So you want an affordable but powerful phone with unmodded Android? “Affordable” means not a Pixel. “Powerful” dismisses Android Ones. And “Unmodded” discounts the likes of Xiaomi. A surprising answer to this question might be the ZTE Axon 7, a phone that is (unfortunately) no longer in production.
Launched in mid-2016 with Marshmallow, the phone is on track to receive Android 8.0 Oreo in April. And better yet, the company is dropping the MiFavor custom ROM to something much closer to stock – in fact, it’s called Stock+.
A test version of Oreo is currently running on some Axon 7 phones…