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12 reasons why Android

smartphones suck
MISC by Tudor Dan published on 02/24/2022

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Android smartphones come in all shapes

and sizes, with different hardware
configurations and connectivity options.
And yet, they share a common attribute:
they suck. And not necessarily when
compared to iPhones. Most of them are
objectively bad, due to the chaos that is
Android and the lack of regulation when
it comes to app development. I have
managed to survive years of Android
torture, and over time, I understood the
true purpose of the open-source
operating system: it’s meant to annoy
you into buying an iPhone. Here are
twelve reasons why even the latest
smartphones, with Android 12, suck:

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CONTENTS
Software
1. There are no Android smartphones
(except for the Google Pixel lineup)
2. Slow propagation of operating
system updates
3. Update (lack of) support

4. The Android app ecosystem is a

mess
5. No reliable backup for many
applications
6. Google Play Store? More like
Google Ads Store!

Hardware
7. Users unwillingly becoming lab rats

8. Android smartphones come in all

sizes… except small
9. Same smartphone, different specs

10. (In)efficiency

11. Face authentication is awful

12. Brands come and go

What do you hate most about

Android smartphones?

Software
Android is an open-source operating
system, and, like all things open-source,
it benefits from a huge community of
developers and programmers ready to
innovate and create awesome content. It
also “benefits” from a complete lack of
regulation and a disregard for best
practices. This leads to a fragmented
mess, with each smartphone
manufacturer personalizing their
smartphone software to death. First, let’s
make things clear:

1. There are no Android

smartphones (except for the Google
Pixel lineup)

One of the main reasons why Android

phones suck is that there are no Android
phones. With the sole exception of the
OG Google Pixel phones, virtually every
“Android” smartphone has a slightly
different build, version, and
implementation of the vanilla Android
operating system. Most of them come
with heavily modified user interfaces and
terribly uninspired names (One UI?
MIUI? ColorOS?).

The clean Android 12 interface (left) versus One

UI (right)

These customizations are often dumb,

buggy, and useless, since the vanilla
Android 12 interface is very well thought
out. One of the effects of this operating
system fragmentation between phone
manufacturers is the next reason why
Android smartphones suck:

2. Slow propagation of operating

system updates

Google conscientiously releases an

Android version each year, with
tremendous improvements over the
previous one. But while the Google Pixel
smartphones get their updates from day
one, all other Android smartphones
receive the update months or even years
after the original release.

This has to do with two things: one, the

sheer amount of different hardware
configurations means that every new
Android version needs to be thoroughly
tested by each manufacturer before
being pushed to their respective devices.
Two, manufacturers need time to ruin
the Android experience by placing the
aforementioned user interface
customizations on top of a perfectly fine
operating system. The best you can
hope for (if you don’t own a Pixel
smartphone) is a few months before the
latest Android version is available for
download on your device, but even then,
you might have a bad time.

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3. Update (lack of) support

Don’t worry, though, the painful wait for a

new Android version for your
smartphone won’t become a habit. And
that’s because most Android
smartphones don’t get too many major
updates. While iPhone users benefit
from 5 to 6 years of updates (my iPhone
SE from 2017 started out with iOS 9.3
and was just updated to the latest iOS,
15.3), Android phones go through at
most three (and usually two) major
operating system updates before
becoming unsupported (with some
notable exceptions). Basically, your
Android smartphone’s software support
expires faster than your hamster. And
while the smartphone might be perfectly
fine in terms of hardware in two years’
time, you will be stuck with an outdated
interface and maybe even some security
issues.

The iPhone SE (2016) has the latest iOS, while

the Samsung A51 (2019) is still a version behind
Android 12

TIP: If you’re unfortunate enough to

have an Android smartphone, here’s
how to tell which Android version you
have.

4. The Android app ecosystem is a

mess

Yes, the Google Play Store has roughly

3 million apps (at the end of 2021), but
how many of them work specifically with
your device? And out of those, how
many work without crashing every few
minutes? Android apps are notoriously
bad compared to their iOS counterparts,
and that’s partly because Apple has
stricter regulations when it comes to app
functionality and quality.

