Rants are welcome, even encouraged :)
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The last 4 phones I had were just a mess. I am starting to loose hope of there being something that would work well. I just recently got a new phone, it's a mess as usual. Maybe what I am experiencing is enough for a warranty claim, maybe it's just a quirk to be dealt with...
Every couple years every newer phone I try is just worse and worse. I thought that maybe once PinePhone and available software gets mature enough..., but at this point, maybe other phones will just get crap enough.
My last good phone was ironically an ultra-cheap Lark Cumulus 5HD. It was just 50 EUR new. No lags, no crashes, swappable battery, a just works experience. 50 bucks...
Chronologically...
Moto G5s Plus
Great hardware, except that focus on my camera was kind-of broken, but I was too lazy to get that repaired under warranty.
But SW, god damn Motorola. Slow buggy mess. Crashes, freezes, battery drain. BUT, I was able to fix it with ✨a custom ROM✨
Poco X3 Pro
If you had any MIUI device, you know. Alarm clock may get ~~killed~~ optimized, ton of bugs to learn working around, built-in ads and spyware. Lots of it, based on blocked DNS logs.
HW - cheap and powerful. Average lifespan of the motherboard being whopping... 9 months. The phone ate 3 of them.
Moto G54 5G Power
Once again, great HW, SW not so much. The 3 button navigation was completely broken in high DPI and what made me return it - non-skippable updates. Just full-screen permanent update notifications. Only option: update. Nope.
Ulefone Armor 24
Few SW issues: Long-pressing dock icons while an app is open crashes "Quickstep", in turn killing navigation (both gesture and buttons...). Alarm clock gets killed most of the time even with all optimizations off.
HW, least I think I should classify it as such: The phone has a chance to negotiate (?) 12V for split-second intervals using QC 2.0 (based on my USB tester) which it doesn't expect, and throws overvoltage error. This happens with all QC-compatible chargers I tried, even the original one when used with OTG adapter.
The original one otherwise uses USB-C with PD, which works, sure. But after using it data transfer to PC via cable is broken until reboot.
I was very much a full-time phone person, but now it's too much. I got a cheap touchscreen ThinkPad and use it with KDE Plasma (wayland). I was doing basically everything on a phone before, now I instead try not to, but with everything being an app, damn.
I generally switch between Sony Xperia and the Samsung A series, I'm currently with Sony. This is an unpopular opinion but the side fingerprint scanner really bothers me. It's too good compared to the under display scanner and the phone keeps getting unlocked on accident when trying to look at the time or even turning off the screen. Plus I had to register 4 different fingers to cover all hand positions. It's a good phone otherwise.
I was actually considering getting an ulefone armor at some point but the bad software stopped me. As most of your issues are with software you should probably keep away from the really cheap brands.
I have the Xperia as well. Perfect phone, really ticks every box. Except for that damn fingerprint reader. Idk how such a thing gets into production without someone realising it's the worst place to put it.
This is a feature I miss from MIUI. Side-mounted fingerprint scanner with the option of press to unlock rather than just tap.
It does have an option to only scan after pressing the button. But it gets a bit weird if you just pressed the button to lock the screen as there seems to be a mini race condition somewhere in there.