Re: vanilla
You seem to be describing GPE, Google Play Edition devices.
This was basically standard OEM hardware, (e.g. Galaxy S4), but running stock Android with no tweaking by the manufacturers other than adding the required hardware drivers.
Samsung, HTC, Sony and Motorola all produced GPE devices.
Unfortunately it was badly run (as far as I know you could only buy them in the US) and not widely advertised. They stopped selling them in late 2014/early 2015.
The Android Silver program was supposedly going to replace these Play Editions, (and ultimately the Nexus devices themselves), but the guy running it in Google left, and there were rumours about an internal power struggle within Google, between the Silver and the Nexus programs, and resistance from the OEMs themselves.
So GPE vanished, Android Silver never appeared, and the Nexus devices carried on.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