The Facebook app on Android (left) versus the

same app for iPhone (right)

To be honest, though, developing an app

for Android devices is a nightmare, since
both the hardware and the operating
system the app should run on can vary
wildly. Designing an app that works with
both a Samsung J3 (2017) running
Android 5 and a Pixel 6 that runs on
Android 12 is a monumental task, so it’s
no wonder that many apps don’t support
a wide range of devices and operating
systems. To make things worse, the
loose regulation of apps in the Google
Play Store means that, more often than
not, you will find a few apps in there that
are outright malware. Did I mention that
each smartphone manufacturer also has
its own store, with even more shady
content? And don’t even get me started
on the risks of sideloading (installing
apps from other sources).

5. No reliable backup for many

applications

It’s no surprise, then, that many

applications developed for Android don’t
have reliable means to be backed up.
Some Android smartphones back up
their content on Google Drive, some use
their own cloud-based service, but they
don’t make complete backups.

Each Android smartphone manufacturer uses a

different cloud backup solution

If you’re an avid gamer, and you want to

upgrade to another smartphone, prepare
for disappointment, as for many of your
games, the saves, achievements, and
settings won’t be transferred to your new
device.

6. Google Play Store? More like

Google Ads Store!

I know what you’re gonna say. “Google

Play Store has a huge number of free
apps!” Yeah, I heard that argument
before. But nothing is really, truly free, is
it? What you save upfront will cost you
frustration, time, and many taps in order
to get rid of annoying ads that plague
many free apps available in the Google
Play Store.

Some apps have ALL the ads

Hardware
While their software is a definite mess,
hardware-wise, Android smartphones
are nothing short of a lottery. They are
like a box of chocolates, so you never
know what you’re going to get when you
purchase a new device.

7. Users unwillingly becoming lab

rats

Innovation is great! It leads to amazing

concepts, and it’s what makes us excited
about new releases. However,
innovation at the expense of the
consumer is not innovation, it’s
experimentation. Take the foldable
screen for example. It’s really an
amazing feat of engineering and an
excellent solution to having a small
portable device with an even smaller
screen.

The Galaxy Fold

Samsung boldly went where no one had

gone before and launched the first
mainstream smartphone with a foldable
screen, the Galaxy Fold. A cool design,
a smartphone that could wow your
coworkers and friends… for about a day
or two, until the screen stopped
functioning properly. And yes, this was
covered by warranty, but what was not
covered by warranty was your
disappointment, your time, and your
frustration.

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8. Android smartphones come in all

sizes… except small

Just like my bald spot, Android phones

have only gotten larger in the past
decade. And while Apple doesn’t
discriminate against people with small
hands, virtually all Android smartphone
manufacturers have been ignoring this
(consistent) market segment for more
than five years now. The last truly
compact Android flagship was the
OnePlus X, and it was released back in
2015!

Only the Pixel 4a comes close to being as

compact as the iPhones in this lineup

Although not a flagship by any stretch of

the imagination, the Palm Phone is one
of only a handful of small Android
smartphones released in the last few
years, but it goes to the other extreme:
with just 3.80 x 1.99 x 0.29 inches or
96.6 x 50.6 x 7.4 mm, it’s so tiny that I’d
probably need fingers on my fingers to
operate it.

The Palm Phone is really small

9. Same smartphone, different specs

Sometimes, buying an Android

smartphone is confusing. Not only
because there are hundreds of models
launched each year, but you can even
find the same smartphone, with the
same name, from the same
manufacturer, but with several different
hardware configurations. And I’m not
talking about storage size. I’m talking
about chipset, RAM size, and the
presence or absence of vital features,
like NFC. Theoretically, each region gets
the same variant, but with globalization
being a thing, you might end up with a
phone with different specs than the ones
you wanted. For example, the Huawei
P20 Pro had either 8GB of RAM (in
China) or 6GB RAM (everywhere else).

Huawei P20 Pro

Samsung has a long history of placing

different chipsets on their smartphones,
depending on the region where they are
sold. And while they tried to lock the
devices to their respective regions, the
lock is more a nuisance than a feature.

10. (In)efficiency

When compared to the iPhones, Android

smartphones have lower efficiency, both
in terms of resource management and
energy consumption. iPhones have tiny
batteries, but their real-life usage proves
they can last just as long as the average
Android smartphone on a single charge.
Apple has much more control over the
hardware and the software, so they
know how much energy each app
consumes. Thus, they are able to tweak
the battery life and the operating system
accordingly. With the chaos that is
Android, you can’t replicate this level of
control.