I’m moving away from my Samsung S24+, would like a good smartphone, with clean ui, no or least amount of bloatware and good for privacy. Been told that Motorola and Asus are good options.
What devices do you guys use or recommend?
No Google Pixels please, they are not available in Brazil(sadly), and the very few of them that are available are QUITE overpriced.
If no google pixel then it is very difficult to pick.
HMD, while offers close to stock android experience, often lacks behind in security updates, abolish promised updates, offers short software period. Terrible specs, nearly all models heavy as a brick, use tons of UNISOC SoCs, big red flag for me.
Motorolla and Asus? No thank you for their long list of orphaned device and long history of poor software support cycle and patch quality.
Sony? They take away implemented features after updates with no explanation, short support cycle, and massively overpriced.
Long List of Chinese Brands? No thank you.
Fairphone, while offer clean experience, long software support cycle and ultimate repairability , they are quite slow in terms of updates, and definitely overpriced for their spec.
You can definitely go for any phones with active 3rd roms support, but be prepared for random bugs.
If I must pick something other than Google Pixel, I would go for Fairphone > HMD (Non UNISOC models) > any phones with good Lineage OS support > Sony.
If you can’t get a Pixel, get an iPhone.
Ah right, iPhone would do as well, completely forgot it. 
I think the iPhone is probably the next best choice.
Asus is minimal bloat, great near stock experience but lacking on updates. They seem to align with Motorola on this aspect as well unfortunately.
I know many Chinese phones get hate and are not of interest however there is a caveat to that in my opinion.
OnePlus offers great user experience with OxygenOS and feels close to stock android with bloat ware that is removable. They have been supported by lineageos on older models and the global version is NOT the same as the Chinese version.
OnePlus has been audited on both Chinese and global versions with the Chinese variant being very intrusive while the global did not have the same response. OnePlus 13 offers 5 years OS updates and 6 years security updates.
OnePlus + ADB
I’m from Brazil as well, and I’ve been happy with Motorola because Calyx supports it. So I get a phone that’s de-googled, but I can still relock. It’s nice. Sure, it isn’t like the best option, Motorola takes a while with security updates, they often don’t go over a single major Android update, and they’re kind of in the common area, like they suck like every other manufacturer, but you know.
You do get a more updated system with Calyx and one that doesn’t include the inherently bad software you’d usually get with stock. Our banks seem to work pretty well btw.
One thing is, you’re coming from a S24+, like… that’s a flagship. The motos supported by Calyx are not, they’re budget phones. Now they’re starting (not quite fully ready yet) to support some newer ones, but they’re still the cheaper ones. You might not like that. The one thing you do get from your S24 is that it’s a modern, very up to date device, and probably very nice and secure hardware included, where the Motos don’t have that.
Note: I think the camera might be nice, if you get one of the newer ones so like a G84, and then get like a GCam mod like BSG from celsoazevedo.com. I do that on my g52, but the thing is that for some reason Moto did some weird stuff with the camera and its resolution so it still looks better than just the stock camera, but it isn’t as crisp, I guess. My friend has a g84 and uses GCam and she says it looks very nice. (BSG 8.1 still for some reason looks much better to me than the newer versions)
So you’re trading kind of plain security for privacy, because while yes, that device may be secure, it’s secure to share all your data with Google, Samsung, and Microsoft, and the moment you were to unlock such a device, you’d lose the hardware security because Samsung. So yeah. You’re gonna be trading for a potentially older kernel, less updates to proprietary blobs, etc, but you get cleaner and less humanly abusive software. It’s gonna be a healthier experience.
Note: if you notice the other 2 posts here being about the same thing, that’s because someone linked to this and I wanted to reply but also in the past I did comment on this lol, probably why that person asked
I’d caution where if you are in my country, iCloud is hosted on Chinese servers because it is the cheapest provider in the region, so expect the opposite of privacy there. I havent checked if it is still true right now.
Another thing to consider are security updates. It’s my understanding that most Android manufacturers (including Motorola) only provide 1-3 years of updates after the initial release. This is discussed in the budget Android hardware thread and it seems like Samsung’s A-series phones are the best option. They are supported for a minimum of 5 years and in some cases longer. The A06 5G or A16 are currently the latest and cheapest options which will be supported for a while.
Samsung sucks when it comes to bloatware and data collection, but you can try to minimize it with some configuration and best practices. Considering how Googled smartphones already come with a plethora of privacy issues which won’t be sufficiently mitigated by picking a relatively more “minimal” OS, I think security updates are going to be much more important for most people.
You don’t have to use iCloud, though. The only mandatory service is the App Store, especially if you’re outside the EU.
I’ve de-bloated my Samsung device using Shizuku with Canta. It’s pretty easy if you end up with another Samsung phone for some reason.
I’ve read that iCloud has Advanced data protection ADP