While Android as a whole continues to shrink in the US, Google Pixel keeps growing

I use a pixel and I have a hard time justifying a different phone.
Maybe things have changed but the last Samsung I had was an S7 and I didn't like it. It suffered from bloat and didn't last all that long. Battery issues and the screen started to lose sensitivity.
I've used iphones and they aren't bad, but I really dislike apple's app store and effort to control everything on my phone. Also everytime a new phone came out my old phone became next to unusable for a month.
I got a pixel 3 and loved it, now I have a pixel 6 and don't see changing my phone any time soon or going to a non-pixel phone. They last a long time, they work well with everything and the camera is excellent.
- I have a hard time justifying a different phone
  A pixel doesn't have SD card slot or 3.5 mm jack. My Xperia 1V has both. There. Justified.
  
  I mean most consumers don't care about those 🤷‍♀️
  
  While I understand the appeal, those are 2 features that I don't need. Having the option would be nice though.
  
  I'm looking to switch from Samsung to a non-Google phone, It's too bad no networks seem to carry the Xperia in Canada. Really don't want to shell out $2000 up front for a phone.
  
  You know I used to be with you on the SD card slot thing because phones used to have barely any internal storage. But now we're seeing phones with hundreds of GB of onboard storage and having an SD card expansion on top of that feels wholly unnecessary.
  I'm with you on the 3.5mm jack tho.
  
  Your phone doesn't have an adaptive refresh rate screen, a good auto camera, etc etc. Swings and roundabouts.
- I've used https://shop.fairphone.com/ for a while now, a bit less slick and more expensive, but I'm very satisfied. I already degoogled completely, can't have a Google phone now :D
  
  What does Fairphone offer for the car infortainment interface, or are you stuck without one?
  
  Which OS do you run on it?
- The maddening thing is how much effort Samsung wastes duplicating basic gapps. Their contacts manager, calendar, etc has no real advantages over the Google ones. Just focus on the hardware and overall experience? Stop wasting time reinventing the wheel. Same with their app store. I've had an S20 for the last 4 years. Used Samsung since the S2 which I still have. And am looking at a pixel to replace it since my security updates are running out.
  
  The maddening thing is how much effort Samsung wastes duplicating basic gapps. Their contacts manager, calendar, etc has no real advantages over the Google ones.
  They do have advantages over the google ones though. One big advantage is that "they're not google ones".
  Stop wasting time reinventing the wheel. Same with their app store.
  A google monopoly should be the last thing anyone wants. You should be wishing more developers would put their apps on the Samsung Store along with any other stores.
- Can you explain what you mean by bloat with the s7? I have that and like my phone, just wondering why others don't.
  
  I remember having an S6 and it come with so many apps preinstalled that you can't uninstall. There's the default Google/android apps which is fine because those are the basics. Then Samsung puts a bunch of their own apps on there that basically duplicates a bunch of these and can't be uninstalled, and then there's other bloat apps like Facebook, maybe candy crush or some shit, maybe Netflix, that all can't be uninstalled. The worst offender is Facebook because it was on almost any other phone not running stock android but supposedly had deeper privileges as a "system" app
  
  I don't know what OP is talking about, by the time the S7 came around the bloat was already heavily reduced, I'm on an S10E still and think it's one of the best phones ever, apart from the lackluster battery maybe. But current day Samsung Android I don't consider bloated.
- Yeah I would never buy a non-Pixel phone now.
- They're right at the top in the battery department, there's still a little bloat but you can disable things. Maybe 5 garbage games and FB
- Maybe things have changed but the last Samsung I had was an S7
  An S7 may as well have been a Symbian phone compared to the OS Samsung phones now run.
- Still using an S7E to this day as the battery seems basically indestructable...
  The one single weak spot? I actually had to replace the glue.

- I FUCKING LOVE FLASHING CUSTOM ROMS WITHOUT VOIDING MY WARRENTY

GrapheneOS is what keeps me from switching from Pixel.
- Watch the Louis Rossman video on YouTube about Graphene OS developer.
  
  One of the Lemmy developers appears to be a militant communist who denies the Uyghur genocide, yet here we are. Quite a few open source developers are insane and trying to avoid software with problematic contributors is an easy path to follow them into madness. It might stop me from donating money or getting heavily involved with development, but it's not going to stop me from using the software.
  I didn't immediately reformat my ReiserFS partitions when Hans Reiser was arrested for murdering his wife either.
  
