However, each of these phones has a problem.
The “problem” with Samsung hardware is… Chinese Android phones
Point is, any of these phones has slightly better hardware than Samsung’s top brass, and with much better value, too. Pound for pound, if you’re a hardware enthusiast, it makes little sense to go with a Samsung, Apple, or Pixel phone: China’s finest are truly in a league of their own.
One common aspect of the latest interfaces of Xiaomi, Vivo, and Oppo is their obvious and unapologetic copying of iOS, starting from the near 1:1 Control Center cloning, to the settings app, the icon customization, and the biggest offender of them all, the now wide adoption of the Liquid Glass design language.
While hardware and value are certainly unmatched on the best Chinese Android phones, the lack of originality in the software is an issue. It doesn’t feel particularly nice to use those interfaces, because despite their wider feature sets, they don’t feel particularly unique or nice to use.
That’s not the case with One UI, though.
Samsung’s latest One UI interface is peak Android
The biggest Android manufacturer in the world has done one thing great this year, and it’s making its One UI interface the best custom Android skin at the moment.
My favorite part of One UI, however, comes with no competition.
The biggest selling point of One UI
I have always been a customization freak, and Samsung has usually scratched an itch that literally no other Android maker can.
I’ll sum it up in one word: GoodLock.
This selection of customization modules is the biggest flex Samsung could develop. Theme Park, Home Up, LockStar, Quick Star, and ClockFace are just a bunch of my favorite modules, and each of these offers pretty much unprecedented customization of your device’s home screen, lock screen, quick settings panel, status bar, and notifications panel. It’s like a candy shop for anyone who wants to do more with their phone aside from a standard wallpaper change.
To my knowledge, no other manufacturer lets you customize so much so easily, without any serious hassle or hacky workarounds.
To sum things up, Android fans can’t really have it better with any other custom Android skin rather than One UI. Hence my original point: Samsung’s biggest draw in 2025 is the software and not necessarily the hardware.
