I’m done with iPhone, Galaxy, and Pixel in 2026
The big three lost me. 2026 is the year of Chinese flagships.
This article may contain personal views and opinion from the author.
The end of 2025 is near, and as the tradition goes, it's time to come up with a New Year's resolution.
This year, it's a drastic one for me.
I vow that in 2026 I won't be using mainstream flagship phones from any of the big trio––Samsung, Apple, and Google––and won't be using any upcoming flagships voluntarily aside from the odd review assignment.
In 2026, flagship phones hailing from China will be my daily drivers no matter what, and the reason for that should be obvious to any devoted enjoyer of mobile technology––they are arguably better devices and deliver significantly better value in comparison with their counterparts that are normally sold in the west.
In fact, I don't even have to change anything, realistically, as I've been doing that already in 2025!
Apple, Samsung, and Google are playing checkers
To me, it's painfully clear that the three major companies operating on the US phone market are relying on the bare minimum yearly innovation to keep their device lineups exciting. That's the reason using an Apple, Samsung, or a Google phone usually requires me to make some compromise.
Using an iPhone? Typically a great experience, but Liquid Glass put me off of iOS, and I still prefer Android as an operating system. And while the iPhone hardware is all-around excellent, it's still not best-in-class in terms of battery life, camera quality, and performance.
Samsung phones, probably the best Apple rival in the US, have become painfully stale to me. It's been years of reusing the same camera and battery hardware, with little to no real improvement. And while I love the ways you can customize One UI 8, the interface itself is still not enough to offset the minimum-effort annual hardware improvements.
Finally, Google phones. These still feel like a massive rip-off to me, even more so in late 2025. Google's Tensor experiment isn't inspiring confidence with the unimpressive performance figures, and some AI features like Magic Cue are starting to feel a bit too intrusive for me. As I'm also trying to tone down my usage of Google products and shift towards open-sourced alternatives whenever possible, it will be a no for me.
Judging from all the rumors and hearsay about Apple, Samsung, and Google flagships for 2026, it doesn't seem we will get a drastically different experience. The sameish design, similar hardware specs, and predictable camera and battery improvements is what we'll likely get.
Thanks, but no, thanks!
The competition is playing 5D Chess with Multiverse Time Travel
During the past couple of months, I have relied exclusively on Android flagships hailing from China as my daily driver phones.
In particular, I've been using the Oppo Find X9 Pro and the Vivo X200 Pro, as well as the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro and the Xiaomi 15 Ultra for a couple of months each right before that. The Oppo was a review assignment, but I simply could not force myself to move away from that spectacular phone even after the review was complete.
But it's the Vivo X200 Pro that is my go-to daily-driver of choice. It's an exceptional Android phone that checks all the boxes I care about. Those are battery life, camera quality, charging speed, performance, excellent and feature-rich interface, in no particular order. In fact, these have been my go-to requirements for a good daily driver phone, and interestingly, most other Android flagships from China meet the same requirements as well.
With those flagship phones from Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi, I have never really had the impression that I am making a compromise with any key aspect. Sure, some of you may argue that the software on these phones isn't their strongest suit due to the not particularly original interface design and features, and I'd agree.
Yet, the rest of the package is usually spectacular and can quickly make you forget that you're essentially using Apple's Liquid Glass on, say, an Oppo phone.
Batteries? Recently pushing 7,000+ mAh, and the numbers keep rising constantly. Meanwhile, Samsung has been using a 5,000 mAh battery on the Galaxy Ultra ever since its debut in 2020, basically.
Charging speeds? A 100W or faster wired charging is often the norm, and there's typically a wall adapter in the box as well!
Cameras? We're on the verge of getting phones with dual 200MP cameras at the back, possibly with massive 1-inch sensors.
The Chinese phone market also seems to be much more receptive to grander year-on-year innovation cycles, and the chances of a cool new functionality or a massive upgrade to arrive first on an Oppo, Vivo, or Xiaomi phone are much higher compared to an iPhone, or a Pixel, or a Galaxy.
To sum it up, it's off of the beaten path for me, and off to the greener smartphone pastures for me.
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