  That developer stepped down
  
  I apply the rule of separating the Art from the Artist in this case. No doubt he is insane but Graphene OS is the most secure+private OS that he has build
  
  You should watch it again. He said that GrapheneOS is great, but the Developer isn't.
  
  https://youtu.be/4To-F6W1NT0
  This one?

Google keeps locking tons of Android features away behind their own privatized software stack.
Better for Google, but they are cutting their nose to spite their face here, as Android as a whole suffers for it.
Stuff like call screening in the android dialer would be possible on any brand of device. But no, pixel only.
The pixels have the very best android experience. It comes close to iPhone. But pixels aren't the whole market. Overall Google is trying to claw back control of the entire platform and I hate it.
- The problem of android is that it is "fake opensource". The OS itself is open source but google locks it down with GMS so google still controls everything.
  
  There needs to be a 3rd mobile platform that isn’t tied to Android
  There wont be a 3rd platform for the same reason that America wont have a 3rd Political Party.
  You'll never edge out the incumbents.
  
  RIP Windows Phone
  
  Hello, it actually exists and they started developing it with crowdfunding (now it seems like they are self-sustaining with sales)..... Do you know Puri.sm?
  They started some years ago creating a new Linux phone, the Librem 5, and they are developing firmware support and a mobile GNOME interface around it that also other project, like PinePhone, is using.
  
  If you have any corporate backing wouldn't it turn back into same situation as Android? Maintaining the app store, build tools, making new features, patching vulnerabilities e.t.c all require massive amounts of capital. Why would a company openly take initiative to do that? Meanwhile all others could free ride on it? Also any OEM's coming in and customizing it to their liking and not following the standards because they are not bound too like in Android, wouldn't that cause massive fragmentation. Back in the Symbian days this was the case where you need to customize your app slightly for each Symbian device, which meant you had to have the physical device. I remember back in the back in the day your office would be filled with these devices.
- Stuff like call screening in the android dialer would be possible on any brand of device. But no, pixel only.
  Other OEMs also have their own features that are exclusive to their own phones. They can also implement them into AOSP, but they don't. Instead, they keep the features to their own devices. A lot of times when there's a new feature on Android in general, more often than not you'll see comments like "Samsung had this since years ago".
  So if other OEMs are allowed to have platform specific features, Google is allowed to have theirs too. Or in other words, if you want to hold Google responsible for holding back Android, you have to also hold other OEMs responsible too.
  
  Google owns the platform. You're not really comparing like to like.
  It's like saying since Google can modify some files in Windows that Microsoft doesn't control the platform.
  Sony upstreams many of its changes, but you're right that Samsung does not. This is both because of differentiation, but also because often the changes are in defiance of the "official" Google spec in android and merging is refused.
  One plus for example offers further customization on gesture input that is missing in Android 13, allowing corner bottom swipes, hiding the little nav line, etc. But this cannot merge.
  Google has decided a "solution", to hell with if your features are better. I would love to see these features in android mainline. But Google won't allow it. Sony made a theme system years ago, but Android wouldn't fully merge it, and took another 5 or so years to make something.
  
  Other OEMs also have their own features that are exclusive to their own phones. They can also implement them into AOSP, but they don’t.
  Well no, they can't just implement them into AOSP - the owners of AOSP have to approve any and all changes into AOSP. Who's that? Google.
- The pixels have the very best android experience.
  I agree with the rest of your post, but not this. The best android experience to me is the one that isn't the most locked down, but the one that is most open and customisable - Samsung. I've got a few pixels, and funnily enough my last Pixel I owned was what lead me to switch to an iPhone. I figured if I was going to have a heavily locked down non-customisable phone, it may as well be the one that's the best at it, which is the iPhone.
  
