Brand differentiation is important, but there are more ways to achieve that than, say, "shovel a crappy skin over ASOP"; "timely upgrades to new versions of And

Brand differentiation is important, but there are more ways to achieve that than, say, "shovel a crappy skin over ASOP"; "timely upgrades to new versions of Android" would be a good one (most vendors fail", minimising crapware (one point I give Sony), and "form factors and hardware features I like" (with two young kids, the waterproof Sony phones have a leg up here for me).