From the perspective of iOS users, the world of Android is overly bizarre as well as funny. There is no standard user interface, and of course it is not possible to get software updates at the same time. Oh yes, built-in functionalities of the OS often differ from model to model.

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MIUI from Xiaomi: The UI is more comparable to Apple’s iOS than stock Android

When it comes to the choice of skins, the whole Android community is divided into various groups. The purists adore the vanilla Android and its swiftness, thus the Google’s version of Android, i.e. the one you can find on Pixel phones, is the ultimate benchmark for them.

Samsung’s One UI or EMUI from Huawei/Honor comes with their own set of feature set and theming solution, and they do have a cult following as well. However, the bias towards clutter free Android is rising exponentially, which is the reason behind the popularity of Android One devices.

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Xiaomi Mi A2: Instead of MIUI, the phone runs vanilla Android

While Android OEMs nowadays like to included one or two Android One phones in their portfolio, Nokia took a rebellious stance and enrolled all of their mainstream phones to the Google-led program. However, none of the OPPO family (OPPO, Vivo, Realme, OnePlus) is part of the initiative.

OxygenOS from OnePlus can be thought as the close-to-stock variant of OPPO’s ColorOS or Vivo’s Funtouch OS. Realme, the youngest member in this group, ships their phones with ColorOS, but they are planning for an alternative OS (dubbed as Realme OS) for some time.

Realme X: Apparently people want such a phone with stock Android on board

The urge for an Android One phone from Realme is skyrocketing since the inception of the company. Social media platforms, even the company’s own support forum are being saturated with the queries from Realme fans regarding a new phone/series with stock Android.

realme_android_one_question_tweet

Adding more fuel to the game of speculation, an alleged leaked picture of the Realme A1 retail box surfaced on the interweb. Keeping aside the authenticity of the leak, don’t you think the naming scheme is quite similar with older Android One phones (Micromax Canvas A1/QMobile A1/Xiaomi Mi A1)?

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Image source: Slashleaks

Do you guys think that the Realme A1 will be the first phone from the Chinese OEM to sport stock Android instead of ColorOS? Should your average Joe (or Jane) prefer the slimmer Android with faster updates or ColorOS specific functionalities, like Theme Store and lock screen magazine?

We would love to hear your opinions. Let us know by commenting below.

PiunikaWeb is a unique initiative that mainly focuses on investigative journalism. This means we do a lot of hard work to come up with news stories that are either ‘exclusive,’ ‘breaking,’ or ‘curated’ in nature. Perhaps that’s the reason our work has been picked by the likes of Forbes, Foxnews, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, Macrumors, and more. Do take a tour of our website to get a feel of our work. And if you like what we do, stay connected with us on Twitter (@PiunikaWeb) and other social media channels to receive timely updates on stories we publish.

Kingshuk De
896 Posts

I came from a mixed background of Statistics and Computer Science. My research domains included embedded computer systems, mobile computing and delay tolerant networks in post-disaster scenarios. Apart from tinkering with gadgets or building hackintosh, I like to hop on various subreddits and forums like MyDigitalLife and XDA.

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