  How exactly is a Pixel locker down and not customisable?
- I think it's beneficial for Google to distance itself from Android. By default, it's way too entangled with Google services. It would be nice to have Google call screening on every Android device, but is it really that far fetched to expect manufacturers to develop their own suite of features? I wouldn't expect iOS to have Android's features of vice versa.
- The AOSP dialer is based on an older version. Google removed it going forward.
  Agreed, but then why not make an api for your "open operating system" so users of Samsung/One Plus /Sony/etc could see the dialer with their call screening /assistants if they so choose?
  Instead of just removing the dialer entirely. https://www.androidauthority.com/google-kill-android-aosp-dialer-messages-app-3334980/

Samsung and major carriers are shooting android in the foot with the bloatware. There are less and less viable android models that aren't half filled with carrier or manufacturer specific apps that can't be deleted. The pixel might be a tool of the Google devil but at least it provides the illustration of customization. iPhones are still Iphones. People they phone is pretty much the same butvthe hardware gets slightly better. Combine all that with messaging on Iphones essentially excluding android and ut becomes though to stick with anything but a Pixel or iphone. If I didn't have lots of Google stuff setup for work I might reconsider iphones, but the pixel really has made my life easier via Google big brother. If work used apple big brother I would switch.
- At this point google is pretty much the only company providing an Android experience that isn't shit
  Anyone I've met that hasn't liked it has used a Samsung. They try so hard to be apple but they don't understand the parts that work and just create an overall bloated and shitty experience
  Doesn't help that they have overpriced everything
  
  Fairphone provides stock Android.
  
  At this point google is pretty much the only company providing an Android experience that isn’t shit
  They try so hard to be apple but they don’t understand the parts that work and just create an overall bloated and shitty experience
  These 2 sentences are the complete opposites of each other. Google are the ones trying to be apple, removing customisation and dumbing everything down. Samsung are the ones that are providing the android experience that most people want, which is why they outsell Google 100 to 1 or more.

It's still 45% marketshare Android vs 55% iOS. With the way the title reads, you'd think Android was down in the single digits and barely hanging on.
Personally I just don't see how anyone uses iOS. The iPhone I have is just awful. The UI is clunky and I'm absolutely baffled why this stupid phone weighs so much. That's not a good thing, damn it. My Samsung is infinitely better device in my opinion. But I'd still love to see a third player come in. I was sad when Microsoft killed off their phone OS. It might not have been great at the time, but more competition is always better. And then if course there's also PalmOS. So sad to see such a cool OS die off.
- iOS seems to be meant for simplicity and ease of use. I mean, not that Android is confusing at all, but it seems that the less tech focused you are the more you gravitate toward iOS. I would never want an iPhone, but they seem to really kill it in the battery and camera departments.
- The UI is clunky
  What do you mean by this? Is this just another "snappy" type thing that is meaningless?

- iPhones are the only the biggest by market share in very rich countries like the nordics, US, UK and a few others, with a bias towards anglophone countries I'd say. https://deviceatlas.com/blog/android-v-ios-market-share
  
  Basically the countries where people can afford to buy the phone that they want.
- Honestly, even in my part of the US I mostly see Androids.
  
  In western new York seemingly I'm the only one with "the poor man green bubble" even tho my phone was 1,600$ and nicer hardware and build than an iphone.
- I believe that's true for most markets, it sure is in central Europe.
- Android is number one everywhere but the us. The us is apple centric. Their loss.
  
  The US in brainlessly-adoring-corporations centric.
  Which is exactly the reason while Android is shrinking in the US while Google is growing.
- Android is the most used phone OS in poorer places. Places like india for example are like 99% Android, and they sell a boatload of cheap, bad phones. iPhones are the most used in the richer places in the west.

I feel like Google really hit their stride with the Pixel 6/7 series. The 7 series especially is just such a nice phone to use and doesn't feel as cheap as previous iterations of the Pixel. It's also great value for the money. I went with the Pro and would recommend against it honestly, because while I like the extra camera and the bigger screen it really doesn't fit great in the average persons hand and the features don't really justify the cost. If I had to do it over again I would get the 7 or 7a.
- I honestly think the Pixel 5 is the best phone I have ever used. I have the P7 and I kind of wish I had stuck with the P5.
  
  Pixel 5 user here and I have to say I am going to make it last as long as I can! Battery still keeps its charge all day even as a fairly big user too!
  
