Imo no matter how great Android is, Samsung ruins it with their awful bloatware. There seem to be no way of removing them either.
Stock Android really peaked around version 10. Ever since they have just been messing with things that weren't broken, like the notifications or lock screen.
I thought I never would say this but thankfully Samsung doesn't automatically go along with Google's yearly inflation of whitespace [1] and other UX "improvements".
[1] Example of how ridiculous it has become: https://old.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/qbljd0/the_margins...
Really looking forward to going back to the Pixel phones and not touching Samsung again.
Pixel 6a is $449 new. You can get an older model than that used for half the price too.
The only positive experience I've had with Samsung devices was dumpster diving their TVs as they had a stupid high failure rate of their capacitors. A couple of dollar order from Mouser or DigiKey and the TV would be better than new.
The fact that the only positives I've had with Samsung in the last decade or so is fixing their broken devices to score nearly free TVs says a lot about Samsung. I used to really like Samsung. I bought a lot of Samsung electronics, either as the original device or with their equipment in things (they used to make a ton of PC power supplies for OEMs, their CRT monitors and TVs were often re-badged in the US). I avoid it like the plague these days.
LineageOS is pretty good and non-American Samsungs are easily unlocked.
A custom ROM is probably the most (only?) reasonable way of using an Android phone.
Xiaomi and other Chinese brands seem to be the way to go for flashing ROM's. There is still a huge community for those.