Google’s own phones have a number of huge advantages to them: stock Android, long term OS updates and the availability of factory images. For users who’ve recently acquired one of the latest Google phones — the Pixel 4a 5G or Pixel 5 — the OTA and factory images have been published.

The availability of these images makes it far safer to do activities such as unlocking your boot loader and checking out custom ROMs. If you are unfortunate enough to strike trouble (we’ve all done it and bricked a phone) restoring your phone to factory spec is a pretty simple process.

What features bring you to the Pixel ecosystem versus some of the competitors?