  I actually returned the Pixel 7 earlier this year, because of its size, weight, awful display (rainbow effects when viewing it at a slight angle) and fingerprint reader.
  I also found the camera to be noticeably worse when doing closeup shots (which is what I do the most with my phone's camera). All the pictures I took from the battery replacement of my Pixel 5 are slightly unsharp because of the 7's camera. I later learned that you can use 2x zoom to workaround the problematic lens, but for the price of the phone I consider this to be unacceptable.
  I got it at a discount and still found the phone to be too expensive for what it is.
  I preordered the Pixel 5 (the only preorder I've ever done) to receive the Bose QC35 headphones as well. It was a great and well-priced package and I use both products to this day. The Pixel 5 is just right in my opinion. It has the right size, weight and hardware and its fingerprint reader is reliable (as long as it is dry). The vibrator is terrible in comparison to the Pixel 7, but everything else is better in my opinion.
  I am really not sure what phone will be the replacement for my Pixel 5 ... I either want a phone with GrapheneOS or mobile Linux. It has to be more compact and lighter than the Pixel 7 though.
  
  For me it was the 2XL.
  That camera was just 5 years ahead of everything else, fruit included.
  Got a 5 after that, but the selfie cam was crap. And to some extent, it still is on current models. I wish Google did something about it, I can't be the only one noticing.
  
  I'm riding 5 until it dies. Love it
- I love the size and feel of the 7a. It was an adjustment to get used to a small screen again but honestly, so happy with that element of the phone.
  The battery life, on the other hand, feels worse than my 4 year old OnePlus 7 Pro's is. I am not sure if it's a me problem or a Pixel problem, but that aspect has me seriously worried about the longevity of the device. I guess you get what you pay for, but I'd expect a bit better for a mid-range phone.
  
  It's, unfortunately, a Pixel problem. The Tensor G2 is notoriously bad with battery life, and the fact that every manufacturer thinks we want paper thin phones doesn't help.
- Respectfully disagree. I've been with Google phones since the Nexus 6p. Upgraded to the Pixel 2 which I still have and still works, then to the 5a which I hated, and now the 7pro. I didn't think it would ever get better than the 2, but the telephoto lens on the 7 pro plus pretty much everything else still amazes me now over a year later. It's perfect and I'm happy I didn't go cheaper.
  
  Don't get me wrong, I love the telephoto lens, but I have a strong feeling I would sacrifice the extra lens for a smaller screen. Then again I do watch a lot of videos so who knows. I think the biggest problem is there isn't really a way to test the two side by side to see.

Thanks grapheneOS!

As someone who switched to a Pixel from an iPhone, I'll tell ya that I think the Pixel is a better phone. The only things iOS has going for it that are better is tap to scroll up, swipe to go forward, and a slightly better camera. Everything else works better on my Pixel.
- The camera is a bit subjective and varies by generation. The tech and algo on the backend has more effect on the pictures than the camera on most pictures these days. I think the pixel does much better wide angle and scenic type photos.

A pixel with custom firmware that removes the Google is my preferred phone choice.
- Is there a way to recover the stock OS if you brick it?
  I know PCs are completely fail-safe in this regard, since you can always factory reset the machine by booting an installation image of the stock OS, but what about phones?
  
  Google makes it very easy to flash Pixels back to stock through Chrome browser. Recently I was trying to flash /e/os to my Pixel 4a 5G. I bricked it 6 times and still can't get it to install but I was able to flash back to stock easily. I recommend Graphene OS on the Pixel of you want to start taking back your life and start removing Google from it.

When you've got a miniscule market share it's much easier to increase it than it is when you have a much larger market share.
- This. People that can afford a higher-end phone still can. Everyone else doesn't have the money right now due to inflation and the income gap widening etc. IPhone and Pixel are the most well-known higher-end phone brands.
  Feel free to correct me if it gets more complicated than that.
  
  IPhone and Pixel are the most well-known higher-end phone brands.
  iPhone and Galaxy. Pixels aren't well known (or if they are, they're not desired), hence the teeny tiny market share.

Can't wait for the entire cell phone market to be a monopoly...

I got a pixel 7a about 6 months ago. It's a brilliant phone, once you remove all the google shit / bloat and block all the trackers.
- GrapheneOS on my Pixel 7.
  
  GrapheneOS on my Pixel 5.
  
  I wanted to try it out today. The install looked intimidatingly-complex to me, is there an 'easy mode' installation method?
- For me, it's the lack of a replaceable battery and the lack of an SD card slot. Otherwise, it would be a perfect phone to tinker with software-wise with all the custom ROMs that are available for Pixels.

