Summary: Google is frequently blasted for letting Android become too fragmented, with different versions and OEM customizations. Samsung has customized Android extensively and it’s now better than Google’s version.
Google left Android open to modifciation by OEMs by design, and that led to fragmenting the platform. New Android devices are as likely to be running old versions of the OS, and operation varies based on modifications by the OEMs to the base OS.
Samsung was frequently blasted in early Android days for bloated customization. Its TouchWiz interface was not as capable as that of stock Android, and it was often slow performing.
That’s a thing of the past as Samsung has developed its own “version” of Android into a solid OS delivering a good UX. The latest version of Samsung Android shipping on the Galaxy Note 2 and S3 is better than Google’s stock Jelly Bean currently shipping, in this writer’s opinion.