Pure Android

[Squink]

What's the big draw of this for some people (I ask because I don't know)?

I've only ever had Samsung android phones and fair enough I don't necessarily want S Planner, S Voice, S Tat etc, and it's an irritation when you can't remove something on your own phone, BUT I don't find it that big a problem myself. I must have at least a dozen icons on my screen which are there but which I don't see and never use.

In addition, Google is flighty and seem to introduce new stuff and forget about the old as quickly as anyone else.

On top of all this, aren't most phones these days fast enough to have their speed unaffected by bloat?

So what's the draw? Do timely updates really make things that much better?

 

[Orcvader]

TouchWiz itself (or whatever Samsung calls their UI these days) modifies Android quite heavily so even on better hardware, in terms of smoothness and reaction times it doesn't always feel as great as the stock Android found on the Nexus/Pixel phones.

As you mentioned there's also the Samsung apps which lives with the Google apps, with most doing the same things as each other which does seem a bit pointless (and honestly Google is starting to get a bit bloaty with all the required Google apps). That combined with the Android modifications actually causes the OS to take up a fair bit more space on the internal storage as well.

Updates... it depends really. Usually big Android updates introduces big changes that helps with performance (project butter, ART, etc) and battery (project volta, doze, etc) which is tempting enough, but I think security patches is now the main push behind updates, Google's phones are usually the first with the latest security patches, with Samsung phones a little bit behind.

Samsung has started to lighten up their UI though so it's not so bad any more. There's still the apps but Google's also at fault for having so many required apps. Really it's just up to personal preferences, if you prefer Samsung's TouchWiz over stock Android, then go for that. In terms of security patches Samsung is not really that behind for their flagship phones at least so I wouldn't be too worried about that.

 

["andy"]

I think the same as with the hardware part people always want the latest and supposedly greatest . Even if they don't need it.

I don't need Android 7.1 and Google assistant anymore than I need the fastest processor or that slightly better camera

 

[kona786]

The software is so much cleaner, for example Samsung feel the need to label everything with words and graphics which makes things just look messy. The tonne of bloat apps and skins. Then there's the slow updates for anything that isn't Nexus /pixel.