there's a lot of inconsistencies with Nothing, you don't really notice at first but it's hard to unsee

yeah that's what I'm liking with Nothing. a lot of cool niche features that other androids can technically do via third party apps and other tinkering, are just baked into a stock Nothing phone

also the notification lights complimenting the OS's color scheme to help with distractions is such a huge plus for people (me) who struggle with that

s21. My provider is Visible. they're kinda known for having eSIM troubles. fairly commonly mentioned issue in the subreddit

I appreciate the input! compared to other androids you've owned, what stood out for you specifically?

I have an s21 now, and as much as I enjoy the oneUI-specific theming, I've learned to not rely on it too much. especially since the phones we're given at work don't have any of that lol

I mean, even with 256gb of storage, nothing isn't that expensive compared to other mainstream brands

my cell provider struggled so much with my current phone's eSIM activation that they opted to just send me a physical sim lol. i didn't mind since I don't travel much anyway

it's just a personal preference for me if i can have it, and saves me the trouble down the line

I use Island for it now. I just thought it was a neat feature to have baked into the OS. Completely unnecessary for most people but saves me a bunch of clicks when customizing a new phone

Project sandcastle was always a PoC thing to me. On release, only the iPhone 7 was even close to being able to properly house the OS. Most devices would be missing important things like sound and cellular support, and wouldn't be able to use the camera (among other things, some losing out on more than others depending on the exact device, there's a whole spreadsheet that shows what works and what doesn't for all Sandcastle-compatible devices)

Not to mention, file changes on Android using Sandcastle wouldn't save, essentially meaning every time you reboot it's like a factory reset (your iOS files are fine, just the Android bits wouldn't be saved through a reboot)

There was some fork or continuation of this that brought on a bit more progress since then, but I can't remember the name anymore. No new updates from that one for a while either

I'll take my barely superior cam quality with a side of almost no freedom, thank you very much /s

and the clear choice for the best place to put said messaging feature is in... checks notes.. Google Maps

i can't see any way how this would be both inconvenient and possibly distracting. nope, no way.