is still an issue is that they don't know about it somehow because they've certainly had plenty of time to fix it. With as well as the Galaxy S series sells this should be a top priority, when most people only see the bars having a phone greatly misrepresent your signal does not help when you're already fighting an image of a poor network.

The one bar thing has been an issue with several Samsung phones on Sprint for awhile, fortunately it's only visual with -100 and lower signal showing as one bar on these phones where on most others -100 is around 3 bars. So the signal isn't actually any worse in that situation but unfortunately to most people at a glance it makes the signal look worse.

I was hoping this issue would be fixed on the S6 but no such luck, the S6 acts just like the S5 with a -100 LTE signal showing the one tiny bar.

I'm getting mine setup and i'll have to see with some more time but initial impressions are that the signal strength is pretty similar to the S5 but with a significant amount less fluctuation than I had on the S5. When first activated it latched onto B25 at about the same signal as my S5. It then moved over to band 41 which I get a weak signal from in my living room and it seems like it might be slightly weaker on B41 but only slightly, my S5 would sit in the -108 to -112 range and if i held it would usually drop B41 and this S6 has varied from about -110 to -115 but the S6 has been relentless for a good solid 30 mins on B41 even holding it where the S5 would bounce off it constantly. Haven't had it jump to B26 yet to get a feel for that at all, and time will tell but I'm happy with the first impression. The performance also appears to be night and day, the S6 was supposed to be much better about lag but I never thought it could be as good as it is appearing to be so far. I'll have to see on the battery life but it would have to be terrible for me to not really like this thing as it is now. Once I get it setup it does have an update I need to install that I hope just makes it better.