SlashGear Asks: Which Brand Makes The Best Android Phones? - Exclusive Survey
More than 3 billion people in the world actively use a device that runs on Android, Google revealed during its I/O 2021 conference, and that may be due, in part, to the fact that Android is an open-source platform that any developer can improve upon. Of course, the same can't be said about iOS, which is limited to Apple's developers and its iPhone. Though Apple doesn't dominate the rest of the world, it sells more smartphones in North America than any other phone manufacturer, according to Canalys. As you'd expect, the remaining market share is split up between different brands like Samsung that sell Android smartphones.
Due to its open nature, Android smartphones made by different phone manufacturers have their own proprietary skins, which is why Android looks different on devices from various brands. For instance, Samsung's customized interface is known as One UI, while OnePlus smartphones use OxygenOS — but both One UI and OxygenOS are essentially just veneers over the Android operating system. If you also consider the various hardware capabilities, every Android device is different despite running the same operating system. But which brand makes the best Android smartphones, at least according to the average person? We did a survey to find out.
Samsung makes the best Android smartphones
In an exclusive SlashGear survey that involved 590 respondents based in the U.S., 70.85% said that Samsung makes the best Android phones. We can't say that we're surprised considering that Samsung is the second most popular smartphone brand in North America after Apple. Besides that, we reviewed Samsung's latest flagship phone, the Galaxy S22, and gave it a 9 out of 10 rating — it's just as advanced as the iPhone 13.
Google was the second most preferred Android brand with 16.44% of the participants choosing it. We also reviewed Google's most advanced smartphone, the Pixel 6, and gave it a 9 out of 10 rating, as well. Interestingly, when we ranked the best smartphones last year, Google Pixel 6 came in third after Samsung and iPhone. OnePlus' flagship smartphone also made the list, and now 6.78% of the respondents in the survey confirm that they think it makes the best Android phones.
What's more, 3.39% of the poll participants chose Realme, but Xiaomi was the least popular brand with 2.54%. This is consistent with a previous poll that we did in which most participants thought that Xiaomi made the worst Android phones, followed closely by Realme.