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Motorola (edit: and Google, Nokia, probably other) phones come without bloatware - vote with your wallets. (The preinstalled Moto apps are very small and actually quite useful, like accelerometer-based gestures for quick acces to camera or flashlight) I buy phones as a platform for software, so it makes sense to pay attention to more than the hardware.
See: Android One https://www.android.com/one/ No bloatware, updates available.
From the product images, it looks like Android One devices come with Duo, Gmail, Google, Chrome, Google Photos, YouTube, Google Drive and I'm guessing the rest of the Google suite preinstalled. I don't know about your definition of bloatware but that stuff is definitely included in mine.
Yet that isn't commonly called "bloatware"... because, of course, it isn't.
Bloatware is commonly understood to be third-party software, often of questionable utility and quality. Not first-party.
(*The suite is only preinstalled on 32GB+ devices.)
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Oh wow. My Moto phones never had anything like that. Moto G3, G5, and One Vision. Bought in Germany without contract. Edit: I don't see Google apps as an (additional) problem. Google already controls the phone and its apps don't waste CPU time or memory while not active.
> its apps don't waste CPU time or memory while not active The 20% of my battery used by Google Play Services, despite the fact that the only Google service I use on my phone is YouTube, disagrees
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This is a testament to how messed up Android is these days. Have a look at iOS. The minimal set of Apps they ship their phones with aren't bloated or anything besides useful. Guaranteeing updates if the vendor decides to ship them? It's basically an example of how Apples strategy with tight grip on their platform makes so much sense. iPhone owners don't have to worry about any of that. Generally phones are supported…
>> aren’t bloated or anything besides useful. Really? I have a folder on my iPhone three pages deep called “apple junk” which is nothing but all the apple pre installed bloat apps that I never use. Do some people find a use case for them? Sure. But there they are on my phone. Pre installed and just taking up space..
Motorola (edit: and Google, Nokia, probably other) phones come without bloatware - vote with your wallets. (The preinstalled Moto apps are very small and actually quite useful, like accelerometer-based gestures for quick acces to camera or flashlight) I buy phones as a platform for software, so it makes sense to pay attention to more than the hardware.
Google Assistant and the Samsung program that does the same thing (namaly pissing my off and refusing to be deactivated). Its the worst experiance.
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Is it even possible to use Android without a Google account?
You basically don't login to your Gmail. There's tricks to not do it during setup such as hitting the home key.
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>> aren’t bloated or anything besides useful. Really? I have a folder on my iPhone three pages deep called “apple junk” which is nothing but all the apple pre installed bloat apps that I never use. Do some people find a use case for them? Sure. But there they are on my phone. Pre installed and just taking up space..
Why keep them in a folder? Uninstall them? 3 Pages Deep? That's 27 icons. I don't think a default iPhone comes with 27 pre-installed apps.
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I think calling Chrome bloatware is a bit much. Is Safari bloateare on an iPhone? Is the Play store bloatware? How would you even get anything on your phone the first time without the Play store or Chrome being installed?
Chrome is bloatware when Samsung Internet is a much better browser included with my phone. The Play Store is not bloatware. The Play _stores_ are bloatware (books, games, movies, etc.)
This will be good for the low end phones. My partner mother had an lg with 8gb of storage, it came bundled with all sorts of nonsense, 2 calculators, 2 alarms, some office suite. It made installing things like whatsapp or Facebook hard because of the bloat taking up the space. This only damages the reputation of these brands for me that do this sort of thing. Skins/ui and other functions are fine, but at least let me…
A few brands (mostly, it seems to me, ones with explicitly Chinese names like Xiaomi) are trying out a "cheap price no bloatware" strategy, especially now that carriers like Google Fi are attracting people from the carrier-branded stuff. But don't be surprised if a lot of the cheapest phones continue to make the bloat unremovable -- it's a low-margin, high volume proposition that works.