Say whaaaat. That’s an interesting and brave take.
How’s the pixel experience worse than Samsung? That’s the reason I stopped buying Samsungs way back. All the malware PUPs Samsung loads on being my main sticking point.
The most annoying thing is that major android updates are mandatory. I could not choose NOT to update. Notifications are bugged as hell for ages. Some just disappear, some don’t even ring/light up. Samsung had some apps that had more features compared to the Google alternatives. The only annoying this were all teh MS apps that I couldn’t deinstall.
GrapheneOS gets rid of all the Google crap, it’s a much lighter and more minimal experience, I really like it. It also has some significant privacy and security improvements, it’s pretty neat.
I was thinking about it ever since Louis Rossmann showcased it. But as he had problems using his banking app and some other stuff, I decided it wouldn’t be worth the hassel. Also, many people wrote that with Graphene you lose a lot of the fancy camera shenanigans that Google made. And the camera was one of the more important points in getting this phone.
Regarding the camera: Yes, you lost some quality with the default GrapheneOS camera app. But you can easily install the official Google camera app from the Play store (or anonymously through Aurora) to get full quality. You don’t even need Google play services installed for that to work, and you can revoke it’s network access, so it’s completely offline and private. I use the Google camera app all the time, it works flawlessly.
I have a 4a 5G variant and I can’t stand how the “stock” experience manages to be worse than on my old Samsung :-/ The pics are great tho
Say whaaaat. That’s an interesting and brave take.
How’s the pixel experience worse than Samsung? That’s the reason I stopped buying Samsungs way back. All the malware PUPs Samsung loads on being my main sticking point.
Well it’s less features for less bloat.
From there it depends how much of those extra features are useful / how much you miss in stock android.
What features? Most of the bloat is just duplicate applications like “Google photos” and “Samsung photos”
I’d say Dex is pretty cool. Thats really all I’d like to bring over to Google Experience personally.
Hoping it drops in 15 for Pixels
The most annoying thing is that major android updates are mandatory. I could not choose NOT to update. Notifications are bugged as hell for ages. Some just disappear, some don’t even ring/light up. Samsung had some apps that had more features compared to the Google alternatives. The only annoying this were all teh MS apps that I couldn’t deinstall.
I 100% agree. Stock android experience is garbage even compared miui.
GrapheneOS gets rid of all the Google crap, it’s a much lighter and more minimal experience, I really like it. It also has some significant privacy and security improvements, it’s pretty neat.
I was thinking about it ever since Louis Rossmann showcased it. But as he had problems using his banking app and some other stuff, I decided it wouldn’t be worth the hassel. Also, many people wrote that with Graphene you lose a lot of the fancy camera shenanigans that Google made. And the camera was one of the more important points in getting this phone.
There’s a very detailed article about GrapheneOS banking app compatibility where you can check if your bank’s app works on Graphene: https://github.com/PrivSec-dev/banking-apps-compat-report/
Regarding the camera: Yes, you lost some quality with the default GrapheneOS camera app. But you can easily install the official Google camera app from the Play store (or anonymously through Aurora) to get full quality. You don’t even need Google play services installed for that to work, and you can revoke it’s network access, so it’s completely offline and private. I use the Google camera app all the time, it works flawlessly.