If I buy the best that either company has to offer (Pixel 8 pro or S23 Ultra)
Which one, in your opinion, would be the best Android experience and why? Would love to know your thoughts.
Pixel 8. No bloatware (except the Google bloat of course, but you can get rid of this easily), plus Google has now promised 7 years of updates - which is more than the iPhone. This would increase the resale value of the phone, and even if you don’t want to sell it, you could always give it to a family member or something after say 3-4 years of use, and they’d still get many years of official updates remaining. This is great for reducing e-waste whilst still maintaining a good security posture.
And if you’re privacy conscious, you could ditch the Google ecosystem completely and load GrapheneOS on it, and GrapheneOS is simple amazing in terms of privacy and security, and arguably has better battery life too (thanks to no Google bloatware running on it).
I have an S23 Ultra and it is a nice phone but I wouldn’t recommend Samsung to anyone because my last several Samsungs “mysteriously” got issues right before the 2 year plan ended. I won’t be getting another Samsung after this one. I really wanted the pen and it is great but I’m starting to care more about longevity.
pixel for grapheneos
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If you care about your privacy, and you should, get a pixel and install GrapheneOS.
Never buy Samsung, full of proprietary trash bloat, and they crack down on people trying to get root access. Absolute no-go.
they don’t have much bloatware except preinstalled spotify, netflix and tiktok…
And adds literally built into basic system components…
Samsung is using by far the worst OEM Rom, Pixel has by far the best. Go for the Pixel
Pixel has by far the best.
And GrapheneOS is even better
Samsung hardware is a lot higher quality, but the Pixel is cheaper. I’ve had to return a pixel to Google 5 times before so I don’t buy those any longer for myself.
All the nerds like to recommend the Pixel since it’s “pure” and a device for tinkering. But ignore the fact that all google products are unfinished, and this is true for the pixel line. If you are OK with beta testing for google and doing workarounds for bugs, then this is fine. But not everyone has time and nerves for that.
Yeah, samsung has bloat(most can be removed, disabled etc.) but I’ve never had OS bugs like when I had a Nexus or a Pixel.
Get a Pixel, install GrapheneOS.
Do apps requiring locked phones (Netflix, baking etc.) work?
Most do work, only apps that have stupid arbitrary Google SafetyNet requirements might have problems. It’s entirely the fault of Google though.