From Newsgroup: uk.telecom.mobile

I am looking to upgrade to a larger, brighter, more detailed screen.
[I have dry AMD (not the chip) so my eyesight will become progressively
worse over the next few years.]
My current phone is a realme 6 Pro.
My partner's phone is a Pixel 7.
I also have a Samsung Tab A8.

Previously owned Samsung Galaxy phones (many years), the realme and the Samsung Tab all have very similar UIs.
The Pixel 7 is significantly different; I haven't fully learned it yet.

The screen on the Pixel 7 is significantly more readable in bright
sunlight.

The reame has one big issue - VoLTE doesn't work with most carriers.
This is probably Android 13 and a non mainstream handset, but this has
pushed me towards replacing the phone with something mainstream.

Main contenders at the moment are
Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra
Google Pixel 10 Pro XL
[Previous versions acceptable.]

I am tempted also by pen support on the Galaxy as I can see that in the
future I may have more issues using eyesight and fingers combined.

So the big question is how similar is the UI now between Google and
Samsung?
A familiar UI is important as eyesight fades and I become older.

Any information most welcome.



Dave R
--
AMD FX-6300 in GA-990X-Gaming SLI-CF running Windows 10 x64

--
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From Newsgroup: uk.telecom.mobile

David wrote:

So the big question is how similar is the UI now between Google and
Samsung?
A familiar UI is important as eyesight fades and I become older.

With Android16 (including material3 expressive) they converged quite a
lot ...
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From Newsgroup: uk.telecom.mobile

On Thu 14/05/2026 19:04, David wrote:

I am looking to upgrade to a larger, brighter, more detailed screen.
[I have dry AMD (not the chip) so my eyesight will become progressively
worse over the next few years.]
My current phone is a realme 6 Pro.
My partner's phone is a Pixel 7.
I also have a Samsung Tab A8.

Previously owned Samsung Galaxy phones (many years), the realme and the Samsung Tab all have very similar UIs.
The Pixel 7 is significantly different; I haven't fully learned it yet.

The screen on the Pixel 7 is significantly more readable in bright
sunlight.

The reame has one big issue - VoLTE doesn't work with most carriers.
This is probably Android 13 and a non mainstream handset, but this has
pushed me towards replacing the phone with something mainstream.

Main contenders at the moment are
Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra
Google Pixel 10 Pro XL
[Previous versions acceptable.]

I am tempted also by pen support on the Galaxy as I can see that in the future I may have more issues using eyesight and fingers combined.

So the big question is how similar is the UI now between Google and
Samsung?
A familiar UI is important as eyesight fades and I become older.

Any information most welcome.

Some good offers at John Lewis' at the moment.

Suggestion: if Samsung is in the frame why go all out for the S25? There
is little that the S25 can do that the A57 can't or for that matter the
A56 if you can still get one! Equally the A36 or A37 would meet
many/most needs and significantly cheaper.


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From Newsgroup: uk.telecom.mobile

On Tue, 19 May 2026 18:47:30 +0100, Woody wrote:

On Thu 14/05/2026 19:04, David wrote:

I am looking to upgrade to a larger, brighter, more detailed screen. [I
have dry AMD (not the chip) so my eyesight will become progressively
worse over the next few years.]
My current phone is a realme 6 Pro.
My partner's phone is a Pixel 7.
I also have a Samsung Tab A8.

Previously owned Samsung Galaxy phones (many years), the realme and the
Samsung Tab all have very similar UIs.
The Pixel 7 is significantly different; I haven't fully learned it yet.

The screen on the Pixel 7 is significantly more readable in bright
sunlight.

The reame has one big issue - VoLTE doesn't work with most carriers.
This is probably Android 13 and a non mainstream handset, but this has
pushed me towards replacing the phone with something mainstream.

Main contenders at the moment are Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra Google Pixel
10 Pro XL [Previous versions acceptable.]

I am tempted also by pen support on the Galaxy as I can see that in the
future I may have more issues using eyesight and fingers combined.

So the big question is how similar is the UI now between Google and
Samsung?
A familiar UI is important as eyesight fades and I become older.

Any information most welcome.

Some good offers at John Lewis' at the moment.

Suggestion: if Samsung is in the frame why go all out for the S25? There
is little that the S25 can do that the A57 can't or for that matter the
A56 if you can still get one! Equally the A36 or A37 would meet
many/most needs and significantly cheaper.

Has to be the Ultra, to give me the biggest screen possible.


Thanks



Dave R
--
AMD FX-6300 in GA-990X-Gaming SLI-CF running Windows 10 x64

--
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. www.avast.com
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From Newsgroup: uk.telecom.mobile

David wrote:

Suggestion: if Samsung is in the frame why go all out for the S25? There
is little that the S25 can do that the A57 can't or for that matter the
A56 if you can still get one! Equally the A36 or A37 would meet
many/most needs and significantly cheaper.

Has to be the Ultra, to give me the biggest screen possible.

Macular degeneration is only the least of my octogenarian eye issues, where
my A32-5G is 1/2 meter tall when I'm at home & my GUI has never been OneUI.
<https://i.postimg.cc/N0G1TXcZ/scrcpy01.jpg>
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From Newsgroup: uk.telecom.mobile

Andy Burns wrote:

So the big question is how similar is the UI now between Google and
Samsung?
A familiar UI is important as eyesight fades and I become older.

With Android16 (including material3 expressive) they converged quite a
lot ...

Andy knows this from the comp.mobile.android newsgroup, but to edify all...

My recent choices based on old eyes & yet my desire to control Android were
Pixel 9 Pro XL 6.8 inch, no sd, bootloader unlocked
Samsung Galaxy A57 5G 6.7 inch, sd, UK/EU-spec bootloader unlockable
Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra 6.9 inch, no sd, UK/EU-spec bootloader unlockable

When my USB port became flaky, I thought hard about a new phone to replace
my free Galaxy A32-5G where I came to the rough conclusion that the only
two OEMs that have tons (and tons!) of support are Pixel & Galaxy.

The differences depend on what matters, where, for me, what mattered was...

Pixel has both a more standard Android & easier rooting, as all USA-spec Samsungs have a locked bootloader but I believe EU/UK-spec Samsungs are ok.

The Pixel has no SD slot but neither do the S series Galaxies, so it would
be an A series since there's almost nothing more useful than sd cards.

At home, size doesn't matter if I'm sitting at my desk as any phone or
tablet will be displayed & controlled on the desktop/laptop over Wi-Fi.
<https://i.postimg.cc/k5gv0yw8/vysor34.jpg>

The GUI doesn't matter to me since there are far better GUI's out there.

Personally I use the last known good version of Tesla Coil's Nova launcher.
<https://tinyurl.com/nova-launcher>

Note that when we migrate from any old phone to any new phone, it's a good
idea to save the entire phone homescreen to a single backup file so that we
can import the home screen to the new phone so it will be an exact copy.

Any app that isn't yet installed will be there but the icon will be gray.
When you tap that gray icon, it will install the app automatically for you.

Or if you want the exact same subversion back, then slide it over visually.
<https://i.postimg.cc/wvsbcNBz/scrcpy05.jpg>

I don't have a google account on the phone (for the obvious reasons that
the phone works far better without either the Google or Samsung account).
<https://i.postimg.cc/Bnyr9fP1/account01.jpg>

Most people don't know you can download any free APK off the Google Play
Store repository w/o an account & w/o actually ever installing that APK.
<https://i.postimg.cc/SNZzqCQV/saveondevice.jpg>
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Usenet is wonderful for kind helpful people to discuss ideas as a team.
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