I’ve had my past takes and issues with Android (Google) and Samsung (when they came out with their first touch versions of their smart phones). Myself, I didn’t even join this world of the touchscreen smart phones until 2011 (the iPhone 4S finally hit all of the key points to get me into this space).
15 years later, here I am buying my first ever Android smart phone. I initially was considering a Pixel 10 Pro (because that would allow easily installing something like GrapheneOS onto it), but decided on a Galaxy S25 Ultra just to not have to give Google itself that amount of money. Yes, I know the S26 is coming out soon but I got this S25 Ultra (256MB model) for under $900 direct from Samsung.
For someone who is long used to the build quality of Apple’s higher tier level of iPhone’s, the Ultra did not disappoint. The feel of the hardware is meant to appeal to this demographic. As for Android (well, with Samsung’s own additions to it), it’s nothing different. Where the differences reside is in the much more granular settings and the often times less than organized feel of it. Not saying that Apple’s UI design for their own settings is any good (plus they make a moving target with various changes for each yearly release). My point is merely about how various settings are organized and how that is all easily/not easily navigated.
Basically (and as I expected), it has that old school nerd/tech inspired aspect to it. Back in my younger days, I enjoyed that. In the past 10 years though, I stopped caring deeply about being able to tinker and just wanted stuff that worked (when that became true for computers, it naturally just rolled over into portable devices). With something like a smartphone, I just need the thing to work for what I mainly need it for.
I had to remove my iPhone 16 Pro from its case (a Spigen Tough Armor) to get that natural “in the hand” feel. The Ultra actually felt lighter in the hand even though it is much larger and actually heavier by a few grams (weight distribution due to its overall size plays a role there). Myself, I’m not a fan of larger sized phones. I kept going back and forth between the smaller S25 and Ultra but the discount pricing I got was so large that it made no sense to get the regular S25. While I’ve never been a “thin at all costs” type of user, the Ultra is also just a tad thinner than the 16 Pro.
As expected, Samsung includes a lot of “bloatware” (lot of their own apps and underlying system services; I uninstalled some apps that I don’t intend to use but only removed the SystemSafetyCore app (it’s the “on-device” process that is supposed to scan content and flag it as sensitive depending on your settings). Basically, I take anything companies like Google says with a grain of salt (more on this below). Interestingly enough, Samsung didn’t include their Email client (a copy of Microsoft Outlook that has been tailored for Samsung devices is included which I said nope to). Samsung’s Email client is at least more privacy focused (they don’t collect any information nor share anything).
I also did a migration install from an old iPhone XR (iOS 18.7.3) where it grabbed all of the photos, contacts, notes, app data, etc from it, and installed the same Android version of the apps (if available). The actual user data totaled less than 1GB since it was being used as a barebones backup; it didn’t have a lot to migrate (which would’ve taken a much longer time on a well utilized device since this required a cable-to-cable setup; the XR is Lightning which would’ve limited data transfer speeds to 480Mbps max – doing this between another USB-C device would obviously reduce this data transfer time). I know that both Apple and Google came to a deal recently to make migrating between their platforms a lot easier, but the system that Samsung has created worked quite well.
Usage offered no real surprises (only a few minor user experience quirks like certain tasks requiring an additional input or how the main keyboard layout isn’t as good at predictive input). Samsung’s One UI (it’s own user interface which the before mentioned keyboard is part of) also has some minor quirks with how items get arranged on the home page (which I quickly got used to) but iOS/iPadOS has its own moving target issues when attempting to move apps and folders around. One UI does mimic the overall look of iOS/iPadOS (font typography for example) which makes it a less jarring experience.
The one area I am wary of are the Google parts. The Samsung account system (if left enabled) can be any e-mail address (thus I used an iCloud one) but Google Play is self-explanatory. Thus I just used some older “burner” Google account for that purpose. But the syncing stuff (to Google Drive) and what not, I disabled that and I realize from a practical point of view, making this my primary mobile phone isn’t going to happen anytime soon. I bought it for testing purposes and having an alternative option (versus having all of my eggs in one basket) just in case I decide to seriously begin a move away from using Apple products (I’m not quite there yet).
Finally, something like AirDrop (Apple desktop and portable/mobile devices) is so indispensable for quickly transferring data. Android’s Quick Share which is the equivalent function to AirDrop is still only a Pixel 10 feature for interoperating between AirDrop (Google says they plan to roll out this cross platform compatibility to more devices in the future). Quick Share of course interoperates well between other Android devices (so long as they meet the minimum requirements). I initially tried an app like SHAREit (Android and iOS) but that is such a clunky workaround (the amount of annoyware ads that kept being thrown in between each step is also not the way to get someone like myself to want to buy it). Instead, I’m using my MEGA account (via the MEGA app) to transfer files between the two. Both Google Drive and Microsoft One Drive are installed by default but my take is not to send even transient data like photos, videos, or text info to their cloud drives.
I know that Google has all these privacy related options when managing that Google account (giving this illusion that your personal information isn’t going to be somehow harvested). But I know how these companies operate in reality (just bordering on the edges of those legal constraints) and as shown in recent years, how many of these companies don’t really practice what they preach. As the old saying goes, when someone (and that includes businesses) shows you who they are the first time, believe them. My trust level for companies like Google, Meta, Microsoft (and now Apple joining this list) isn’t very high. Slight tangent follows…
As is the case with the recent drama with Grok generating explicit imagery of minors and non-consensual explicit imagery of legal aged females (deepfake stuff that would be classified under revenge porn). And both Apple and Google have remained silent about the requests to have the X app pulled from their respective app stores. Neither gated app stores have applied their rules equally over time (though Apple in the past, did try to make it seem they were fair).
But I’ve had my say with Tim Cook recently (about trying to play nice with a convicted felon), and the more illegal shit that orange clown does, the worse it makes all of these CEO’s who cozied up to him look like ethically/morally challenged individuals themselves. I didn’t expect much from Google (once they no longer followed their unofficial but commonly used “Don’t do evil” motto) compared to Apple. But Apple has been showing recently they aren’t any different. Most anyone else (smaller/lesser known developer) if they did something similar and ran afoul of this, would have had their application yanked from the store (and likely would have also lost their developer rights to continue publishing their software).
This Appleinsider article also mirrors much of what I would have wrote about this whole ordeal. This also is no longer surprising to me (placing shareholders above everything else). And I write this as a still AAPL shareholder (that it should not be about shareholders at all costs when companies need to also do what is correct). But I am also that shareholder who is now executing on this long planned divestment AND placing a much higher priority on exiting a larger percentage of those holdings in 2026; I really no longer care if all of this has negative ramifications for the company years down the road.
This is yet another reason why I bought this S25 Ultra (over Motorola, Pixel, etc). Because if Apple keeps doing these things where the whole facade starts falling away (where there really isn’t that much left of the Jobs/Wozniak era DNA in the company besides empty words), then I will at least already have made some headway into the actual use of an equivalent product (and finding out what parts that can be disabled/de-Googled) along with the transition process where I can eventually be done being a customer if I decide that is the way to go.
