While Android One has existed all the way back to 2014, it is still a new concept to many people in Kenya. Many people many not know that they are using Android One phones. However, if you're using a modern Nokia phone, chances are you're using Android One software. It is becoming increasingly common to see Android one phones, with companies such as Xiaomi and Motorola jumping on the bandwagon. The main drawing point? Clean software.
Bloatware
Android one, is simply a software experience that ensure you experience Android as Google intended you to. This means most phone services will be handled by Google application, such as the gallery (Google Photos), Email (Gmail), Music (Google play music) and so forth. One of the main benefits of this is that these phones will have little to no bloatware. No more issues of having two Email client applications, two galleries, two calendar applications, and god knows how many browsers. This will first and foremost save you a lot of precious space. Most phones still lie in the 16GB-32GB category, and this memory capacity usually fills up fast. Videos and photos, both from the cameras and from social media sites take up significant space, and clearing them is a hassle. Application store abnormal sized cache files. The last thing you need in this situation is a number of large unnecessary applications on your phone.
Faster Phone
These unnecessary applications will also constant stay in your memory. Bloatware added by manufactures is usually hard to disable. These applications, due to manufacturers adding them as part of the system's operations, can't be uninstalled. This can significantly slow down your phone. You'll notice this in your phone when it starts closing and reloading recently used applications. Your phone's memory becomes a bottleneck. Given that RAM memory of 4GB is barely enough today, you wonder how those with 2GB RAM, which is the vast majority of the Kenyan population, survives.
Longer Software Support
However, the biggest draw of Android one is up to date software. This platform promises at least two years worth of software upgrades, and three years of security updates. Consider the fact that most android manufacturers give at most one software upgrade in the phone lifetime. Even getting even this one upgrade is rare, especially for people in the budget category. That means that by the time you dispose of a phone, you'll be using four year old software. This is also compounded by the fact that manufacturers offer just a few security updates. Its probably too much work for them to keep on optimising for security updates each month. I challenge anyone that's using a Huawei or Samsung phone to check the date of the last security update they received.
Security
For the vast majority of the population, this is of little consequence. However, this can be dangerous in terms of security. Old software is easier to hack. That's one of the reasons older phones suffer from the constant virus infections. Hackers have had more time with the software, and can therefore infect it a lot more easily. Some infections are of no harm to the owner of the phone. But as we increasingly store more of our information on our phones - passwords, account information, sensitive messages - it becomes increasingly dangerous to get an infection or a hack. There's no telling what hackers might do with this information. Old software also has a lot of stability issues. As applications continue being updated and optimized for modern software, they have a harder time working with older software. This is results in the constant crashing and restarting of older phones.
Because Android One sidesteps most of these issues, it is smoother and more secure. Some of my colleagues have labelled it as boring and bland. It is these factors that make is such a breeze to use. Manufacturers cram so many applications, games and features into phones to differentiate from competitors. We barely get to see half of these features in the two years of owning the phone. They took up space, for nothing. Get an Android One phone, and due to the software upgrades and security updates, it will still function smoothly two years from now. And you'll get to enjoy the new and important features of the latest version of Android. For most people, this is a win-win.