A slight detour for this post. While I’ve ruled out most of the budget or mid-range Samsung’s, due to the enormous size of their screens, the S20 is still a possibility, and retains many of the features I’ve come to love since 2016.
The only thing is, admittedly, I’ve been rather vague on those details so far. I’m not going to list all of them, but I’d like to spend this blog post summarising the features I love the most, and, subsequently, the ones I’d miss the most by switching to a Pixel.
But, isn’t One UI rubbish?
No. On the contrary, it feels more flushed out than stock Android, which, contrastingly, feels rather empty.
If you’re coming from an iPhone, you might think the opposite. You might prefer the more simple way that Pixels deliver Android.
Similarly, if you’re a Pixel fan/owner, you also may have grown accustomed to the simplicity of Pixels, and the Nexus phones before them.
Pixel vs Samsung: In Brief
I’ve seen a few Pixel owners on Reddit sharing their absolute disgust towards Samsung, because in their opinion, TouchWiz & One UI have done more to ‘destroy’ Android than add to it – quoting things like bloatware, adverts, & long wait periods for OS updates.
Although I also don’t like bloatware, I appreciate some of Samsung’s own apps. I haven’t yet encountered the adverts that are apparently appearing within Samsung’s apps, but I admit that’s not something I would like, given how much I’ll likely be paying for the Galaxy S20.
I also have a counter-argument to waiting for OS updates: on Reddit, I’ve seen mention that yes, Pixel’s are the first to get quick OS updates, but sometimes those updates aren’t very optimised & have been known to break a device.
That’s not something I’ve seen on my Galaxy S7 & Galaxy S9 Plus, and although I would like to see quicker updates – particularly security patches – I’d rather wait a bit longer, knowing Samsung are putting extra effort into making sure an update works properly on my device. I’d rather wait for an optimised update, than be the first to get an update that could potentially break or disrupt features on my phone, such as the WiFi or Bluetooth connectivity.
Where I started with smartphones
Although my first smartphone was my HTC Wildfire, it wasn’t my main device. Apart from flashing a custom ROM, CyanogenMod 10 Buzz, I hardly used it.
Also, technically speaking, the first ‘smart‘ device I owned was a 4th generation iPod Touch. It was the first time I’d used apps, and games, on a half decent screen. I’d got it primarily for use as an MP3 Player, as my Sony Walkman had only 16GB of storage.
Although I installed loads of iOS apps on its 64GB storage, I’d say (from memory) I only ever used about a quarter of them. Most of my consumed content was music & videos, with the occasional gaming session. I also took quite a few photos & videos as well, as I appreciated its quick burst mode in the camera app. On the argument of why I didn’t just go and buy an iPhone – I was also a student at the time, so couldn’t afford the latest & greatest tech from Apple. The iPod Touch was the cut price option, and I went for it.
I therefore consider my Nokia Lumia 820 to be my first real smartphone. It was the first smart device that replaced my Daily Driver, my Nokia X2-00. (That said, to this day, I still own both phones!)
Windows Phone was the perfect platform for me. It introduced me to many ‘smart’ features people take for granted, like a Calendar, Email, a portable media hub, and a pocket camera. It was basically a more refined PDA or Palmtop.
Sure, it didn’t have much in the way of apps, but at the time, I wasn’t a big app user. I didn’t require those apps. I didn’t need them. It was a perfectly functional device on its own.
For any apps I did need, there obviously wasn’t a lot of developer support, but there were a great many third party clients, some of which were better than the official apps. If I recall correctly, Rudy Huyn had developed client apps for Snapchat (6snap) and Instagram (6tag).
Slowly, however, I noticed what was the beginning of Windows Phone’s fall. Although Huyn was continuing to work on his third party apps, the official companies were updating their app API’s so that third party clients were no longer supported.
Snapchat even locked users out of their accounts – a security measure, explaining that to get their accounts back, users must use an official Snapchat app. The official Snapchat app for Windows Phone was, apparently, coming soon.
It never came. Similarly, Instagram arrived rather late, with the Instagram Beta app – funnily enough, it was still in Beta when Microsoft finally pulled the plug on the Windows Phone & Windows Mobile platforms.
Apps & services that I’d now started to use, were no longer being supported on Windows Phone. I felt like I was being unwillingly pushed towards iOS or Android.
Android: A Journey Begins
Apple’s iPhone’s were still too expensive; so, in January 2015, I got my HTC Desire Eye. It was a mid-range phone touting flagship specs – or, rather, a flagship phone inside a midrange body.
It was great for photos, but lacked an Equaliser. It had a sound booster called HTC Boost, but no customisable audio settings. That was when I discovered PowerAmp – an all-in-one music & equaliser app.
This was a great device for the 2 years it served as my daily driver, but it wasn’t quite a flagship experience, and before long, slowdowns started occurring – despite having a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 chipset.
Also, gradually, many of the HTC features I’d come to love, started to disappear, or change beyond recognition.
HTC Blinkfeed started as a useful accumulator of all my social media feeds, off to the left side of the Home Screen. It was HTC’s own version of the Google Discover feed – while the Pixels had Google Now, HTC phones had Blinkfeed. But, Blinkfeed was only as good as the supported apps – and, as app support dwindled, it slowly transformed into a useless, scrolling list of adverts. Facebook wasn’t available anymore; nor was Instagram, Twitter, or any useful news updates. It was just a vibrant list of adverts, in two columns, with varying sizes of ‘windows.’
