My last two phones were both Motorola partly because of this.
Can relate, I've been very happy with my Moto G 5G Plus. No bloatware, and with its included rubber shell it even survived an one story fall without any damage.
Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?
81–90 of 324 posts
Re: Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?
#82The short answer is no. There is the Google Pixel. But it has limited updates and proprietary software for things like the camera. That camera is really nice though and it's as close as the Android experience Google intended to ship because this basically is Google's version of Android. I have the Pixel 6 and it's fine. Nokia stays close to that but ships their own camera app. It too has limited updates that run out…
Fairphone looks great, BUT they don't sell outside Europe.
Re: Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?
#83OnePlus is pretty close to stock. Very fast, very good battery. It's the only Android I've loved before switching to iPhone.
I have a Samsung and a OnePlus 5T bought in the same period (around 5 years ago). The OnePlus still rocks 1 day battery with medium usage, while the Samsung is dead in a couple of hours.
Re: Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?
#84Pixel 6 or newer (so Google silicon, so 5 years guaranteed support) plus GrapheneOS.
Re: Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?
#85OnePlus is pretty close to stock. Very fast, very good battery. It's the only Android I've loved before switching to iPhone. I have a Samsung and a OnePlus 5T bought in the same period (around 5 years ago). The OnePlus still rocks 1 day battery with medium usage, while the Samsung is dead in a couple of hours.
If your experience with OnePlus is from OnePlus 5T times, I have some bad news for you..
Re: Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?
#86The short answer is no. There is the Google Pixel. But it has limited updates and proprietary software for things like the camera. That camera is really nice though and it's as close as the Android experience Google intended to ship because this basically is Google's version of Android. I have the Pixel 6 and it's fine. Nokia stays close to that but ships their own camera app. It too has limited updates that run out…
I agree with everything you said about Fairphone, but their software support is decent when it comes for security updates (major Android versions upgrades are not guaranteed). They offer 5 years which is way better than average. Their track record is also good I would say. Fairphone 2 started with Android 5 and it currently offered Android 10 upgrade. https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/997918043739...
> currently offered Android 10 upgrade
released in september 2019
Re: Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?
#87The Pixel is the closest. The reason you don't see long term support on Android is because of Qualcomm. Qualcomm wants manufacturers to build on new chips, so they deprecate older chips and stop support. Most manufacturers don't want to hire kernel and hardware devs. Samsung can pull off longer support because of Exynos and they have a lot of inhouse expertise to extend support on old Qualcomm chips. It's all money.…
The reason you don't see long term support on Android is the same reason Linux failed in the desktop: the Linux kernel developers want everything mainlined and are not interested in keeping a stable kernel API for drivers, but in the real world, drivers are closed source.
Re: Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?
#88Motorola does a pretty good job. Their "bloatware" is mostly the Moto app, which provides really handy and reliable gestures like a double "chop" to toggle flashlight, twisting the phone a few times to enable the camera, three-finger screenshot trigger, etc.
Their phones are really solid but they do lag on OS updates, and their cameras are never good.
Re: Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cloud sync that works across all of my devices in a centralized manner. Zero bloatware, adware OS that works out of the box and doesn’t change every year. Consistent experience across devices. iOS, specifically, all of what I listed there and really nice, fluent system compared to Androids that have frame drops even on top end devices.
Can you actually block in-app ads in iOS? Like the way adaway does it, by modify /etc/hosts and thus removing 95% of the annoyances in apps?
I'm not aware if you can do it the way you mention, but you can used NextDNS and it pretty much cleans most of the ads (I actually haven't seen an ad in a very long time).
If it ever interests you: https://nextdns.io/?from=d6jchbnv (my affiliate link).
Re: Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?
#90The Pixel is the closest. The reason you don't see long term support on Android is because of Qualcomm. Qualcomm wants manufacturers to build on new chips, so they deprecate older chips and stop support. Most manufacturers don't want to hire kernel and hardware devs. Samsung can pull off longer support because of Exynos and they have a lot of inhouse expertise to extend support on old Qualcomm chips. It's all money.…
> Samsung can pull off longer support because of Exynos and they have a lot of inhouse expertise
> Apple can do it because they lock you into their walled garden
Samsung can do it because they're smart, but Apple does it because they're evil? Why doesn't Apple also have in house expertise?
> Most manufacturers don't want to hire kernel and hardware devs.
Qualcomm seems like a scapegoat here. Google surely has expertise here. Isn't this sorely on Google?