My path to the S8 replacement.

So my trusty Samsung S8 died the other day without any apparent reason. It was just charging and all of a sudden in the middle of the night it starts screaming (well beeping really loud) and the screen flashes. Half drunken I just pushed the power button to shut it off. That is the last thing I ever heard of it. It was dead from the next day. I have insurance, however because the phone is "too old", there is no way to have it repaired. The only option is a A42 as a replacement phone. This sounds good, as it is a new phone and thus gets a somewhat recent Android version, however being an "A" phone from Samsung - it lacks a lot of features that my S8 had. I was never a big fan of the "Samsung Experience" (quite an awful experience imho), but I found multiple work-arounds via 3rd party apps to make it bearable (Nova, other keyboard, Bixby-button work-around app, force uninstall some apps via USB).

That made think: What are the average peasants options?

I came up with these for me:

The somewhat affordable droid		Pros	Weight		Cons	Weight
Google Pixel 5a		No bloatware - no "custom" experience - no extra assistants	5		Relatively expensive for the average peasant	4
		Big modern screen	4		You submit to the digital overlords	1
		Good stereo sound - headphone jack	3		Big and chunky	2
Score		Fingerprint sensor that "just works"	5		No Wireless charging	2
16		Very good cameras	2		The side buttons are not very ergonomic	1
		Long software support expected	2
		USB-C	1
		5G support	1
		Multilingual (Keyboard, Interface, Assistant)	3
		Total	26		Total	10
The DoCoMo "replacement" for the S8		Pros	Weight		Cons	Weight
Samsung A42		Big modern screen	4		Bloatware OVERLOAD	5
		Headphone jack	1		Awful speaker - MONO	3
		Pretty good cameras	2		under screen fingerprint scanner (works about 50% of times)	2
Score		Cheap	4		There will be 0 feature updates / OS updates and security updates will be months late (I know from S8 experience)	2
-9.5		USB-C	1		Only Japanese and English of the relevant (for me) languages are supported. (No German, No Español, No Pусский)	3
		Pitty for non big IT company	0.5		No wireless charging	2
					The side buttons are not very ergonomic and "inverted"	1
					Extra malus for the system stability, random crashes and quirky work arounds to get basic apps like youtube and casting to work	3
					No 5G	1
		Total	12.5		Total	22
5 year old device from apple		Pros	Weight		Cons	Weight
Refurbished IPhone 8		Cheap	4		Small, but good screen	2
		Good stereo sound	2		No Headphone jack	1
		Still surprisingly good camera	2		Thunderbolt	1
Score		Fingerprint sensor that works best	5		used (battery not 100%, might not have as much life left as a new one)	4
12		Multilingual support (really good with Apple)	3		outdated specs (C/GPU slower than modern)	2
		Wireless charging	2		No 5G (of course)	1
		Long software support	2
		Ergonomic side buttons - quiet mode switch	1
		Great integration with Mac	2
		Total	23		Total	11