What's the best brand or specific smartphone devices that offer the best privacy and least bloatware?

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.