Two months after ditching Samsung, I have no regrets

For more than six years, I’ve carried a Samsung phone. Starting with the Galaxy S10 Plus, I’ve since owned every Ultra model leading up to the S24 Ultra. One UI was my favorite flavor of Android, and the hardware was exceptional. But Samsung appears to be on a trajectory that I don’t like, and after loving my time with a Pixel 9 Pro this summer, I realized it was time for a change. I’ve had a Pixel 10 Pro for two months, and I regret nothing. The 10 Pro addresses my needs more than any Samsung model, and I’m worried about where Samsung is headed.

Anyone who’s read my content since I started writing about phones in 2020 will know that I was a Samsung die-hard, so the reason I made a change to another brand had to be a big one. There’s more than one reason, to be honest, but the biggest issue I have is that Samsung no longer feels like it’s innovating and trailblazing.

Samsung has always been at its best when it’s pushing the industry forward — forging a new path, not following someone else’s. There are plenty of examples that prove my point. Samsung pushed AMOLED displays, the Note made big screens and a stylus fashionable, the Note Edge introduced curved screens, the Galaxy S8 started the war on bezels, and the Z Fold and Flip series started a foldable revolution. Samsung has demonstrated that it can innovate, but these days it feels like it doesn’t want to.

For the last two years, it has felt like Samsung is chasing Apple, something it’s been accused of many times in the past. I love my Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, but they look like AirPods. One UI 8.5 is shaping up to borrow some of the worst parts of iOS 26 and even TouchWiz, and the Galaxy S25 Edge was clearly a reaction to the iPhone Air. You can tell me until you’re blue in the face that the S25 Edge launched first, but rumors of the iPhone started long before the S25 Edge was released, and Samsung’s flip-flopping between an S26 Plus and an S26 Edge only convinces me that the S25 Edge was little more than an attempt to get ahead of a trend just because Apple was trying it.

I like a lot of the design and feature changes in One UI 7; in fact, I said One UI 7 helped me fall in love with Samsung again. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, though, and I feel differently about it now than I did at the time. It took far too long to reach devices, and made some awful changes to usability that users will want to revert as soon as they can.

The stagnation goes beyond design. The cameras in Samsung’s phones are simply not good enough for the price you pay, especially in the Ultra. I loved the dual telephoto lenses when Samsung introduced them, with the 3X and 10X giving you a solid range of flexibility. The S24 Ultra changed that to a 3X and 5X system, and those two cameras are too close to warrant both of them existing. The photos you get from the cameras aren’t up to par, either. The 200MP sensor is too slow, and I can’t tell you how many photos I’ve had to delete because the sensor can’t capture an image fast enough, and everything ends up as a blurry mess, and if leaks are to be believed, my issues won’t be addressed anytime soon.

The final nail in the coffin was phone sizes. I’ve used a base Galaxy S25 extensively this year, and I fell in love with how easy it is to use with one hand, without feeling like I have a brick in my pocket at all times. The downside was the cameras — the 3X telephoto is as useless on this phone as it is on the Ultra. So, when rumors suggested there would be a smaller Galaxy S26 Pro next year, I was ready to make that my next phone. Alas, it seems like my worst fears will come to pass, and the S26 Pro will likely be little more than a name change for the base model. The Pixel 10 Pro might not be as small and light as the S25, but it’s close enough given all the “pro” features it retains from the bigger model.

I don’t want my negative thoughts to make it sound like I hate Samsung — I don’t. I’ve already written at length that there are parts of the Samsung experience I miss since I swapped to using a Pixel as my personal phone. The S Pen adds more practicality to a phone than many give it credit for. Many of Samsung’s apps are better designed and more feature-rich than Google’s alternatives, and multitasking on a Samsung phone is second to none, thanks to Edge Panels and all of the multi-window features built into One UI.

It’s Good Lock that I miss most, though. The utility found in Good Lock modules is something that is unrivaled, from customizing Android’s gesture navigation, using custom icon packs, and changing the icons that show in your status bar. I would love for Google to integrate these features into Android and the Pixel experience, but my love for Good Lock and One UI isn’t enough to stop me from preferring a Pixel.

So, how do I feel after two months of using a Pixel? Put simply, I couldn’t be happier. The 10 Pro is significantly smaller and lighter than my S24 Ultra, but it doesn’t make any significant sacrifices and offers all of the features I value.

Proper Qi2 charging with the magnets included is something more manufacturers need to implement, and the plethora of accessories that I can now use have changed how I use my phone every day. While the Pixel lacks some of the software features I miss from One UI, the things the Pixel has more than make up for it. The spam message and call filtering are second to none, Hold For Me and Direct My Call make calling my doctor or broadband company far less painful, and Now Playing is as useful now as it was when it debuted on the Pixel 2.

I won’t have to worry about delayed software updates, either. One UI 8 went some way to make up for One UI 7’s troubled launch, but it still leaves a bitter taste that I won’t have with a Pixel thanks to Google’s fast and reliable software support.

Finally, there are the cameras. I’ve already spoken about my grievances with Samsung’s optics, and the Pixel solves all of them. Shutter lag is totally non-existent on the Pixel, and after so many years of using a Galaxy, I’ve had to relearn how to take photos on a phone. I don’t need to take five photos at a time to increase my chances of them being good, and pets don’t look like a blurry mess when I snap pictures of them.

The camera has always been a pillar of the Pixel experience, and it still is on the Pixel 10 Pro. Sure, other companies have caught up, and there are new features and improvements I’d like Google to make, but even so, this is the best camera system for me. For the first time in a while, I’m looking for opportunities to take photos wherever I go, a feeling I’ve missed more than I realized. In short, the Pixel 10 Pro is the phone I’ve always wanted Google to make, and I couldn’t be happier with it.

That doesn’t mean I’m locked into using Pixels forever, though. This isn’t the first time I’ve changed phone brands, and it probably won’t be the last. Unlike my younger self, who was a bit of an evangelical Nexus fanboy, I’m not loyal to a brand of smartphone — I’m loyal to my own needs and wants, and I’ll buy whichever phones meet them. For now, that’s the Pixel 10 Pro, and I’m looking forward to spending the next year with it.

Would you swap a Galaxy device for a Pixel? Or are you thinking of doing the opposite? I’d love to hear your thoughts.