The HTC of old was dying, and their UI started to feel rather drab compared to others. Every HTC app had a boring, flat design to it. The calendar was drab, the calculator felt ancient. The Messages app conformed to a grid layout, which, again, was boring and lacked both the polish & vibrancy of Google’s Messages app.
I yearned for a more, fuller, Android experience.
My Discovery of Samsung
Enter Samsung. Their Galaxy S7 had TouchWiz. Oh, that name… scroll through Google, and chances are you won’t find a good word said about it.
It was supposed to be this laggy mess of a User Interface, but I’d experienced TouchWiz on my Tab Pro 8.4″, and had none such issues.
Although I was familiar with the UI, I was, however, nervous about getting a Samsung phone. Although their Galaxy S phones were flagships, the last Samsung phone I’d owned was a SGH-E250 slider phone. It was a cheap & cheerful affair, only costing me £30. It was plastic, with a thin & cheap back cover. It didn’t last long, and as such, painted a picture of cheapness which I still believed.
Despite its bad reputation, TouchWiz on my Galaxy S7 was brilliant. There were loads of Samsung apps, too, but these apps were more colourful, and better reflected the vibrancy of Android. Using Samsung apps was a privilege, and a welcome change to the drab, grid-like structure of HTC’s apps.
Basic Pixel, Complex Samsung
I realise that Google already has its own suite of apps, so why do you need 2 of everything?
I agree. At times, the doubling-up of apps feels unnecessary, but there were some things I liked that Samsung did in its apps, that Google didn’t do in their apps. It gave Android a more customised feel, and being that Android is the Operating System of customisation, it certainly showed.
Stock Android still had that feeling of being feature-less. It felt more like iOS than Pixel fans would want you to believe. It was the stripped-down, original Android OS. Pixel fans will attest that this is better, but as a person looking for a great all-round experience, for me, stock Android felt as empty and soulless as an iOS device.
TouchWiz never had that feel to it. Sure, there were more half-baked ideas there than in a high street bakery, but I appreciated the extras.
One UI is much better than TouchWiz, and on my Galaxy S9 Plus, the experience has been about the same. I now favour more of Google’s apps than Samsung’s, but as well as Samsung Music, I do still use a few of their apps:
Sound Assistant is a useful EQ on-the-go, with a floating bubble (that only stays on screen for a customisable set amount of time – in my case, 15 seconds) that allows quick access to the EQ which is hidden deep in the Settings app. It also gives quick toggle settings that can be applied while watching YouTube, for example.
Good Lock is a great app, and allows you to fully customise and personalise things like the Lock screen, the colours of the Quick Settings panel, the style of the Recent Apps/Task Changer screen, a more sophisticated Multi-window experience, as well as creating your own Navigation Bar with custom icons (if, like me, you still use a Nav Bar, and prefer it to Gestures).
I have my Nav Bar set with the old-style Android nav buttons, which for me is a throwback to Android 4.4 KitKat.
I’ve heard that a lot of this basic & advanced customisation is available on OnePlus as stock, without a separate app, but on the other hand, it’s good that it’s there if you want it, but not if you don’t.
Game Launcher is also something I’ve found to be incredibly useful, and I haven’t yet found a suitable replacement app for use on a Pixel. As soon as a game is installed, it separates the app icon from the rest of the app drawer, and tucks it away neatly in its own folder designed with games in mind.
With each update, Game Launcher has gotten better, and now features a social feed dedicated around each of your most played games. Its much like what Game Center used to be like on iOS 6.
Bixby isn’t as annoying as reviewers will have you believe. It’s actually not a bad assistant – that is, if you use virtual assistants.
I just don’t have any use for Bixby, or even Google Assistant. I don’t use them enough for them to be useful, and find I can often do things quicker on my own, without a virtual helper.
Plus, they’ll never be as good as Clippy.
It’s annoying that there’s a physical Bixby key on the side of my S9 Plus, but honestly, after 20 months of using the phone, I hardly ever remember it’s there – neither do I accidentally press it. If you don’t use a feature, you soon forget it exists.
It was a major annoyance when I first got the phone, but OS updates means that there’s now an option to turn off single-press activation, and instead switch it to double-press.
However, I’ve also got an app installed – bx Actions – that remaps that button into a dedicated camera shutter button. Therefore, every time I’m in the Camera app, one press and it takes a photo. Just like a real shutter button on a DSLR camera. I’ve also, on occasion, had it remapped to the Google Assistant, so if I did need to use a virtual helper, it’s there.
Other than the odd glimpse at what it offers, I’ve never really used Bixby, and apart from the 4 apps I’ve mentioned, I’ve also never really used any of the other Samsung apps.
But, those 4 apps, their usefulness and their features, are what I’d be losing if I switched to a Pixel. I know there are alternatives, and Pixels are certainly more customisable now than they ever have been. Alternatives are fine for the average user.
But having become so accustomed to the Samsung way of doing things, and that flagship user experience, it’s going to take a lot of adjustment for me to switch to a Pixel.
That’s why I’m taking this decision so seriously. It’s not just a simple switch. I want it to be, but it isn’t. It’s not just install this replacement app, or enjoy less clutter within a streamlined Pixel UI. It’s a completely different user experience.
– Chris JK.
KPH tech blog 
Leave a comment