Blog

• 720×1280 is still the most common Android resolution. The catalog has a budget tail nobody photographs.
  Despite the QHD+ flagships, the modal Android display in the catalog is 720×1280. Phone screens haven't gotten bigger so much as bifurcated.
  2026-04-24
• Android is still 54% 32-bit. That changes how you ship apps.
  Of 28,077 Android devices in the Google Play catalog, 15,247 list a 32-bit ABI as their primary architecture. The "everyone's on 64-bit" assumption is wrong.
  2026-04-24
• The fingerprint sensor is not a standard Android feature. Neither is NFC.
  Only 31% of catalogged Android phones report a fingerprint sensor. Only 20% report NFC. Hardware features you assume are universal aren't.
  2026-04-24
• How we rank devices (and why it's not by score)
  We don't assign a numeric score to phones. Here's why, and what we do instead.
  2026-04-24
• Mali, PowerVR, Adreno — who's actually inside your Android phone's GPU?
  ARM, Imagination Technologies, and Qualcomm own 91% of Android GPUs. Here's the real share — and the surprises in the long tail.
  2026-04-24
• Snapdragon's 19% catalog share doesn't tell the whole story
  Qualcomm Snapdragon shows up in 19% of catalog Android devices. The remaining 81% is fragmented across MediaTek, Exynos, Kirin, and a long tail of unbranded silicon. The market is wider than the headlines.
  2026-04-24
• What's installed on every Android phone (and what's optional)
  A trip through the system libraries that ship on Android devices — which are universal, which are vendor-optional, and what each does.
  2026-04-24
• The Redmi paradox — each Redmi sells in 7.9 variants on average; each Sony in 0.46
  Why some Android brands fragment their devices into dozens of regional SKUs while others ship one global variant per model.
  2026-04-24
• The variant explosion — what 28,077 Android phones actually look like when you stop deduplicating
  Spec sites collapse multiple regional/carrier variants into single "device" pages. Once you stop doing that, the catalog quadruples, and Samsung quietly dominates.
  2026-04-24
• Welcome to Soft9
  Why we built another Android device database when there are already several good ones.
  2026-04-24
• Which Android phones still have a barometer, IR blaster, or heart-rate sensor?
  A tour of the rare hardware features that exist in only 1-7% of Android phones, what they're useful for, and which devices still ship them.
  2026-04-24
• Who actually makes Android phones in 2026? A census from the Play catalog
  30 brands, ranked by how many distinct devices they currently ship through Google Play. The list is wider than the headlines suggest.
  2026-04-24
• Why variant data matters more than you think
  Carrier and regional variants of the same phone often have different specs, different update schedules, and different problems. Most spec sites hide this.
  2026-04-24