Samsung makes pretty hardware, BlackBerry doesn't. I'm not sure anyone buys a Samsung device because it's running Android OS.

What do you mean by that? I didn't buy a Samsung because of the hardware alone - first I decided that I wanted an Android phone and picked the one which I thought was the best at the time (based largely on hardware). But the OS came first for me... so Samsung won the competition with an iPhone with the software and other Android phones with the hardware.

Actually, I think that's how a lot of people make their decision. These people decide what OS/ecosystem they like, then whittle down their options from there. But a lot of people probably just walk into the store not knowing what they really want. I'm actually not sure which kind of person is more common.

That you're aware the forum exists tells me you're not an average user of technology. I'd be willing to bet a month's wage that most people reading this post decided on a device in the manner you describe. I submit we are not average users.

When Samsung began their marketing campaign, it wasn't directed at you and I. It had very little to do with the Operating System and more to do with cute features the company had added. See 'bump'. The campaign was directed at average users.

I was thinking more of my parents, girlfriend, and her family who have never heard of this website and are definitely not tech savvy. I think that it's hard to separate marketing/branding from software, though. Her family definitely just assumes that anything not Apple is cheap, while she decided to switch to an Android phone not too long ago - once she made that choice, she went with the phone that looked the coolest (HTC One).

It's hard to say who's average, though. At the end of the day, I think it's probably brand name recognition more than anything else which drives purchasing decisions. I'd like to see what the manufacturers know...

Actually, now that I'm thinking about it what I think drove my girlfriend to Android more than anything else is probably how poorly her macbook aged (although with any laptop you can only expect a couple of good years, so she might be being a bit unfair) - especially how awful iTunes is on that thing. Just opening iTunes completely grinds that thing to a halt.

Varies from company to company, Sony's doing well, HTC's not. But they're all still in business.

Sony's had one good Q with 2013 Q2 and most think its at the expense of HTC. If they continue to carve a market out of what HTC and LG had then maybe they are doing "good", but one good quarter doesn't make a trend.

LG just had a good Q3. Then there are manufacturers like Xiaomi who are doing well.

There's really only 2 manufacturers doing gangbusters, Apple and Samsung, everyone knows that. But outside of those two companies the only ones still around are those that licensed OSes, everyone who has tried going it alone is out of business or in the process of going out of business. Do you really dispute this?

So, the only two companies doing well have pretty good control of their CPU and supply chain and only 1 is using Android. I think Samsung could switch to FireFox OS and not miss a beat. Android isn't the strong brand to most consumers.

I thought you said they had to control "the whole stack"? You just meant the CPU? There we might actually agree, I think went you look at what has happened in the mobile landscape since smartphones became popular I think what you see if that the companies whose only business is making phones are the ones that have struggled the most. Those that had businesses which feed into smartphones have done better.

I said BB needed to control the whole stack since it would be a nightmare for them to move to Android where the OS provider would be a competitor in messaging. Sadly, BB is not going to build its own CPU. I clarify with meaning the software stack and hardware they can actually build.

BB has a very nice OS, but has done a very poor job of it and spent quite a lot of time backing Adobe's fading tech. There is a lot of room in getting development simpler, but they need to get some more software expertise.

They still have a place if they can start building with a phone at the bottom-end ("free") or low-cost for pay-as-you-go plans. That gets them numbers and then upselling their messaging. Cheap Android lives there (mostly in a poorly implemented non-upgradeable state) and iPhone doesn't.