I’ve always been curious about the Pixel side of Android. The software is clean, the camera work is routinely ahead of the competition, and with the Pixel 10 Pro, Google pushed Gemini deeper into the core Android experience. So I picked one up and used it as my only phone for a full month.
That first week, everything just worked. No bloatware, no overlays fighting for attention, just a clean experience out of the box. But somewhere around week two, I started noticing gaps. Workflows I never had to think about on Samsung were missing or half-built.
By the end of the month, I wasn’t comparing cameras or chipsets anymore. I was thinking about something harder to measure, something the spec sheet never accounts for.
Unmatched customization
The setup pixel can’t replicate
On a Samsung phone, you don’t just use the interface. You reshape it. And after years of doing that, switching to Pixel felt like moving into a furnished apartment where you’re not allowed to rearrange anything.
Take Good Lock, Samsung’s customization suite. One of its modules, One Hand Operation +, adds gesture handles to the left and right edges of your screen. You can assign different actions to short swipes, long swipes, and diagonal swipes on each side. On my Samsung, a quick swipe on the left handle was my back key, and a diagonal swipe up opened my Edge Panel. A long diagonal swipe down on the right side started the screen recorder. I had the entire phone mapped to how my thumb naturally moves.
The Keys Café does something similar with the keyboard. You can assign custom gestures to two-finger and three-finger swipes, and I had mine set up for copying, undoing, and launching writing tools. They’re part of how I type every day. On Pixel, the keyboard is fine, but it’s fixed. You get what Google gives you.
Now, Pixel’s simplicity is intentional, and to be fair, it works. But when you’ve spent years building a layout that fits the way you actually use your phone, going back to a fixed interface just feels like a downgrade.
Samsung Routines were the part I took for granted the most. During working hours, my phone would go silent on its own. When I plugged in the charger, it announced that it was charging. If the battery hit 80% or dropped below 25%, it would alert me with a voice notification, so I never had to keep checking. I even had it set to mute system sounds whenever I opened the Camera app, since Samsung doesn’t give you a built-in way to turn off the shutter sound. All of this ran quietly in the background. On Pixel, I had to handle each of these manually, and every time I did, it reminded me how much Samsung was doing for me.
I spent hours customizing Android to feel like Pixel and realized I should have just bought one
No customization can get you a Pixel.
True multitasking
More than just split-screen
Customization was the first thing I missed. The second was something even harder to give up: how Samsung handles multitasking. On a phone, you’re rarely doing just one thing. You’re replying to a message while reading something, or pulling up a reference while writing. Both the Pixel and Samsung offer split-screen for that. But Samsung doesn’t stop there.
When a notification came in while I was reading, I just tapped it. It opened as a small pop-up window over my article. I replied, closed it, and my article was exactly where I had left it. On Pixel, that same moment meant switching out entirely and finding my way back.
A swipe from the side of the screen opens the Edge Panel, the most useful shortcut on my phone. It’s a sliding drawer with tools, recent apps, and even a clipboard for your recent screenshots. Both phones let you save split-screen pairs on the home screen, but Samsung also gives you the option to keep them inside the Edge Panel instead. One gesture away, and your home screen stays clean.
And when your phone’s screen isn’t big enough, both phones can connect to a monitor. But here’s where the gap really shows. Pixel’s desktop mode mirrors your phone. Same screen, same layout, and your phone display has to stay on the entire time. Samsung DeX is a completely different experience. It creates its own desktop with a separate wallpaper, taskbar, resizable windows, and independent settings. You can turn your phone screen off and keep working as if you’re at a full desktop.
Where Pixel still wins
That said, Samsung has earned its reputation for a reason. But the Pixel has its own strengths. With the Pixel, you get Android updates the day Google releases them, with no waiting involved. Samsung has gotten much faster with its flagships, but there’s still usually a gap of a few months. Pixel also lets you beta test upcoming Android versions long before public release, while Samsung’s One UI beta tends to arrive later. And stock Android, without extra layers or duplicate apps, still delivers one of the cleanest and smoothest software experiences you can get.
But switching phones isn’t just about comparing features. It’s about leaving behind an ecosystem that’s quietly built itself around every device you own.
8.5/10
- SoC
-
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
- Display
-
6.9-inch Dynamic Super AMOLED 2X
- RAM
-
12 or 16 GB
- Storage
-
256GB, 512GB, or 1TB
The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra isn’t a massive leap in specs compared to the previous generation Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, but it boasts improvements in every aspect. The major differentiators are two features that will appeal to power users and content creators, called Privacy Display and Horizontal Lock.