This is the case even on high-end devices. Our 12-month-old Galaxy Tab is slower than a 7-year-old Pixel. Hard to understand.

Plus, they make really odd tweaks to the UI, such as adding a permanent button overlay that clashes with most hamburger icons in websites and apps. This drives novice users insane.

If you wanna ship a custom Android, at least get it right. Otherwise, just stick to stock. Sony does this really well: https://developerworld.wpp.developer.sony.com/open-source

First, it essentially forces you to create both a Samsung account and a Google account, with numerous shady prompts for "improving services" and "allowing targeted ads."

Then it required nine system updates (apparently, it can only update incrementally), and worst of all, after a while, it automatically started downloading bloatware like "Kawai" and other questionable apps, and you cannot cancel the downloads.

I wonder how much Samsung gets paid to preinstall all that crap. The phone wasn't cheap, either. The company seems penny wise and pound foolish.

The day iPhone has a built-in EMR/AES stylus is the day I become a customer (despite being an Android lifer).

Don't think that will ever happen though, despite Apple shipping Pencil for iPads.

Samsung has definitely built a (small) moat being the only vendor with that offering.