Samsung’s Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge

* The shape of the actual phone. It's completely ridiculous that the phone doesn't sit naturally on a flat table. However, Google's case completely fixes this problem.

* Good luck finding a case that offers non-trivial protection.

* (This could be a pro) You likely cant walk into your carrier's store and buy one which means you have to buy it directly from Google and without an upgrade 'subsidy'.

* It's pretty expensive. Nexus phones have been historically cheap but this isn't really the case anymore. If you want cheap and near-stock you have to look at Motorola...

* You're being gouged for internal storage. If you want more than a paltry 16GiB of internal storage you'll be paying out the nose for it, and with no microSD card slot you cant buy a large and cheap storage for your photos and music.

* The battery isn't removable or user replaceable. This should be combined with my first point because the two are most likely linked. If the phone had a uniform thickness there's no doubt they could have fit a removable battery. Form over function seems to be the motto of every hardware designer. I haven't read the iFixit guide yet so it might be replaceable by you or me but it's certainly out of the range of your typical consumer.

* Since you bought the phone from Google you get to deal with Google's legendary customer support.

* This might be a weird complaint but the LED light on Samsung phones is much nicer than what you get on the 6P.

* Rooting the phone is trivial but requires a complete wipe of the device and disables the use of Android Pay. Maybe not a huge deal especially considering other phones in the ecosystem but it was nice when older Androids could be rooted in place.

But despite all of this it's still the best phone experience I've ever had and as long as the person isn't a die hard phone gamer or in the Apple ecosystem I would recommend them the 6P over just about everything else that's currently available.

A couple of points as I used to share your opinion, but I recently purchase a Edge Plus which changed my views (which while not as extreme were aligned with yours.

1.) For the most part, I do prefer stock android in terms of aesthetics and some key apps (dialer, etc).

2.) Samsung has really toned down their over the top "colourful" aesthetic on phones. They are increasingly following Material design guidelines.

3.) Depending on the carrier variant (and this could be killer), Samsung bundle apps are not as critical anymore and they definitely do not cause weird breakages when disabled.

4.) Having used both a Nexus 6P (considered the cream of the crop when it comes to stock Android experience) and there is very little performance difference between the two.

5.) Samsung (and other OEMs) have always been ahead of the curve of stock android when it comes to features that were co-opted into later versions on Android. They were the first to have quick access toggles in the notification bar, lock screen notifications, etc. So there were always some trade-offs.

6.) Even without getting into third party launchers, etc that can completely ape stock android in looks - Samsung has finally included proper theming support for their devices - so even a novice user can download a "Material Dark / Material Light" theme.

One perfect example that is still relevant to this day is the multi-window option that I use daily on my Edge Plus, which would not be possible on a Nexus device (just yet).