For more than six years, I’ve carried a Samsung phone. Starting with the Galaxy S10 Plus, I’ve since owned every Ultra model leading up to the S24 Ultra. One UI was my favorite flavor of Android, and the hardware was exceptional. But Samsung appears to be on a trajectory that I don’t like, and after loving my time with a Pixel 9 Pro this summer, I realized it was time for a change. I’ve had a Pixel 10 Pro for two months, and I regret nothing. The 10 Pro addresses my needs more than any Samsung model, and I’m worried about where Samsung is headed.
Have you recently ditched Samsung for another phone brand? 210 votes Yes. 24 % I'm considering it. 34 % No, I did the opposite. I just switched to Samsung. 19 % No, I haven't used a Samsung phone recently. 22 %
Samsung is going back, not forward
Ryan Haines / Android Authority
Anyone who’s read my content since I started writing about phones in 2020 will know that I was a Samsung die-hard, so the reason I made a change to another brand had to be a big one. There’s more than one reason, to be honest, but the biggest issue I have is that Samsung no longer feels like it’s innovating and trailblazing.
Samsung has always been at its best when it’s pushing the industry forward — forging a new path, not following someone else’s. There are plenty of examples that prove my point. Samsung pushed AMOLED displays, the Note made big screens and a stylus fashionable, the Note Edge introduced curved screens, the Galaxy S8 started the war on bezels, and the Z Fold and Flip series started a foldable revolution. Samsung has demonstrated that it can innovate, but these days it feels like it doesn’t want to.
C. Scott Brown / Android Authority
For the last two years, it has felt like Samsung is chasing Apple, something it’s been accused of many times in the past. I love my Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, but they look like AirPods. One UI 8.5 is shaping up to borrow some of the worst parts of iOS 26 and even TouchWiz, and the Galaxy S25 Edge was clearly a reaction to the iPhone Air. You can tell me until you’re blue in the face that the S25 Edge launched first, but rumors of the iPhone started long before the S25 Edge was released, and Samsung’s flip-flopping between an S26 Plus and an S26 Edge only convinces me that the S25 Edge was little more than an attempt to get ahead of a trend just because Apple was trying it.
I like a lot of the design and feature changes in One UI 7; in fact, I said One UI 7 helped me fall in love with Samsung again. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, though, and I feel differently about it now than I did at the time. It took far too long to reach devices, and made some awful changes to usability that users will want to revert as soon as they can.
Ryan Haines / Android Authority
... continue reading