It would be nice if they didn't limit the countries you could buy them from.
- So true! They can’t be bought where I live.

Is there an Android phone that supports dual boot? I would like to have that so can use Lineage or something similar and only boot into Google android when I need to use banking app or government ID that requires the safetynet antifeture. This would free me from carrying two phones. But I suppose a locked down bootloader can not support dual boot and an unlocked will not support the safetynet antifeature.
- Use Magisk, it bypasses SafetyNet. No need for dual boot https://github.com/topjohnwu/Magisk
  You must install the Universal SafetyNet Fix afterwards https://github.com/kdrag0n/safetynet-fix
  
  Tkank you. I already had magisk. I tried installing the safetynet-fix, bit unfortunately it did not resolve the issue on my Xiaomi Mi A2 phone.
  
  There's risk in that. Unless you go through a bunch of other steps to hide magisk, there's quite a few apps that will stop working or flag you just for having magisk, and some games may even ban you from playing. Namely Pokémon go.
- [This comment has been deleted by an automated system]
- almost every good android phones have locked bootloaders.
  
  Get a pixel and install GrapheneOS. The whole install process is painless and easy.
  There is also this about SafetyNet Attestation

As an iOS user the bloat on android is a huge turnoff for me.
I’d potentially switch to a Samsung if it didn’t have all that stuff pre installed on it.
It may be the second biggest reason I’m sticking with iOS. Of fact, if they got rid of bloat and iMessage was available on Android, I’d jump over in a second.
- Well there's your problem. You're looking at Samsung phones.
  Honestly, they're one of the worst when it comes to bloatware. They do it because their devices are so popular that they can get away with it. Stick with a Pixel, and you can't go wrong.
  (BTW, what's with iPhone users' obsession with iMessage? Google Messages has the same capabilities. Not trying to hate; genuinely curious. If your only experience with texting on Android is with using whatever came with your device, then I understand why you'd prefer Apple's implementation. That's the whole appeal of Android: if you don't like how a component works, you can swap it out.)
  
  To answer the iMessage thing.
  I’m from the states but live in a different country. It’s the easiest free way to stay in touch with family and friends.
  A number of people have been like “just move to X and if they don’t follow, then forget about them.”
  But it’s not really realistic to ask all the people I might contact throughout the year to switch to a new app in case I contact them.
  So I truly feel locked in because of that.
- Can you explain what you mean by bloatware? Do you mean all the apps the phones come installed with, or do you mean something else? Would it be simple to uninstall what you don't want? Curious bc I have a Samsung phone.
  
  Well here are a few examples.
  I don’t like having Facebook and stuff on the phone. If I want the app, ill download it.
  Secondly, I do not want multiple calendar apps and browsers on the phone by default.
  I don’t need chrome and the Samsung browser.
  I also do not think I need to setup a samsung account and a google account and have backups in both places.
  I guess it’s just a little overwhelming.
- I’d potentially switch to a Samsung if it didn’t have all that stuff pre installed on it.
  Samsung makes it incredibly easy to just disable all the "bloat" that you don't like - you can do it through the battery settings. Simply set the apps you don't want to be disabled and never let them start by themselves or run in the background. Problem solved.

My Android phone fucking blows. The one I had prior was great but I lost it. I hate the constant alerts from the apps I can't delete, I can't take up close photos anymore without it looking like shit and not focusing, the screen will flip horizontal at random times when it's got the lock screen option turned on. I don't want a Google phone, though.
Anyone have opinions on the OnePlus phones?
- Apps you can't delete? Gotta be Samsung?
  
  Apps you can’t delete? Gotta be Samsung?
  Pixels have about 25-30 Google apps that you can't delete.
  
  I used to have a Samsung Galaxy S6, I rooted it so I could remove the facebook app... turned out they built a custom circuit in a little chip that permanently breaks NFC if you rooted it. Ridiculous.
  
  Yep, I hate it so much
- You can disable alerts on a per app basis
  
  I've done that before but after updates it seems to reset for some reason? Having to do it over and over is frustrating, unless I'm missing something which is not outside the realm of possibility
- Look into a Nothing Phone as well as you look.
  I'm biased but I like my Pixel 7 Pro quite a bit, though the Pixel 7 is also good.
  Doesn't really matter if it's a Google phone or not though: They track you the exact same unless you fully rip out all Google Services, which also means ripping out all banking apps and the Play store.
  
