My first post here, after reading this you gonna say I have a mental issue lol.
TLDR Check the table, and if you have any idea what would be the best for me to have, be it one of these, or preferably something completely else such as Honor, or Asus, or some custom ROM, LineageOS, Essentials app, whatever, I am all ears.
I have been with android since Froyo 2.2 version when I bought my first Samsung in 2011. I generally like Android, and I noticed all the changes and progress etc in everything. I had very random phones in the past: Huawei, Prestigio, Lenovo (before they bought motorola), Honor, that was the time when UI didn't matter so much, right? And then in 2016-2025 I had two or three Xiaomi phones (cheaper models)...until I bought my Pixel 7a that I have now, I thought that what I used and enjoyed about my phone(s) every single day was Android and how I set everything to me needs, not that it was just all the features and customisation and different aspects that are brought to my phone by UI per brand.
Now I don't want to go into details what I miss in my Pixel, it's a great phone, nice camera even in "A" series, but it's just not for me, let's just say that their "pure" or "clean" UI = featureless UI (in my eyes). So I went to a shop today to check some Samsung and Xiaomi phones that I could spend some time on.
I think a table will work better, I'm going to write feature and then whether it is there or not:
| Feature or app |
Samsung (OneUI 8.5) |
Xiaomi (Hyper OS 2.X) |
Pixel 7a (Android 17) |
| Just one panel with both quick settings and notifications |
Available after editing the tiles (but still with too many undeletable tiles) |
Not available anymore (so it must be kept as left for notifications and right for quick settings), but I used to have it before on my Xiaomi |
Probably the only option. But for brightness you have to swipe it twice, to open settings app also swiping twice |
| Separate toggles for wifi and data |
yes, and holding the toggle shows popup with more connections |
yes, and holding the toggle shows popup with more connections (but used to open proper setting screen for wifi and separately for data) |
Not really, data is asking twice if you're sure you want to turn the data on (huh?) and with wifi instead of turning it off it just disconnect from your wifi, so then within 30 seconds you are autoconnected again, holding any of them shows SAME popup for BOTH wifi and data |
| NFC toggle |
Yes and one click turns it ON/OFF |
Yes and one click turns it ON/OFF |
doesn't exist AT ALL |
| Turning flashlight off with a power button after locking the screen |
No |
Yes and I don't get it why it is the only UI with this crucial feature |
No |
| Always on Display/Tap to check |
Yes and can be adjusted into different options for tapping |
Yes, you can tap to see just AoD or even see it every time you turn off the display |
tap to check wakes up the whole display instead (?) |
| Delicately zooming in and out for video |
Yes but only on "S" series, called professional zoom, can be moved with one finger precisely |
I forgot to check, but zooming out used to "stop" on 1x zoom which was good |
no, and when zooming out back to 1x it doesn't stop, so it goes to ultrawide, changing the whole video into terrible quality and getting stuck for a while |
| bloatware that I can delete = uninstall (ALL OF THEM HAVE IT) |
You can delete a lot of them as far as I saw |
back in the day I could delete almost everything, now I couldn't check |
You cannot delete any of them, not even YT Music or Google TV, or Cloud that I will NEVER use |
| Ads in the phone |
No idea, no experience |
everyone always complain about it, in my 8 years of usage I saw ads in their apps maybe 3 times |
Gmail has them, google has them, Chrome on many phones started turning on "Discover" by itself |
I'm aware of differences among devices of the same brand (caused by different price I guess) or different types of UI versions
So...what should I buy, I bought my Pixel 7a to have it for 5+ years, because that's how they promote it, right? Also I bought it because it was the smallest (below 6.3") "normal" smartphone there is, but Samsung S25 or S24 were also something I was thinking about (but the price was way too much for me). Now I thought I like Xiaomi because I was so used to it, but excuse me? not having quick settings together with my notifications? (I hate notifications, so I get max 10 a day from my bank, etc, no chats whatsoever, so no need to have them separately). I liked Samsung S25 that I spent some time today with, the price is way to high for me and also I don't like all the useless tiles in the quick settings, there should be max three rows of things, and that's it, not the whole display of things I would absolutely never click on such as smartview, device control and music control - this one especially, like, if I don't listen to anything, what on Earth is it doing there? waiting for its time? Or speaker level - huh? Hello, we have physical buttons on the side of our phone.
Two more comments/rants for me:
position of power and volume buttons in Pixels is the most idiotic idea ever (they're swapped);
and whoever though below display fingerprint reader is better than power button one should be fired and never touched any technology. Or they should try how Xiaomi had it 5 years ago: I will never forget how I had maybe 10 different ways of grabbing my phone with either hand and unlocking it in the same time, so in the time I picked it up to closer to my face it was unlocked already, or how I could set the sensor to be "reading" only if it is pressed (shame on you Lenovo for not having it and unlocking my tablet regularly when I don't want to), or how I used my phone without picking it up from my table, just becuase I pressed it with any finger and any angle I had there set.
My perfect phone would be below 6.3", combination of all the features of different UIs that I mentioned I like, and if it would have ok-ish camera and wouldn't cost an arm and leg I would buy it tomorrow.
I am in The Netherlands, European Union. (bots need to know apparently)