This One Feature Is Why I Keep Coming Back to Samsung Galaxy Phones

I’ve been lucky enough to have tried and tested multiple smartphones from different brands, but one thing that’s very hard to ignore is that I always end up switching back to a Galaxy phone purely because of this convenient feature — the Samsung Wallet.

Yes, Google Wallet exists and is not locked behind any ecosystem. But in India, it’s still half-baked — especially when it comes to actual payments. And that’s exactly why I keep calling Samsung Wallet convenient. And, there’s a story behind it, too.

I’m someone who forgets their physical wallet more often than I’d like to admit. It happened just the other day, on my way to dinner — I was supposed to pick up the tab. While UPI apps do get the job done most of the time, but as luck would have it, my bank server was down as well. But, that’s when I used one of the stored credit cards in my Samsung Wallet to make the payment. While this story might just cover the basics of this app, there are many more things that make it quite handy.

UPI payments are quite handy

I take a lot of cabs and auto rickshaws during the week, and UPI is usually the way I pay. Over time, I’ve found myself using Samsung Wallet more than my usual go-to UPI apps, mostly because it’s just easier to access. Swiping up brings it up, and from there, the scanner is right at thumb's length.

It doesn’t really offer anything groundbreaking compared to other UPI apps, but the fact that everything’s tied into the same gesture makes it feel a lot more seamless. Speaking of which, I just wish the swipe-up gesture to open Samsung Wallet were a bit forgiving. Because quite often I end up opening the recent apps screen. That’s happened to me more than a few times, usually when I’m trying to pay quickly and end up fumbling with the gesture.

Setting up cards is surprisingly quick

Besides UPI, another thing that I like the most is how easy it is to set up credit and debit cards on the wallet. I recently shifted to the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra as my daily driver and needed to quickly get done with the usual setup, which included importing my cards. That’s when I realised how simple the whole process actually is. The wallet opens the camera, and you just have to frame the card inside the on-screen box. It reads the card number automatically, leaving the CVV and expiry date for you to fill in. Or, even better — if the card supports NFC (which it really should, otherwise there’s no significant point adding it to the wallet), you can just tap it on the back of the phone to register it. You still have to enter the CVV manually since the tap doesn't pull that info. While all my credit cards worked with this trick, my SBI debit card did not follow through, so I went with the first setup process.

Once my cards were added, tap-to-pay on Samsung Wallet became a part of my routine. I’ve used it at cafes, petrol pumps, and shops when I’ve forgotten my physical wallet (shocking). Holding the phone near the POS machine generally works quite well. But Samsung’s NFC antenna sits near the top, just beside the camera module. Sometimes you need to angle the phone precisely, or the payment might not go through on the first try.

That said, it looks like Samsung might finally be fixing this. Early reports suggest that the upcoming Galaxy S26 series could come with a second NFC antenna placed near the top of the phone — similar to how Apple does it. If that turns out to be true, aligning the phone with a payment terminal should become a lot less fiddly.

It also stores essential documents

The Samsung Wallet does not limit itself to a payment system, but also stores personal and necessary documents that can be useful in many situations. I have stored my Aadhar card, PAN card, and driving license. And since I have all these in Digilocker, I could just use that integration to import everything in one go.

This came in handy a few days ago when a courier guy randomly asked for an ID for the delivery. I just pulled up the masked Aadhaar from the Wallet, and the courier person accepted it without much fuss. Same with the PAN card. I had a ton of onboarding forms to fill when I joined Gizbot, and of course, they needed the PAN number in half of them. I don’t carry the card and didn’t have a photo saved anywhere either. So, I just opened the app and got the number.

Of course, storing so much sensitive information in one place, from ID cards to boarding passes and payment options also brings up questions around privacy and security. Samsung says all the right things here: Wallet data is encrypted, protected by their Knox security, and locked behind biometrics. But even with those reassurances, it’s worth remembering that a digital wallet is still a wallet — and keeping it secure means being just as cautious with your phone as you would be with your physical cards and documents.

The handy extras

I usually end up saving all kinds of tickets in the Wallet — flight, movie, even the train ride. When I flew to Barcelona earlier this year to cover MWC, I just added the boarding pass to the Wallet, and that was that. It had the gate, terminal, seat number, all the usual stuff — and I didn’t have to go hunting through my email or airline app while standing in a long security queue. To be fair, Google Wallet does this too (and very well), so it’s not some exclusive Samsung feature. But it’s still one of those things you end up using without thinking twice.

But it's not perfect

That said, Samsung Wallet isn’t without its hiccups. Tap-to-pay, while mostly reliable, can be a bit awkward because of the NFC chip placement near the camera — lining it up with certain machines feels unintuitive, and a second or third attempt isn’t uncommon. The swipe-up gesture to trigger the Wallet can also be frustrating, even after getting quite used to the phone. Card compatibility is another hit-or-miss affair; my Niyo Global forex card didn’t get recognised, which was a bummer considering how useful that would’ve been out of the country.

Once you start piling on documents, tickets, and passes, things can feel a bit cluttered — there’s no real way to pin or prioritise frequently used items, especially cards, and you have to keep swiping through them as if you are searching through a physical drawer. And of course, since it’s tied to Galaxy phones, you lose all of this if you switch to another Android device.

But to be fair, Samsung’s also the only brand doing the heavy lifting to actually make something this well-rounded in India. And that deserves some credit. I genuinely hope more brands follow suit or better yet, Google finally decides to unlock proper payment support for Wallet in India — but that’s unlikely to happen.