Nothing And Pixel Prove That Stock Android Is A Thing Of The Past

Ryan Haines / Android Authority

When you think of a phone running stock Android, what comes to mind? If I had to guess, you probably think of a Google Pixel first and maybe a Motorola phone second, but you’d be wrong on both accounts. It’s not entirely your fault, though — Google makes Android, and Google makes Pixels, so it makes perfect sense to link the two together. However, if you picked up a Pixel running a truly stock version of Android, I don’t think you’d enjoy it all that much. Sure, it would work, but the truth is that stock Android just doesn’t really exist anymore.

A light Android skin isn’t the same as stock Android

Joe Maring / Android Authority

Now, I know that there are purists out there who will argue that stock Android is the fastest, most efficient, and most customizable operating system you can get on a phone. You know what? They’re probably right. A phone running the most bare-bones version of the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) source code would be pretty quick and pretty easy to update because there would be nothing to it. There would be no apps, no Google services, and none of the all-important APIs that allow it to connect to cloud storage or make wireless payments. Truly stock Android is, well, just the stock that all other flavors of Android are made from.

Even the privacy-focused, de-Googled versions of Android that claim they’re nearly stock are just light, efficient Android skins. Every Google service that GrapheneOS or Murena’s /e/OS removes is simply replaced by an in-house solution like Murena Workspace. Is it still Android? Of course, it is; it’s based on the AOSP framework, but that’s not the same as being stock Android. It’s just a lightweight, simplified version of Android with slightly different priorities — and that’s what makes open-source software great; not every version has to be the same.

If you load up a phone with stock Android, you’ll quickly find out just how much it’s missing.

With that little bit of clarification out of the way, let’s talk about light Android skins. As mentioned, this is where something like a Pixel UI comes in. Even though we often refer to Pixel UI and stock Android almost interchangeably, it isn’t exactly correct. See, although Google’s Pixel skin looks pretty close to what you’d expect from stock Android, with simple menus and a pretty minimal interface, there are enough Pixel-specific features to it that we could never call Pixel UI stock — nor would I want to.

In order to get a Pixel 9 to the point where you could call it stock Android, you’d have to strip out all of the best Pixel-only features that we praise year in and year out. You’d have to cut Hold For Me, Call Screen, Top Shot, Google’s solution to astrophotography, and clever editing tricks like Add Me. At that point, you’re left with a phone that might look pretty and perform well, but you’ve pretty much removed any need to have the Tensor G4 chipset under the hood.

Another company that claims it sticks pretty close to stock Android is Nothing, but a quick glance over Nothing OS is all you should need to know that stock-like isn’t the same as truly stock. After all, a phone running stock Android wouldn’t need a Glyph Interface full of LED lights on the back — it wouldn’t know what to do with them. The LEDs haven’t become as ubiquitous as something like native dark mode, and even that took ten versions of Android before it became a default customization.

From a true software perspective, though, hunting down a Nothing Phone running stock Android sounds just as boring as doing it on a Pixel. You’d have to give up the ever-present dot matrix that runs through most of Nothing’s first-party apps and widgets, as well as several of the widgets that give the robot-inspired skin its personality. Personally, I’ve become reliant on Nothing’s 35mm-equivalent Road Trip Photo widget, which opens the camera to 1.4x zoom (35mm) by default, a focal length that I know well from my Fujifilm X100V and much prefer to the slightly too wide standard of 24mm.

Strip all of that out? I probably don’t want to use what’s left.

Still not convinced? Try Android One

If Google and Nothing can’t convince you that stock Android isn’t good enough in 2025, I have another option for you: Pick up a phone running Android One — if you can find one. Android One is perhaps as close to stock Android as you can get, but it only existed because Google wanted to clean up the chaos of the budget Android segment. And, on that front, it kind of did its job — Android One gave cheap phones reliable, if inflexible, software with just a few extra apps so that companies could focus on improving their hardware while Google handled the software.

Unfortunately, that controlled experience also kind of strangled the Android One program on its own vine. Because the low price points meant that developers could only do so much with their respective hardware, the cheap phones in the Android One program needed software wrinkles to stand out from one another, and those wrinkles just never materialized. Developers were only allowed five pre-loaded apps, including ones mandated by carriers and operators, giving otherwise simple phones even less room to stand out.

If stock Android were the solution, wouldn’t Android One have worked out better?

In some ways, though, that lack of flexibility might have been the whole idea — because companies could at least rely on Google to update their cheap phones, they were suddenly able to put more time and energy into a worthwhile Android skin, at which point they no longer needed stock Android. Or, if they tried to stick with stock Android as Nokia/HMD did, they suddenly found themselves not moving very many phones at all.

And now, Android One is no more. It no longer has a landing page, phones no longer ship with it, and even the Reddit posts asking, “What the hell is happening with Android One?” died off about three years ago. It didn’t offer enough personality for Google to stick with it on its Pixel A series, nor did it offer enough flexibility for Motorola to trust it with even the most affordable of Moto G devices.

If anything, Android One taught other developers that stock Android wasn’t the way forward, and now it’s time for the most stubborn of Android fans to learn the same. Besides, on our list of the best phones with near-stock Android skins, not a single one of them actually runs stock Android. Sure, they get close, but it’s the customizations and personalities that keep our favorite phones feeling together but not the same.