For over 9 years I’d been an iPhone fan, from 2007 it had been innovative and always offered improvements that I’d wanted over previous versions, then it started to get a bit stale and the prices increased.


In late 2016 I got an Amazon Fire 7 tablet, it was £30 in their Black Friday deals and I loved it, such a useful device for such a low price, and my first real experience of an Android device, this spurred me to try an Android phone, I was able to get a Moto G4 free from my mobile operator (in exchange for agreeing to an extra 12 months on my contract).


I didn’t switch to this as my main phone, but I did try to do everything that I did on my iPhone, pretty much all of the well known apps were already available, so that was great, and then there was the not so common ones which were iPhone only, so I had to find alternatives, which I did, in most cases they were better than the iPhone ones I’d relied on, literally only 1 app I loved on iPhone that has no competitor on Android is Spark Mail, they are supposedly developing that so I will wait, in the meantime I’m using Googles Inbox app.


So after all of this testing I had determined that I could get a phone just as good as the iPhone for a fraction of the cost, the Moto G4 was around £150 at the time in comparison to the £820 I’d paid out for the iPhone 7 Plus, now to say they were identical is unfair on the iPhone, the camera was far superior, and the general speed and battery life of the phone was also far superior, so I started researching the best cameras on a smartphone, unsurprisingly the market leaders, Samsung, Google and Apple topped the polls, but there was a lot of respect given to the OnePlus phones, at this point they had the 3T available, matching and in some cases exceeding the Samsung and Google phones at half the price of flagships offered by the big 3, so I ordered one.


What a phone, great speed, their fast charging tech is peerless in my opinion, the battery lasted all day, literally, 19-24 hours most days, the camera was great, but lacked a few features available on the iPhone 7 Plus. I thought I would probably end up getting a new iPhone when that was released, but the rumours started circulating that their new one would be over £1000, absolutely no way was I spending that on a phone, so I focused my search on what phone had the best camera, OnePlus released the 5, which came close to the iPhone camera, it was good, but still slightly lacking and reviews were backing this up, the Samsung S8 was getting rave reviews, so I decided to pre-order the Note 8.


The Note 8 has a great camera, no doubt, the Note 8 has a great screen, it also has a pretty good user experience too, I can see why they are so popular, but a few things annoyed me, Bixby, a specific button on the device for a tool I didn’t use, very frustrating, the stylus that I thought would transform the way I use my mobile phone, nope, never wanted to use it, when I did it just put me off using it again, then the fingerprint sensor, so awkward, and the battery wasn’t great, requiring charging 1-2 times during the day as well as my regular overnight charge.


So a couple of months on I was looking again, thinking I would get an S9 when released, but Google’s Pixel 2 had been rated the best camera, reading user reviews they were massively positive, fast charging and having the latest version of Android available as soon as available, something that Samsung struggles to achieve, barely 5 months after getting a Note 8 I’d bought a Pixel 2 and I’m so glad I did, it is a great phone, with a great camera, all day battery life, properly positioned fingerprint sensor and as Carphone Warehouse had a sale on, available for £200 less than the Note 8.


After physically testing the best available phones on the market, I’d recommend that people looking to switch from iPhone investigate the following phones in order of my preference.


  1. Google Pixel 2 XL - Google Phone Website
  2. OnePlus 5T - OnePlus Website
  3. Samsung S8+ - Samsung Galaxy S8 Website


Now that I’ve made the switch I can’t see myself going back to iPhone, something unthinkable to me a few years back, I feel I’m more productive now too