I’ve been using my current phone for about 7 years now and it’s well behind on updates and starting to fail in minor but foreboding ways so I’m looking to get a new one and was hoping people here could help me with my indecisiveness.
My greatest requirement is long term support, which immediately puts Google and Samsung at the top of the pack (Fairphone, I see you but you just aren’t supported well in Canada as far as I can tell).
My other biggest interests are display quality, battery life, and customizability. I like the 6.2"-6.3" screen size that both the Pixel 10 and S25 fall in.
I don’t care overly much about the camera beyond quite casual use and I don’t care about gaming on it at all. I don’t plan to use Graphene OS.
Given these preferences do people think one phone comes out over the other? I keep waffling back and forth. I’m also happy to hear about other android models too if someone thinks one fits the bill better that I’m unaware of.
Seems the consensus is Pixel here, but let me just say as an Android user since the very first Android phone, Samsung has a lot more of the original Android spirit in it now than Google does.
I had an original Dream, then a Galaxy S, then different Nexus and Pixel devices until my current S23. I preferred Google phones because they didn’t have bloat, got faster updates, and always pioneered Android.
However, in recent years Google has focused on assistants, AI, and other fluff software services, while actively locking down Android and regressing. I finally said enough when I was running out of space on my Pixel phone and trying to export my hugely bloated Signal history. I didn’t have enough free space on the phone for the backup, and the backup needed to be made locally. I tried to use a thumb drive but found out that in 20fing24 Google only supported FAT32 and thus I hit the 4GB file size limit. I just couldn’t get over how much of a non issue this would have been in the past with SD cards and proper file system support. Things they actively took away in order to push cloud storage. They did the same with video out, not offering it for years to try to push Chromecasts.
When I moved to Samsung I saw that it wasn’t as ugly or candy colored as days of old, and with a custom launcher on it I actually liked it better because the menu and settings didn’t have that ugly big button look that Google came up with. I disabled all the dumb Samsung apps I wouldn’t use, and gave it a shot. I was shocked at how many little quality of life things Samsung put overtop of stock Android. Things where clearly they saw a need and Google wasn’t trying, so they did it themselves. Custom notifications, proper secure folder/sandbox, DeX (which I dock at my workstation at lunch and is awesome!), being able to cast my screen to not only Chromecast but Miracast as well, the list goes on.
So while Samsung is not perfect, I still don’t have a MicroSD card or a headphone jack, I feel they are not as restrictive as Google and embody more of that original Android spirit of improving the OS and adding features. Google has lost it’s way and is turning Android more into iOS every day. If you don’t care about any of this and just want a decent phone, either will do. But the only way I think I would get a Pixel now is if I wanted to put GrapheneOS on it.
Anyway, thanks for coming to my TedTalk.