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.
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 🤷♀️
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?
It’s nowhere near as good as the competition, who are also cheaper.
Adaptive refresh rate means it’s not locked to 60hz or 120hz - it can go from 1hz to 120hz at many different refresh rates depending on need. Watching a 30fps video? 30hz it is. 60fps game? 60hz it is.
Sony lock to 60 or 120 with no inbetweens and no dynamic changing.
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.
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?
I don’t own a car, no idea.
Lmao, god I’m so jealous of Europe sometimes. I have to assume you don’t live in the US.
There are some places here you can get away with not having one, but its basically a non-option for the vast majority of the US
True, sorry about that :(
All good lol. There are things I appreciate about my country, but definitely also things I don’t 😅 city planing and viability of bikes & walking are 100% the latter
NotJustBikes
I mean, Fairphone runs Android. So the same Android Auto that a Google Pixel would have
That is by Google though. Right? They said their phone is de-googled. So maybe the question isn’t what does Fairphone have, but what does a de-googled Android phone use?
fair enough, my bad
Which OS do you run on it?
/e/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.
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.
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.
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.
Same still have the original pixel xl and it felt amazing to use and now I got a refurb pixel 6 for like 200$ with grapheneos and its honestly the best thing I brought in a while
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
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.