I've had multiple Samsung Android devices before buying the midrange phone. The hardware, I found, was universally pretty good. They were one of the few manufacturers with a moderately sized flagship device (the new Pixel 8 also qualifies, which is great). I bought the midrange device because it was one of a few phones priced around 300 EUR with more than two or three years of updates.

I have a Samsung tablet (Galaxy Tab S9+) and I not only suggest but downright recommend it. Sure, right away I switched away from their default apps (launcher, notes, keyboard, etc) but it wasn't difficult.

Maybe they got me with their clever marketing but there doesn't seem to be competitive hardware in this class (fast, oled screen, 5g, overall build quality) available from another manufacturer.

Isn’t it more that Samsung, almost like apple, has great cameras? At least that’s what I often heard, I don’t go near flagship devices and root everything, so no personal experience.

What android brand are people going with? I thought Samsung was the biggest alternative to pixels

I just bought a Motorola Moto G73 for $180, was 50% off as precious gen phones often are once the new comes out.

I got a Samsung S21 as my daily driver, but just wanted to check out a non-Samsung one over time.

So far I've been very impressed. It comes with Google apps for almost everything, the Moto specific stuff seems to be addons you can easily ignore.

Even came with a transparent protective case and audio jack.

Performance-wise I don't notice any difference in normal use, ie surfing, pictures and such. I don't play games though, there the S21 would blow it out of the water according to benchmarks.

Screen isn't quite as good, but close enough that I'd be happy with it as a primary phone.

Only thing that's a bit of a downer is they only do 3 years of security upgrades it seems. This is a bit short I feel.

Haven't tried any of the other brands over time in recent years, just adding my 2 cents.

I'm real tempted to go asus because of how good their other devices have been, will see what happens this time. Tired of my pixels constantly overheating when trying to take pictures after navigating to a place i want to take pictures with the 4a+5a. It's not just a bad phone, I've inevitably broken a screen or submerged one and had to replace it (apparently the ip68 isn't fool proof either..)

I'll be trying Asus since they have been the best when it comes to laptops. They also have lots of nice hardware like Aux ports.

Google Pixel 5a... The last Google product before they went full Apple.

Yup, there's a reason I'm still rocking it. Spec wise the 7a legitimately seems like a downgrade, and that's excluding the lack of headphone jack.

Other than the palm pre, my first smartphone was the galaxy nexus. It's still probably my favorite smartphone ever -- samsung hardware and google software both going full throttle really is the ideal, but for some reason they just don't play ball like that anymore.

I'm clearly out of the loop... What do you mean by going full Apple?

Check out the official Asus support forums before you buy.

I got a ZenFone8 when it came out and was very satisfied with it at the time. Then, a month later, posts started popping up with people reporting that their phones just randomly rebooting and bricking. I think there were a few hundred cases reported. To this day, there is no official response from Asus. I used to carry a backup phone with me every time I was away from home for longer than a day because I was afraid that my phone could die at any moment.

Also, every update seemed to introduce a new bug that only got fixed in a month or so with the next update. So we had broken face unlock for a month, broken Google Pay, broken notifications, among other things.

I haven't been following reports for the ZF9 or ZF10, but I think they had similar problems.

To top it all off, the official unlocker / root tool from ASUS has been disabled for over a year by now, and nobody knows when it will work again.

All in all, ASUS phones (at least the ZenFone line) do have great hardware, but official support is abysmal.

I like Sony personally. They let you root.

"No one in their right mind is suggesting Samsung. Heck, similar to Apple, you have swaths of people warning you about Samsung."

Apple and Samsung are the two most popular phone brands in the world, so it's not like "everybody knows not to use them" as you suggest. Actually, it's the complete opposite.

> Samsung lives and dies off their huge marketing budget.

This is a ridiculous take. Samsung is the entire reason Android didn't go the way of WebOS and Windows Phone.

Samsung had pressure-sensitive pen support on Android 5 years before iOS. Samsung DEX desktop environment can turn my phone into a proper work machine with just a USB-C display cable and a lapdock.

They've also had folding phones that can turn your phone into a tablet for several years, but I suppose we'll need to wait until 2030 when Apple launches it "the right way" to recognize it as an innovative form factor.

is dex actually useful?

it sounds fantastic hence i suppose there is a catch

Yes it is. Floating window support makes a big difference for actual multitasking. In Dex you can also drag and drop files and images, which is not supported on Android. Considering that you can use Termux for web dev work, with a proper desktop environment, it becomes an actual computer instead of a locked down Google Docs type of device.

The catch with Dex is that it's only offered on the high end models: Galaxy S and Galaxy Z Fold series phones.

> Buying their phone is more of a psychology thing, than 'I did lots of research and I bought a high quality phone'.

For me it's more of "I'm no longer a kid so I don't have time to do lots of research". Samsung gets my money because their flagships are reliably good.

"I'm no longer a kid. i just buy the one from the louder advertisement"

riiigth.

You can't spend a couple of days researching an essential, expensive device you're going to use for at least the next 2-3 years?

What better hardware is there?

The hardware doesn't have to be better, could be equivalent but with less spyware or bloatware.

What equivalent hardware is there?

supposedly there will come a time after "no longer a kid" where due diligence is the among the top things worth doing

That's called retirement, where once again one has too much time and too little money.