The Android operating system is the most popular mobile operating system in the world, and more than half of the smartphones in the U.S. are Android phones. And of course, unlike the iPhone, there are a ton of different Android devices out there, and many of them are quite different in how they look and act.
Phandroid has published a report showing what appears to be the most popular Android devices in each state — data collected through seeing which devices were used to access Phandroid in the last 30 days — and the results are somewhat surprising.
The most popular device by far is the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, and it wins the prize in a whopping 24 states in the country. The Google Pixel and Pixel XL are also pretty popular — the Pixel XL is the most popular phone in 6 states, and the standard Pixel in 5 — so that combined they hit a somewhat surprising 11 states, which pretty good news for Google on its first attempt at a smartphone.
There are some further surprises in the data. For example, the now outdated Samsung Galaxy S5 remains the most popular smartphone in Alabama, while the Motorola Droid Turbo is the winner in Arkansas — while the Droid Turbo 2 is the winner in Minnesota. Next up is the Galaxy Note 5, which wins in Maine. Mississippi takes one step back from that, with the most popular device being the Samsung Galaxy Note 3.
Of course, there are a few important things to note about this data — namely that it doesn’t really represent a cross section of the U.S. population. Because the information is collected from readers of Phandroid.com, the subjects of the study are more likely to be fans of Android — and hence more likely to own a flagship Android phone. We’re guessing that in the real world the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, while popular, isn’t the most popular Android phone in 24 states.
