Yeah, probably the #1 reason I use (de-googled) Android over anything else is easy access to the filesystem coupled with allowing background work. I can have Syncthing or Nextcloud passively slurp all my photos in the background while keeping my Keepass db updated.
> is android any better
In this specific respect, most definitely yes.
Absolutely, android phones allow you to actually control the user space software on the device. The whole baseband processor thing is another topic but overall android allows much greater ownership and control