After 15 years on iPhones I finally went back to Android this year, and boy has it been surprising.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still feeling pretty good about my decision to ditch my aging iPhone 13 and upgrade to a lovely new Motorola Razr 2025. It's only been a few weeks so I'm still in the honeymoon phase, but the funky thrill of being able to flick it open like the flip phones of my youth still delights me.
To be honest, that's half the reason I switched from iOS to Android. I enjoyed my time in Apple's walled garden, but after two or three iPhones I was ready for a change. I originally abandoned Android because iOS seems to be the primary platform for every mobile app and game developer I care about, but Apple's steadfast resistance to overhauling or experimenting with the iPhone's design bored me to tears.
And I have to say, my first few weeks with the Motorola Razr have been anything but boring. From weird crashes to audio issues and apps cloning themselves, it seems like there's always something to tinker with or fix on my new phone.
But as I've been adjusting to Android's peccadilloes in 2025, the joy I get from my Razr's fun-to-flip design and eye-catching external display is somewhat marred by the letdown that is Android 15.
To help anyone else considering a similar switch, I figured I'd quickly run down the best and worst parts of my recent switch from iPhone to one of the best foldable phones of the year.
The good parts
I'm going to do some kvetching in this article, so I wanted to start in on the praise early because for all my complaints, I really do like my new phone and am pretty glad I made the switch. Here's two big reasons why adapting to Android has been worth the hassle.
It feels great to have a cute, flippable phone that fits easily in a pocket
I've been flipping my new Razr in and out of my pocket for weeks now and I still feel a tangible thrill of delight every time I look at it.
That's a feeling I never experienced when looking at my old iPhone, because it was nearly identical to everyone else's iPhone as well as every other iPhone I'd ever owned.
My new Motorola Razr, by comparison, looks like the old Motorola Droid that was my first real smartphone back in 2010. As much as I loved the old-school dorkiness of the Droid's slide-out keyboard, the Razr feels way more futuristic and fun with its flippable design and cute external display.
Plus, when folded, it fits far more comfortably in my pockets than any iPhone ever did. This is kind of funny because when unfurled the Razr actually feels a bit taller and harder to hold than my old iPhone, but it's still easier to carry because I can flip it shut and slide it into the pocket of my jacket or jeans without worrying it will stick out.
The external display is fun and handy
I really love how the external display on foldable phones makes it easy to quickly glance at key information, and I love how customizable the external screen is on the Motorola Razr (2025).
Once I figured out how to configure everything to my liking I was able to quickly set up custom arrangements of apps and widgets on my Razr's external display that make it easy for me to do things like change playlists, respond to text messages and check the weather at a glance.
I suppose I could have gotten pretty much the same benefit by investing in an Apple Watch or another of the best smartwatches around, but that's an added expense and extra weight on my wrist. For the moment I prefer the feeling of pulling a palm-sized foldable out and checking it like an old-fashioned pocketwatch — except this one has dynamic wallpaper and fun animated widgets that show up when you're listening to music.
Gesture controls are smart and useful
Perhaps the most suprising thing I've loved about switching to the Motorola Razr is how useful the built-in gesture commands are for quickly accessing common features.
The two MVPs are the gestures you can use to activate the flashlight or the camera: you turn on the flashlight by quickly shaking the phone in a chopping motion twice, and you activate the camera by quickly twisting your wrist about 45 degrees twice.
There are a few other fun gesture commands too, like being able to enter Do Not Disturb mode by flipping the phone facedown on the table or triggering custom actions by double-tapping the back of the phone. Maybe some day down the road I'll try to master those, but for my money just being able to quickly fire up the flashlight or the camera with a flick of my wrist is a joy.
Plus, I bet being able to quickly activate the camera and flashlight without flipping open the phone is going to save me wear and tear on the hinge in the long run.
The bad parts
As fun as I'm finding my new Razr, there have been some painful bumps in the road on my path from iOS to Android.
If you're considering a similar journey I wanted to give you a heads-up ahead of time, though of course your mileage and trouble will vary based on what phone you buy when.
Bloatware
Call me naive if you want, but I had no idea how bad the bloatware situation can be outside Apple's walled garden.
I remember getting a bit annoyed years ago when I realized I couldn't actually remove the Safari browser from my iPhone. I was a Chrome kid at the time and wanted to use Google's browser exclusively on my phone, but the best I could do was cut Safari from the Home Screen — nothing but a good jailbreak could remove it from my App Library.
I wish I could go back in time and tell that sweet summer child how good he had it, because now that I'm on Android I can't believe I was complaining about one undeleteable app.
When I first started setting up my new Razr I spent at least ten minutes deleting a slew of apps that came pre-installed, including a bunch of bad games tucked into a Games folder that keeps coming back every time I update the system software.
Now that I've gotten to grips with Android 15 and spent some time customizing my Razr 2025 I don't have to stare at bad bloatware anymore, but I feel like I can't trust Motorola not to slip apps and games I don't want onto my phone every time I update. And that's a bummer.
Odd, glitchy behavior
I wish I had a more specific way to talk about this issue I've dealth with, but for lack of a better term I'll simply say that I've noticed more strange glitches in my first weeks on Android than I ever did using iOS.
I'm not just talking about basic interface glitches like when I open Discord sometimes and it appears at half size and completely unusable, for example. Those are almost fun since they can easily be rectified by just closing the app and re-launching it. But there are some more serious technical issues I've run into that have taken a lot more effort to solve.
For example, at one point I downloaded Pocket Casts as my podcast player of choice, but somehow I ended up with two copies. I don't even know how this is possible, but I ended up with a duplicate Pocket Casts app next to my original Pocket Casts app in my App Drawer. If I deleted one of them, both would disappear. If I reinstalled the app, I'd once again get a matching pair.
Eventually I fixed that issue by doing a hard reset of the phone and reinstalling everything from scratch. But doing that didn't fix another issue I've noticed where every time I connect the phone to my car using Bluetooth, the audio skips. I'm not talking about using Android Auto, just regular ol' hands-free Bluetooth, which worked fine on my old iPhone. But when I'm driving with my brand-new Razr wirelessly connected to my car my podcasts, music and audiobooks all reliably "skip" (that is, I hear a brief break in the audio that sounds like a skipping CD) every minute or two.
I've tried looking up the problem online and fiddling with numerous apps and setting menus to solve this issue, to no avail. The only thing that works? Plugging in the phone to activate Android Auto, at which point all the same apps work perfectly with zero playback issues.
But of course, I can't reliably count on Android Auto launching when I plug my phone into my 2018 Honda Civic Si — usually it starts up automatically, but sometimes I need to reboot the phone or reboot the car's head unit to get Android Auto to trigger.
I've found solutions or workarounds for all of these issues, but it's more troubleshooting than I expected to do with a brand-new Android phone in 2025.
Bottom line
I'm at the beginning of at least a two-year journey with my Motorola Razr so I'm just dipping my toe into the waters of being an Android user in 2025. But so far, so good —despite my frustrations with Android 15, I'm genuinely pleased every time I pull out my new phone and see that cute little screen winking back at me.
We'll see how long those feelings last. Motorola only guarantees three years of software support, so by 2028 I may feel pressured to upgrade even if I still love my Razr 2025. But if Apple has managed to design an interesting iPhone by then, who knows?
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