What stock Android skin the the least buggy and most fluid?

[raymanh]

I guess like many of you here I used to have only iPhones for years, until a couple of years ago when I switched to a Pixel 3. For me it had exactly the same fluidity, stability etc as any iPhone I had previously, despite what's often said about android compared to iOS.

I know that the android skin in Pixels is essentially the most stock, pure etc android skin given it's a Google product and so it probably runs the smoothest, but what other android brands also behave smoothly with few bugs? I'm looking to get a newer device with an 8 series chip so unfortunately that's Pixels out of the question.

For example I'm considering the new Xiaomi mi 11 however I've watched lots of reviews that show how buggy MIUI is. E.g. the system wide dark mode blanketing all apps in a dark color so that some buttons are hidden, Google app notifications not coming in, Bluetooth headphone notification in the notifications shade is cut off half way, and more. So for me the mi 11 is out of the picture.

What brands should I look at?

Thanks

 

[velocityg4]

Have you looked at Android One phones? They are available from a few manufacturers. As I understand it. They are close to vanilla.

Also you can just change the launcher to the Google launcher if you want. Most other parts can be changed to the vanilla Google products.

There's also the option for many phones of rooting them and installing LineageOS for a near vanilla Android experience. There are other third party ROMs to choose from. Just read up on these carefully for your specific phone choice. As they could be buggy or not support all hardware features fully on any given phone.

When my Pixel was my main phone. I tried the Microsoft launcher. It was decent. But few launchers supported iPhone X like gesture navigation. Being limited to the two button and three button options.

 

[ian87w]

The most full featured and mature Android skin on the market today is probably Samsung OneUI. It’s stable, and he most bug free Android experience I have ever used compared to the various Chinese skins like MiUI. Samsung is the most profitable Android OEM thus it makes sense they have the most resources in R&D and software support.

Samsung hardware might not offer the best band for the buck spec wise compared to the likes of Xiaomi, but Samsung experience is arguably the most bug free and consistent, while offering a lot of features.

Huawei’s EMUI is second, but since the US ban, I would not recommend Huawei phones anymore.

 

[MarkX]

Why must the phone have an 8 series chip?

 

[ian87w]

Why must the phone have an 8 series chip?

Qualcomm created a huge gap between the 8 series and the 7 series. It’s not even comparable. The SD765 cannot even beat a 3 year old SD845, especially in gaming/GPU. So if one is looking for a phone with a chip that can give the longest life, the 8 series is desirable.

Of course, for regular uses, a 6 or 7 series chip is good enough, unless one is looking for advance camera features like 8k video recording.

 

[MarkX]

Qualcomm created a huge gap between the 8 series and the 7 series. It’s not even comparable. The SD765 cannot even beat a 3 year old SD845, especially in gaming/GPU. So if one is looking for a phone with a chip that can give the longest life, the 8 series is desirable.

Of course, for regular uses, a 6 or 7 series chip is good enough, unless one is looking for advance camera features like 8k video recording.

The information is sound but I didn't ask for that. Sometimes people just want the fastest chip they can in a phone but they don't really need it, or would see any benefit from having it.

I wanted to here from the OP to see what his thoughts/reasons were for stipulating he needed an 8 series chip.

Thanks though

 

[dmccloud]

I used Nova Launcher on my Note 10+ instead of Samsung's OneUI. It has some very flexible configuration options, and has more features than either the stock launcher or MIUI, OneUI, etc. I would just find a phone that fits your budget constraints and spec requirements, then look into alternative UIs to what comes stock on that phone.

 

[Tig Bitties]

The smoothest fluid Android phones are the Pixel line and OnePlus line, that's it.