Google retains including AI to Pixels, however I’d commerce all of it for these 4 Samsung options
After utilizing a Samsung Galaxy S21 FE for an excellent whereas (greater than three and a half years, if I keep in mind appropriately), I switched to a Pixel 10 Pro in March 2026. So far, I’m largely having fun with the trip, however the Pixel expertise feels limiting in ways in which actually rub me the mistaken approach, and it lacks some options I took with no consideration on my Galaxy and now miss dearly.
The worst factor is that Google might’ve simply introduced many of the options I point out under years in the past, or at the least upgraded its personal choices to match One UI’s. Instead, we’ve gotten a deluge of AI options, most of which aren’t that helpful, and a few even downgrade what they changed. If you ask me, I’d gladly let go of many of the AI stuff for the next One UI options that Pixel telephones both don’t have or can’t match.
Good Lock
The greatest app Samsung has ever launched
I put in Good Lock a number of months after getting the S21 FE, and it and its numerous modules have been amongst my most used apps for so long as that was my essential telephone. I’d discover Good Lock a number of instances a month and would virtually all the time discover a cool new customization choice I didn’t learn about earlier than.
While the sheer variety of modules and the choices inside every one might be daunting, taking the time to study the ropes is so rewarding as a result of the app opens up an entire new international stage of customization on your Galaxy telephone. I downloaded it as a result of I needed extra quantity steps, because the default 15 simply didn’t reduce it. Just a few days later, I used to be tweaking stuff I didn’t know was potential with no customized launcher or rooting my telephone.
Pixels, sadly, don’t have something that comes near Good Lock. There’s a third-party app known as Essentials that’s principally Good Lock lite, however despite the fact that it has gotten quite a few updates since I wrote about it, it nonetheless can’t match Good Lock’s breadth of options. If I might switch only one characteristic from my outdated Galaxy to my Pixel, I’d select Good Lock in a heartbeat.
It’s excessive time Google introduced this characteristic to Pixels
Unlike with Good Lock, I didn’t begin utilizing widget stacks till a few 12 months after the characteristic arrived in late 2022. But as soon as I discovered it, it shortly turned one in every of my favourite One UI options. Instead of losing residence display actual property on a bunch of separate widgets, I might stack them on top of each other, with all of them accessible proper from my essential residence display web page.
For instance, I had the clock, good residence, Modes and Routines toggles, Sofascore, and pedometer widgets in a single stack on the prime, with the climate, battery, and Galaxy Buds widgets in one other stack under it. That approach, I had loads of management over my telephone, with every thing grouped on a single residence display web page, and I wanted fewer residence display pages. That let me navigate my residence display quicker and preserve extra app shortcuts on it, since I do not like opening the app drawer usually or creating folders. It was sensible.
It’s been a unique story on the Pixel. I can’t create widget stacks, so I’ve to unfold all these widgets throughout a number of residence display pages. And since I can’t change the default residence display web page, attending to them is painfully sluggish in comparison with the way it was on my Galaxy. The truth of the matter is that Google has had years to carry widget stacking to Pixels. Apart from saying it was “wanting into” the characteristic again in 2025, all we’ve heard are crickets.
Modes and Routines
Pixel Modes and Rules don’t have anything on One UI’s Modes and Routines
I’ll be trustworthy, I’m not an automation buff, however I appreciated the way in which Modes and Routines on my Samsung telephone allowed me to create intricate if-this-then-that guidelines that will require root if I needed to do the identical with a third-party app.
I used to be everywhere in the characteristic in the course of the first months of proudly owning the S21 FE, when it was nonetheless generally known as Bixby Routines. I created an automation that will change the telephone to the 2G community (nonetheless alive and kicking the place I stay) and disable cell information each time I entered my residence and related to Wi-Fi. Another would launch Spotify, disable Wi-Fi, and change to cell information as quickly as my Galaxy Buds Pro related to my telephone. Once we bought customized modes, I arrange customized Sleep and Work modes that permit just a few contacts name or message me, and just a few apps present notifications.
Pixel telephones have Modes in addition to Rules, however each are woefully limited in comparison with One UI’s implementation. You can create just a few if-this-then-that guidelines, and it’s important to allow location entry even for Wi-Fi-based Rules. Regarding modes, Bedtime mode, for instance, solely permits me to allow the Grayscale display filter. I can’t even activate Comfort View or Night Light, which I’d a lot choose at night time since Grayscale is harsher on my eyes than the opposite two filters.
It’s clear that this space is not more than an afterthought to Google, and I’ve been getting so annoyed with the restricted Bedtime mode lately that it’s only a matter of days earlier than I set up MacroDroid and create a Bedtime mode I really like.
Home display customization
The launcher is (nonetheless) the worst a part of the Pixel expertise
The Pixel Launcher stays my greatest gripe with the telephone, and my opinion hasn’t modified an iota since I wrote about it in June of this 12 months. Google has added some new options since then, like the power to take away app icon labels, however the launcher remains to be laughably inferior to One UI Home (the title of the system launcher on Galaxy telephones).
As I’ve already stated, widget stacking remains to be nowhere to be seen; I nonetheless can’t transcend the 5×6 residence display grid, can’t change my default residence display web page, and need to swipe down twice to succeed in the brightness slider. The app drawer remains to be as barebones as ever, and I’m now fairly positive the launcher won’t ever add help for third-party icon packs, with these low-effort AI-generated icons being the closest we’ll get.
On the opposite hand, One UI Home showers you with customization choices. Even with out putting in Good Lock, you may regulate a lot greater than on Pixels, and when you’ve bought Good Lock, the sky’s the restrict. You might tweak the launcher to the tip of days, and also you’d nonetheless discover new choices as a result of, on the subject of customizability, Samsung’s the king, whereas Google is much, far behind it and most different first-party launchers.
Google ought to be closing the hole with One UI, not piling on AI options
Google has determined to concentrate on AI options as an alternative of introducing and enhancing issues that, you understand, individuals really use and like. One result’s the removing of Google Assistant, which has been replaced with a a lot much less succesful Gemini, at the least on the subject of primary duties most of us usually carry out on our telephones.
We’ve additionally been getting a gentle stream of different AI options. Sure, some are cool and useful, such because the Pixel 11’s Rambler, Pro Zoom, or Pixel Screenshots, however many others (Magic Cue, AI-generated icon packs, Pixel Journal, and a ton of AI options baked into Google apps) aren’t helpful to many individuals and largely simply enhance muddle.
Meanwhile, Google’s efforts to carry new, helpful, non-AI options to Pixels are so poor it’s virtually unhappy. No stacked widgets, no launcher customizations different telephones have had for years, no phrase on enhancing the poor state of Modes and Rules, stagnation of Android’s desktop mode because it was launched in March 2026, no Separate app sound equal, and the dearth of Miracast are simply the tip of the iceberg. I nonetheless like my Pixel, but when Google retains up its AI-first, everything-else-last trajectory, I’m fairly positive my subsequent telephone received’t be a Pixel.
