"if you haven’t played with one it makes sense to use it at the store as research" Yep. Iphones are sluggish by design in so many ways, that I would lose my mind using one for my personal life. Scrolling on an iPhone is a bafflingly terrible experience, because they limit the speed so much you can't move around at a reasonable speed.

What are you comparing this to? I have a slew of phones near me and when I pick up an Android device it usually feels like a stuttery mess multiple times in regular use, even compared to a basic prepaid iPhone SE from 2022 which might only be 60Hz but doesn't randomly jerk around and freeze like every 120Hz Android seems to do

I'm baffled by your comment. I specifically recall getting some new Samsungs at work two years ago, so I got one to play with for a little. I was shocked by how janky scrolling felt. Just going through the android settings screen, there were "hiccups" and there was a clear lag between my finger moving and the screen moving. My iphone 7 felt so much smoother, although much older and "crufty", as opposed to the Samsung being brand new and "untouched". It was a then-current mid-range model, don't remember which one specifically.

You were meant to replace that iphone 3GS over 10 years ago...

Can you even disable UI animations on an iphone? It's the first thing I do on any phone or OS, and using a device with it enabled just feel like walking through mud.

Yes you can from accessibility settings, but it breaks a bunch of things.