We asked, you told us: This is your favorite Android skin

One of the best parts about Android is the ability to customize the platform with various software skins. Android OEMs often overlay their own software skins on top of Android to differentiate the way their phones look compared to competing devices. However, changing the way your Android phone appears isn’t the only plus point of Android skins. They often come with exciting features that you won’t otherwise get on stock Android. We set out to find the Android skin our readers like the most. We conducted a poll on our website and asked people to vote for their favorite Android skin. Here are the results of that survey.

What’s your favorite Android skin?

Results

As you can see from the results displayed above, stock Android or the Pixel UI grabbed the largest share of the pie. 34.87% of the total 13,438 voters picked it as their favorite Android skin. The second-largest chunk of votes (28.8%) were cast in favor of by Samsung’s One UI, followed by OnePlus’ Oxygen OS in the third place with 13.9% of the votes.

Related: Here are the best smartphones that run stock Android

Xiaomi’s MIUI was a distant fourth with only 8.6% of the voters picking it as their favorite Android skin. We wonder if ads in MIUI have anything to do with these numbers.

Elsewhere, HUAWEI’s EMUI and Sony’s Xperia UI both defeated OPPO’s Color OS and the realme UI. vivo’s FunTouch OS received a negligible number of votes. The “Other” category was actually picked above any of these Android skins.

Let’s take a look at our reader comments to see why they voted the way they did.

What you had to say

EasyCare: I used to tinker a lot and install custom ROMs but now I like straightforward software. Interested to see how the Pixel 6 is gonna be like.

CR45H 0V3RR1D3: Clean and simple fits me much better these days, rather than kitchen sink ROMs. And since purchasing a Pixel, custom ROMs/kernels mean absolutely nothing to me.

JeremyPatrickMartin: I LOVE that pixel is boring and basic and fast. Android 12 Beta is still boring and basic and fast but it now has material you.

Konrad Uroda-Darłak: Pure Android doesn’t have many useful options, so a good skin is a must-have. MIUI is not without flaws, but I personally chose it.

oVaBilly: Even if I hate Exynos at Samsung models, I’ve got to admit that the software is full of useful functions and the best of all is that I can make my TV a computer by Samsung DEX.

stephan cevallos: I believe the media really discounts One UI. One UI is often years ahead of PixelUi/Android. Features such as chat heads, dark mode, multitasking, desktop mode (dex), and others have been on One UI for generations. Tech influencers go crazy when Google does something like add a voice recorder that transcribes, while One UI has had that (and more) features for a while.

006_Bill: I’ve tried Samsung, Motorola, LG over the years but always returned to stock Android with Pixel. No launcher. Feels best. Clean and simple with no complications but just what I wanted to work solidly well. A familiar. I’m ok with that. Using Pixel 5 now and loving it.