  Yeah, that's a good point. I feel like in terms of tracking you have to unplug completely to be successful. No Square card readers, no social media, no Google anything, not to mention having to vet every service you use which doesn't feel like it would be worth it.
- I've been using oneplus phones for years and theyre awesome but I'm not running the oxygenOS that it comes with, I'm running lineageOS or other AOSP type of roms.
  Haven't messed with the stock oxygen (I think it's called ColorOS now?) in a while, but maybe will check it out. Far as I knew it didn't really come with any bloat ware?
- Had a OnePlus for quite a while, battery was pretty bad and heated up like crazy.
  
  Sounds like a defective battery. It happens. Mine works fine.
- I have a oneplus. Zero bloatware. The only downside is that the pictures are not as pretty as apple, that's about it.
- OnePlus used to be good and reasonably priced, now it's just another also-ran at the same price point as everything else.
- oneplus has its own sort of problems
  I've heard ram management sucks on oneplus 11 with 12 GB ram because they keep killing apps in background to preserve battery(even after using the phone for weeks so it should've adapted)
  you should give grapheneos on pixel a try I'm using it on pixel 7 and all the apps that I use work(mostly, only bank apps have problems, check this user contributed list for verified bank apps https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compatibility-with-grapheneos/

I bought my phone for £150 and it's great. I don't understand why people spend £600+ on a phone.
- I think the sweet spot is somewhere around the 300€ range. Below that you definitely already get perfectly reasonable phones, but you still have to make compromises. But at that price point you get most things and the missing features are not as important.
  Past that diminishing returns are hitting hard.
  The one thing that usually scales the most past that point is the camera. But a phone like the pixel 6a already takes amazing photos. And the only real difference you usually find are extra lenses (particularly zoom).
  The only time i could ever see those 1k top phones start to make sense is, if we ever get to the point where phones can replace our personal computers and you just slot them into a dock at home.
  
  You can dock a Samsung phone and it become like a personal computer
- I bought my phone for £150 and it’s great. I don’t understand why people spend £600+ on a phone.
  Compared to a 600 dollar phone, the camera on your phone is garbage, the build quality is garbage, the performance is garbage, as are most other things. People like good things.
- Take a look at how the median income in America compares to your country.

I definitely bought a used phone last time. It's has literally nothing wrong with it and was about $350. New phones are for suckers.
- It’s totally a gamble though. The fact that you have to state that there is nothing wrong with it proves that it is a concern.
  So it’s good there was nothing wrong, there was a chance you would be stuck with a $350 brick.
  
  Never had a bad experience with Swappa
  
  Nope. Got it from Backmarket. You can just return it, no questions asked.
  Although they sent it in an Amazon package, so I guess it was from Amazon. Either way, just select the top quality used one and return it if there's any issues.
- For $350 I'd rather buy last years model new when it goes on sale.

Any phone without an sd card slot is a direct skip to me
- I used to feel this way too, but now that phones are starting to come with 128GB or 256GB of storage by default, I'm finding I just don't need it.
  
  It's plenty for most people but not for me

If Google's custom soc is good I'd love to finally own a pixel. Hate having to use chinese phones to get non bloated android at a reasonable price.
- The Pixel has been the only non bloated Android phone I have used.
  
  The Pixels are some of the most heavily bloated phones around though. They have 25+ google apps installed by default that you can't remove.
  
  I think he's talking about using custom Roms
  Chinese phones are popular for that
- The a line of pixel phones is great too. Unlike other brands that gimp the shit out of everything below their $1100 option, the pixel a just makes the full fat ones feel like a worse deal

I feel like a bit of a unicorn for using a Nokia 5.4. Never met another person that uses any of Nokia's recent smartphones. 😭
- Nokia still makes smartphones!?!?!?!?!?
  (Well at least now you know what the problem is. Why aren't they advertising this?)
  
  Not really, the company is called HMD Global, Nokia has an investment in it and there are probably a lot of former Nokia employees working there, but it's not a subsidiary.
  
