askchapo

Whichever phone you get, you should go through the trouble of running Universal Android Debloater to remove all the crap that comes pre-installed. This dramatically improves the experience of basically every phone.

Any older flagship phone will be a good choice if you're on a budget. Newer phones will have the advantage of less wear on the battery.

The specific suggestion I would have is a Galaxy S21 FE, which is what I'm currently using. If you want one with a 3.5mm jack, then I think the Galaxy S10e is an awesome option (although it's getting pretty old, and so probably won't have good battery life).

I've been buying Xiaomi phones for a while now, historically they've been a good value for the hardware in the midrange. On the high end they've got all the boondoggles. Outside the US there are Xiaomi stores everywhere. Something that has grown on me is their super fast charging, like they had one with 120 watt charging, mine is 67 watt and I can set it down for 30 minutes and pretty much have most of a charge.

Samsung still produces good phones. The flagships are overpriced but good, you're probably better off with a mid range one like the Galaxy A54.

If you want a phone with less bloat consider a Google Pixel phone, that way you get just the Google bloat not also random manufacturer bloat.

I’m honestly a fan of apple, their phones tend to just work, and they have a fairly long support period, my iPhone 7 just stopped getting new updates this fall after 7 years. Still works.