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.
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.
They do have advantages over the google ones though. One big advantage is that “they’re not google ones”.
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.
Yeah I would never buy a non-Pixel phone now.
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 don’t own a car, no idea.
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
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.
They don’t have to have them. Mine doesn’t.
They have to from the factory.
No. They don’t.
What Samsung phones come without google apps and google play services installed?
None of them.
A pixel doesn’t have SD card slot or 3.5 mm jack. My Xperia 1V has both. There. Justified.
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.
I mean most consumers don’t care about those 🤷♀️
most consumers have shit taste 🤷♀️
Or those features just aren’t that useful in modern phones…
If I’m paying flagship money then I want all features that’s even slightly useful
So why did you buy a Sony that doesn’t have adaptive refresh rate or a good auto camera?
The camera in auto mode is quite good as far as I can tell. I’m not sure what you mean by adaptive refresh rate? Is 120Hz too low for your taste?
While I understand the appeal, those are 2 features that I don’t need. Having the option would be nice though.
I think more people should have this kind of view, and less of an all or nothing approach.
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.