I actually prefer modern Samsung variants of Android over Google (aside from the not-updating quickly thing). I really prefer S Planner over Google Calendar, and the Samsung Keyboard is superior to the Google Keyboard too (Samsung's runs much faster).
Samsung has hardware buttons which are extremely useful. They find the way to squeeze them on the bezel which other phones still have and they don't waste space on the screen. S Planner is good but I can't compare it to Google Calendar which I never used. Same for the keyboard. What I can say is that Samsung keyboard wins against SwiftKey and ties against Swype.
