Samsung Galaxy S20

My Galaxy S20 is in the sweet spot of 3+ years old where I still get security updates but I thankfully don't get any more big feature updates so I don't have to worry about my phone getting enshittified with whatever AI shovelware I imagine is the focus right now. Or an OS revamp that moves and redesigns everything for only the sake of being newer. I've had both Apple and Google hardware become unusably slow on me after getting a big OS update. I don't know if it's aggressively planned obsolescence or just bad software, but either way I'm done buying hardware from them. I've never had a bad experience with Galaxy phones so I'll stick with those.

I had an iPhone and Google tablet that both had this problem. I stopped buying hardware from either. I switched to Galaxy phones and haven't had a problem since. My current S20 is 3 years old and runs like the day I got it. My previous galaxy phone still ran perfectly well after 4 years. I have no idea what accounts for it. On a desktop, I think it's more about hygiene and expertise with the OS.

Which apps are the bloatware I keep hearing about? I use an S20 for several years, and the only custom (non-vanilla Android) apps I seem to be using are the camera, and the photo gallery in connection to it. Both are fine, do not require a Samsung account, etc.

I assume my Galaxy S20 is immune to this because it's not getting (major) updates anymore. I'll continue using it as long as I can to avoid this. Does anyone know the most recent Galaxy phone that will be safe from this? Should I get one or two extras?

I went from S20 to S21 to S24. Before that every Android phone I had was good but qc issues would pop up or some new phone would come out with much better features (eg camera quality is really important to me). Since I switched to Samsung have had 0 qc issues and every camera has been amazing. The only reason I upgrade is because it's free with my carrier so why not? Staying with Samsung if/until it changes.

My old Samsung S20FE can plug into my office-issue Dell monitor and give me full Dex desktop (also using the second screen) and connect to the keyboard and mouse that stay wirelessly connected to the USB ports on the screens. IIRC it also made use of the headset plugged in via USB. If I was a student with Chromebook-style needs (browser-based tools) it would be worth considering instead of a laptop.

I needed dual sim so I could separate work from private. Ordered a Canadian Samsung s20 because their dirt cheap that had 2g support. Reflashed it with American firmware and now I have no 2g/3g support but do have dual sim (turns out same hardware in the devices they just use rom to change featutes based on where in the world you are as the base chip it worked on supported all of them). I use the esim for work. Works great transferred a real sim to it via online portal, cost me $120aud for whole year plan, unlimited calls and text.

Is Samsung still supporting Dex well? I remember a few years ago when I had a sudden [work] laptop fail during the pandemic and couldn’t get a new one until it was shipped out. My work phone was a Galaxy S20 and I was able to Dex my way into the corpnet and basically get by for a week. It was shocking and amazing, and yet I’ve never used it since…