Graphic by Adrienne Dauma for The Alabamian.

Change is good for the soul, whether it comes in the form of a new hairstyle or a new phone (or in my case both). After five years of faithfully being #TeamiPhone, I’ve made the switch to Android.

From what I’ve seen around campus, iPhone’s are the most commonly used smartphones. The uniformity of the iPhone is something I never liked.

The phones are beautiful, elegantly designed and there’s always a massive amount of hype surrounding the release of a new model, but what makes them so special? Is it the phone itself or the little Apple logo slapped on the back of it?

To get more technical, other reasons for wanting to switch included the constant iOS updates that seemed to correct nothing. My iPhone 5s was prone to freezing up in the middle of using an app and on the home screen.

Lack of customization was also a problem for me from the beginning. Simply setting a wallpaper with a picture of a quote, favorite musician, or funny moment with friends wasn’t enough.

An immediate perk to switching,was having a wider option of phones to choose from. LG, Samsung, HTC; the options were seemingly endless.

When I started shopping around for new phones, I made a list of things that I wanted: it needed to have come out in the past year, have a camera with at least 12 megapixels, a fast operating system, decent-to-great battery life and an HD screen.

Then I found it. I ended up going with the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge + and it was love at first touch.

The retina display on the iPhone was nice, but it pales in comparison to the Samsung’s quad AMOLED HD display. The rear facing camera has 16 megapixels and a Pro setting that lets me adjust the ISO levels. It’s like having a DSLR camera in your pocket.

Currently, the phone is operating on Android’s Marshmallow operating system and I can get a full day’s use out of the phone before having to charge it.

There are some things that I miss about the iPhone though. The ease of use was something I had gotten used to, and now I’m learning how to use a completely different operating system.

Despite having 32 gigabytes of space on the Samsung, I don’t feel comfortable syncing music to it because of the extra effort it takes to do so. To sync your iTunes music files to your Android device, you have to either copy your music files to a separate folder and add them manually or sync them through the Google Music app.

Facetime is also no longer a possibility, which is a shame, because the Samsungs’ 5 megapixel front facing camera would have come in handy for that.

Because of the dual curved edges of the phone, I have limited case options. This doesn’t bother me personally, but I can see this being a problem for people who enjoy collecting phone cases.

Some things will take some getting used to and I’ll miss the cute little Apple logo, but I’m completely satisfied with my choice.