Android is struggling to keep its market share in the United States, as Apple continues to take over in the market. But, despite Android as a whole losing ground, Google Pixel phones are becoming a bigger slice of the US market.
Counterpoint Research reports that, in Q2 2023, US smartphone shipments dropped by 24% year-over-year. That includes both iPhones and Android phones, and virtually every brand saw a drop in shipments. Samsung saw US shipments drop by 37% while Motorola saw a 17% drop. TCL saw the biggest decline at just shy of 70% year-over-year, and even Apple saw a 6% drop.
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’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?
I mean, Fairphone runs Android. So the same Android Auto that a Google Pixel would have
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.
While I understand the appeal, those are 2 features that I don’t need. Having the option would be nice though.
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.
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 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.
Maybe I had an S6, but I remember a bunch of apps I couldn’t get rid of, Facebook being a big offender. I didn’t save a list of what I disliked, but it was enough for me to go back to the iPhone for a bit.
This is all personal opinion though, I like my current phone, I like it enough to stick with them unless things change drastically. Maybe part of the issue is that I upgrade my phone every 3-5 years.
Also this might be a newer phone thing not a pixel thing, but it seems to be way more water resistant. I accidentally put my pixel 3 in the washing machine for a full cycle and it worked fine afterwards.
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
There’s the default Google/android apps which is fine because those are the basics.
And this is the problem, and it’s absurd that google haven’t been stopped from doing this by any anti-competition regulators. Samsung don’t want google apps on their phones, they have to have them. Samsung make their own, and they’re often better than googles and are far more integrated into the OS.
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.
