[jeroenhd]

Samsung's UI and software behaviour may be shitty in general, but they're one of the few manufacturers reliably offering timely long-term security updates. When you go beyond Samsung, you quickly end up with brands promising "quarterly updates" or having months-long delays fixing CVEs.

Plus, when they do something novel, they do it quite well. Their flagship phones have great price/performance if you buy them a month or two after launch (often for three quarters of the launch price + free earbuds/smartwatch + cashback), their software suite is quite complete and generally well-localised, and they have support channels non-English support channels available.

I do wish they'd fix some of their terrible software design crimes and stop the endless race to the bottom shoving product placement into their apps, but it's hardly a no-buy to me.

[microtonal]

Pixel is much cleaner and ships security updates monthly like clockwork. Plus you can install GrapheneOS and you get security updates multiple times per month, no AI nonsense and sandboxed Google Play Services if you need it.