Hardware wise, I’m pretty happy with my Android devices. I agree with Jon, internal storage space could be a little larger, it’s annoying that my almost decade old iPod can store more music, and battery capacity could maybe be a little larger. But these are only very small complaints.

For my G3, LG’s latest software is nice and functional too, but the color scheme and icons are pretty disgusting. Pastel colors aren’t my preference and, having spent a big amount of time with CyanogenMod and Paranoid Android, I’d really like to see OEMs make more of an effort to support a wider range of themes, preferably ones that can be used across all devices and not locked behind an OEM specific account. Failing that, at least the option to pick a different color scheme would be nice. Default OEM launchers also aren’t that great either, I’d like to see features like swipe gestures and icon pack support come as stock functions too.

If I was to make a big wish, I’d like to see all OEMs offer an easy root access option to consumers, at the very least on international (non-carrier branded) handsets, but I don’t see that happening.

Only small complaints from me, I think OEMs are doing a pretty good job making great devices right now.

Joe Hindy

Much like Jon and Rob, I’m not a fan of how small the storage space is on mobile devices. Games are getting bigger and bigger but the storage sizes on devices remain the same as they have over the last couple of years and that’s a bit annoying. I’ve never been a fan of having to delete games in order to install more games which is why I do things like invest in a larger SSD on my computer. It’s really too bad I can’t do that on a smartphone as well. I know that Google (and others) are trying to push for more cloud storage integration and that’s fine, but I think that bottlenecking the consumer experience by keeping the storage at a solid 16-32GB isn’t the way to do it. Not everyone has good internet all the time and I can’t install a Final Fantasy game to Google Drive or listen to music off of Dropbox effectively. Until those things happen, I’d love it if I had a phone with a large enough storage size to keep my files on.

Also, I do agree with Rob about theming. I think if Google invested the time and allowed users to create custom themes, it would bring the customization and personalization of Android to a much higher level. It would also bolster themers that already work on stuff like Nova Launcher and CM themes to expand into a territory where everyone can see their work, instead of just some people, which would bolster their earnings potential significantly and I think we can all agree that it’s a good thing. Native icon support would be awesome too. I know you can “just install a third party launcher” and get pretty much all of those things, but it would still be way better if you could do it on first party launchers too.

Last and certainly not least (out of me anyway) is the locked bootloader. I think that it’s silly that carriers and OEMs prevent people from unlocking the bootloader and doing what they want to their devices. A couple of years ago, I could sympathize even if I didn’t agree with the initiative. Rooting was still new and a far more difficult process for the end user than it is today. Now there are things like Towel Root and automated toolkits that do all the work for you and the danger to the consumer as never been lower. I think at this point, people are more likely to damage and brick their devices trying to unlock the bootloader than anything they do once they actually have root access and an unlocked bootloader.

There’s the philosophical part but there is also another part. With easily unlocked bootloaders and (another dig at some OEMs) readily available factory images, it allows people to help themselves when it comes to home repair. If I brick my Note 3, I can download the factory image, grab up my copy of Odin, boot into Odin Mode and fix it myself. On other devices, the factory images aren’t readily available and on many devices on many carriers, I can’t unlock the bootloader which makes doing this exact process much more difficult. Samsung and Nexus devices are great for this. The Nexus devices allow you to unlock the bootloader and Samsung devices aren’t much more difficult once you pick up a toolkit to do it for you if the bootloaders aren’t already unlocked, which many of them are. Never mind that -in the event that someone did make it into a store- it’d be easier for customer service reps to fix things as well because they could ostensibly stock their computer with the factory images and Odin-like software and just reset to factory right there at the counter instead of shipping it off to be fixed.

If it were up to me, every OEM would be required to make something like Samsung has for Odin, make all of their factory images readily available, and then put their bootloaders in a state where those factory images could be flashed or otherwise easily unlocked for user access. If not for philosophy than for practicality.

Oh and bigger and better batteries. Definitely bigger and better batteries!

Matthew Benson