Elementary OS vs Android

Excellent uniformity between all the stock application and an overall extremely clean design with simple animations.

Runs well on limited-resources hardware, including netbooks or chromebooks.

Built on Ubuntu LTS with all its qualities and support.

This distribution promises you a very tailored user experience and it does deliver on that promise. The developers provide you with a custom desktop environment and a set of neat programs. And the whole desktop looks simply gorgeous.

There is a place where Elementary users can ask their questions and usually get answers pretty quickly. Not only by the other users, but the devs are pretty active themselves, often engaging in the discussions on the hows, whys, and plans of the OS.

Sane defaults with less confusion for new users.

All Elementary apps are written in Vala and hosted on Launchpad, and there are standard APIs such as contractor for applications to interact with one another. This is different from most distros, in which apps are written in a variety of languages. This design decision makes it easy to get started developing for Elementary and to understand how the various pieces fit together.

Elementary OS has a dedicated StackExchange site where users can easily find answers to common questions.

Now the OS is amazingly customisable

There are about 18000 released devices that run on Android. This means that a user familiar with Android can have a large variety of devices from which they can choose.

Android gives users the ability to define which apps perform which action. For example, if an Android device has several browsers installed, the user can choose a default one which will start every time a link is for example opened from another app.

The AOSP (Android Open Source Project) is the software stack for the Android OS. It is led by the open handset alliance which includes firms like Google, Acer, NXP, Motorola and many others.

The fact that Android is an open source software has led to many custom Android variants. It also is a big assurance of Android's safety in terms of privacy.

For those that already use Google's services, like Google Maps and GMail, Android offers tighter integration with those services than any of the alternatives, and saves users the need to create extra accounts.

One of the massive benefits of Android being open-sourced are all the modifications you can make to the phone to customise pretty much anything. Some of the cooler things you can do are:

• Replace the entire operating system with a custom ROM.
• Replace the keyboard.
• Change the home screen launcher.
• Change the lock screen.

Android phones can cost little as $100.

Desktop widgets provide quick access to the information you need quickly and access the most. These are available out of the box, and can be developed by anyone. Widgets on the lockscreen have been removed since the Lollipop update, but is available on 3rd party lockscreens such as AC Display and KK Locker.

Google Now is an intelligent personal assistant available within the Google Search mobile application for the Android and iOS operating systems. It's software that makes your life more convenient by giving you all the information you need at any moment.

Built in text to speech is provided by TalkBack for people with low or no vision. Enhancements for people with hearing disabilities are available as are other aids.

Android 5.0.+ supports screen recording via a new api.
Android 4.4 KitKat supports screen recording accessible via an ADB command on unrooted devices.

Can customize the home screens with widgets (not just a grid of apps like iOS).

Since Android is written by a worldwide community of developers it is very unlikly that backdoorss exist for any local governments.

Android does frequent updates to keep users secure.

You can root your phone to get full access.

You can sideload apps.

It is fully working without the play store or the Google play services.

Since Android is open source and developed worldwide, anyone can read the code and there are no government forced backdoors.

You can use external displays with MHL, HDMI, DP or miracast. It supports external storage devices like microSD cards or USB OTG devices. You can also use almost any kind of USB or Bluetooth input devices like keyboards, mice or game controllers.

Since Android 10 you can use gestures to control the OS.

There are major versions of android however the most important components are modular and get frequently updated.

You can do anything you want with YOUR phone.