  Yep, they sure do! They target the budget market and therefore are competing mainly with Moto in that area, and even still make feature phones too.
  I do wish I saw more marketing for them. The only reason why I even bought my original Nokia 3.1 and then my 5.4 is because I deliberately go out of my way to keep an eye on their products.
- I remember my 6.1 bought in 2018 at a Best Buy, it was a really cool phone, solid and all, I like Nokia phones.
- Is it bloatware free like pixel and Motorola or it has some nokia cloud/store preinstalled?
  
  Bloatware free. =)
- The camera on my 5.4 isn't horrible but it's not great either. But I knew that before buying it; I'm not picky about the camera.
- I don't consider HMD Global phones, because they don't allow unlocking the bootloader.

I had a Xperia 1III I really enjoyed using it, but my fingerprint sensor just quit work on it on day. Outside of the warranty too so it doesn't help. So I upgraded to a Pixel 7 Pro as I had a 4XL prior to it and liked that.
Would've gone with the 1V, but the 1III was my first Sony phone and that happening sketched me out. Might get another though once it's time to upgrade this one or it craps out. Sony is doing what a lot of other companies aren't and I respect that.

Pixel with CalyxOS checking in

Everyone wants to adopt the Apple model of hardware+software as one (because it's the most profitable). Microsoft is trying with their Surface line, Google with the Pixel, Samsung with their fully custom Android-based OS.

I have a Pixel myself and I have to say, it's a good phone. It has a coherent experience and I've been able to customize it to my needs.
I also had a couple of phones from other OEMs (not Apple, lol) and they had more useless bloatware that was a pain, and an overall less coherent UX. I think the UX is what gets users to stay (obviously), so I do hope that more Android OEMs will focus in more on that so they can break Apple's market domination in the US.

What phones is Motorola selling now-a-days? Flip phones?
- They make decent budget phones and an expensive flip phone that's also great.
- My three kids all have Motorolas. They make great budget phones.
- got a moto g power (2021) last year for $130. works pretty well for the price.
- Flip phones?
  What year is it?
  
  The Razr foldable is probably what they're referencing
  Was a good phone but the battery kinda sucked
- I’m not an android person, but don’t they offer a pretty bloat free experience and have fair pricing?
- I am using a RAZR+ and it is my favorite phone ever! Love having a flip phone
  
  Glad you're enjoying it! I'm using Samsung's Flip like myself. Folding phones are just so fun lol

However, in the first quarter, Apple was at 17% of market share in sales globally (still huge).

If everyone is dropping in market shares, who's gaining?
- Is that the power of iMessage in the US? Peer pressure?
  I personally can't stand iPhones because their back navigation is so inconsistent across apps. In Android with gestures on, you can swipe from either side of the screen to go back nearly anywhere. On an iPhone sometimes there is a back button up top, sometimes you use the left swipe, but the right swipe still doesn't work last I tried. I switched between the platform in the early days, but since the 5s I've not been back.
  The only thing I'm definitely getting on my next phone is a flag ship chip. My OnePlus Nord is perfect for me except it's not quite as quick as I want it to be (to render Gran Turismo 4 in native resolution at stable framerate).

Yuck why do people continue to buy Apple products?

I have a Pixel 3 and I hate it, I had to go through 4 warranty replacements and this one still has issues. I gave up because they were ones I could live with.

it's hard to recommend the pixels when my own 7Pro has dust on the selfie camera but also it's under the screen!!
I also suggested the phone to my friend when I got mine and she constantly keeps complaining about the battery. I should had told her to stick with the iPhone and be done. Thanks Google for the shitty hardware! and thanks to the Government for keeping Huawei, ZTE and Xiaomi out of the US market.
- Okay your post was pretty good until you went off on the China rant at the end. Chinese phones like Huawei, ZTE and Xiaomi have far worse quality control issues than something like the Google Pixel has.
  
  Not to mention empower a hostile foreign power. We shouldn't be sending tons of money to China. We definitely shouldn't be sending tons of money to China so that they can send us technology which they could remotely brick or watch on large swaths of the population.
  
  I'm not advocating for Chinese phones in particular, but there are no other alternatives as far as I know. Samsung & Google seems to be stagnating and the only valid alternative is just Apple for us.
- iPhone battery life isn't exactly impressive, either.
  
  All current iPhones are battery champs, what are you talking about?