what these guys are thinking I can't
hold to quickly uninstall apps the
search bar is where I want my time and
weather to be and I can't move the
navigation
buttons what those are all stock Android
features
man right I guess I have been kind of
faithful to the Samsung ecosystem for a
while maybe I don't know what stock
Android truly is quick somebody get me a
phone with a stock AOSP image ah perfect
a pi pixel 8 Pro with GSI I'm going to
use this for a month then I'm going to
come back here and talk about what I
learned that's it I'm out how can anyone
use this I don't know when or how this
happened but it happened crappy vendor
skins that's the good Android now and
stock Android it's a broken mess and
wait wait wait before you shoot the
messenger
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[Music]
my first gamebreaking issue hit me
almost immediately I wanted to take some
pictures at one of my kids birthday
parties and I was like oh this is great
timing I can use the fancy pixel camera
instead of my old note 9 but then I
launched the camera and I'm like what
even is this not only is the app
shockingly Bare Bones I'm talking timer
grid lines Flash and O you can switch to
the front camera if you want to get
fancy but it's also super unintuitive
after I'd recorded some video I couldn't
for the life of me figure out how to get
back to photo mode without closing and
completely restarting the app I did
eventually figure out that there's a
gesture a dang it this is exactly what
I'm talking about there we go there's a
gesture to bring up the mode select or
to see your gallery but if you start
that gesture anywhere near the edge of
the phone as you guys just saw it it
just closes the app and things like that
just kept happening let's look at
something even more basic a phone call I
can start a call just fine dial a number
bring up a contact the Wes but once the
call is started I am completely at the
mercy of whoever I called because for
the life of me I could not figure out
how to hang up a phone call there's no
gesture and even pressing the power
button to end the call is not enabled by
default as it turns out there isn't any
default app configured for phone calls
so when you make or receive a call
you're initiating some kind of dark
ritual then that links you directly to
the phone's brain stem and okay sure no
one talks on the phone anymore lus you
dinosaur but come on the app is there
why aren't we using it uh what else
Bluetooth was weird I could pair devices
pretty reliably but then actually making
audio playback go through my airpods Pro
twos whole other story and the Bluetooth
settings even crashed pretty often when
I tried to open them uh while I was in
the settings menu I tried to switch the
Wi-Fi hotspot to 5 GHz and it would
acknowledge I was touching the screen
and even refresh the page but would not
register the change 2.4 GHz worked fine
though uh wireless emergency alerts
appear to be totally missing when you
click the entry in the menu it just
drops you back a menu level and screen
saver was enabled but without a screen
saver selected so my screen was not
saved okay that last one's pretty minor
but one that really irked me was needing
to hit enter after my pin I hear this is
finally changeable on Pixel devices with
Android 14 but it's not changeable on
this one which brings us to the
surprising Revelation that this
experiment brought us to there isn't
really a functional stock Android
anymore there is stock Android and
getting it is pretty straightforward we
used a pixel 8 Pro thinking well I mean
Google's own phone should surely be a
good starting point for Google's own
operating system and we downloaded a GSI
or generic system image of Android 15
that's built from the Android open
source project or AOSP we picked up one
with GMS or Google mobile services
because I need Play store apps and that
was it we got stock Android it just
sucks so much that we kind of didn't
even trust the results so as a sanity
check we also loaded up a pixel 8 nonpr
with the same image so that the team
could confirm that my problems were not
user ER without me having to give them
my phone all the time and they weren't
I'm speaking of pixels by the way have
you checked out our dead pixel
collection LTT store.com but hold on a
second let's back up AOSP is the
fundamental code that all manufacturers
of Android phones build upon it's a
pillar of open- source Purity how could
it be
bad well whatever it may have been in
the past these days AOSP is less of an
operating system and it's more of a
starting point all manufacturers yes
even Google themselves adds their own
drivers UI customizations and apps that
give their devices a unique flavor and
as this practice has become more common
it's clear that less and less effort has
gone into maintaining stock apps and
functions that no one's going to use
anyway now I've mostly been a Samsung
boy in recent years so I'm most familiar
with their oneui and I've seen your
comments that it's clear that lius CES
one UI as kind of a base line for
Android and you know what there's
probably some truth to that maybe you
have used Sony's xeria UI for years and
you think of that is normal we're both
wrong there is no normal Android even
the Android that you get with a pixel
device is not stock Google's pixel UI
may be their vision for what Android
should be but there's no money importing
all of their pixel exclusive Visions
back into AOSP though of course in some
cases that could be considered a good
thing Google does not generally include
micro SD slots for expanded storage in
their devices but Android still has
support for external storage in AOSP I
think the funniest thing about this for
me is that while we still see people
evangelizing the stock Android
experience it's actually been dead for a
lot longer than most people realize even
Google's older Nexus line of phones got
progressively less stock as time went on
with apps for things like calendar
messages web browsing gradually being
replaced with similar Google Apps and
they even started using their own custom
launcher that wasn't available for other
phones luckily though if you're not
happy with the skin used on your phone
you might be able to switch it up with a
custom rom that is a version of Android
that's made by someone other than one of
the major phone
manufacturers I wouldn't really
recommend this on a device that's still
being supported by the manufacturer but
if your device is no longer supported
custom roms can get give you access to
the latest security patches or even
entirely new versions of Android and
help keep an old phone viable well past
the manufacturers end of support before
you get too excited though you will need
a device with an unlockable bootloader
in order to do this thankfully these
days that's many devices with some
notable exceptions like Asus where there
isn't currently an official unlock
method and it's worth noting that even
if your phone works certain features
like Samsung's S Pen for example or
especially secure features like NFC
payments and Bank apps might not work
the way you would expect out of the box
once you've got your bootloader unlocked
though you can choose a custom rom none
of which are stock Android and if
anything gives me more appreciation for
the incredible work that these teams
have done over the years it is the
experience of using stock Android uh
some of the notable examples of custom
roms include lineage OS which is lightly
customized quite stable and often used
as a base for other custom roms a pixel
OS is one that aims to bring a pixel
likee experience to devices from
non-google manufacturers graphine OS and
calx Os both aimed to prevent Google
from tracking your location and other
data but take kind of different
approaches Paranoid Android has been
around almost forever and I think is
pretty self-explanatory and of course
there's that one that you're screaming
at your screen right now because I'm a
terrible terrible person who's ignoring
what is clearly the best custom ROM so
I'll tell you what I'm going to leave it
out so you can be the one to write it in
the comments and collect your precious
up votes you're welcome with that out of
the way I dropped my fold in the pool
almost a year ago and after letting you
guys pick one attempting unsuccessfully
to switch to the fair phone 5 the phone
I wanted and then going through this
bloody mess I still don't have a new
phone so you know what [ __ ] it I'm
getting an iPhone yes finally but man
they're
expensive how am I going to afford one
maybe with some help from our sponsor
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with premium if you guys liked this
video why not relive how we got here
from dunking the phone in the pool to
getting trolled by Reddit and the
disappointment of a phone I wanted so
badly to love uh we're going to link a
playlist down below