I buy Motorola phones and they have been great in recent years. I consider them the new Android One. The OS is stock Android. Facebook and LinkedIn are preinstalled, but easily removed. The moto apps add useful gestures. The launcher is very much like the Pixel one, but also easily changed. It uses Google apps for everything, i.e. Gboard for the keyboard. The camera is great. Typing this on an edge 30.
I've used flagship Android Samsungs since Google stopped Nexus phones, and they were great. The hardware is fantastic, you can install and change any default app, and their performance doesn't degrade in time.
I can count 4 pre-installed apps that I forgot about. It has much less bloatware than an iPhone, that comes preinstalled with a dozen useless apps that cannot be removed from your home screen.
Back when I used a iPhone for work, I remember having Safari, Apple Music, Apple Rock Band, Apple Podcasts, Apple News and a lot of built-in apps being un-uninstallable and unremovable from my home screen.
Safari was the most egregious, since all other browsers had to use it as a backend.
In current iOS, all apps can be deleted except seven: Settings, Phone, Messages, Camera, Photos, Safari and App Store. All apps can be removed from the home screen.
I've never seen the bloatware a lot of people on here are talking about. My suspicion is that they bought a phone through a carrier. Carriers push tons of weird bloatware onto their users (which is probably why their models are cheaper). If you just buy a phone, I don't think there will be any obvious bloatware on Samsung phones. There are some duplicate apps, but I'm pretty sure that's limited to Chrome vs Samsung Internet and Google Play vs Samsung Store.
My tablet came with a weird Google Now replacement that I can't remove, but that's the only bloatware I really encountered. The rest was free versions of paid apps like drawing software and the standard Samsung suite. No weird shopping apps, no ads anywhere, just what I wanted for the tablet.
Xiaomi is pretty bad, though. It kind of makes sense, because they need to develop their software for China, where there is no Google cloud, so they've become their own Google. Every app prompts for agreeing with a privacy statement. Some models of phones actually include ads in the system apps (which can be disabled by a setting, but it's still a problem). Their privacy policy is also a blatant lie. I love the bang-for-the-buck nature of Xiaomi phones, but I wouldn't buy them unless there's a good custom ROM available. Other Chinese brands suffer similar problems, but not to the same extend.
I'm no Android expert but Pixel 7a had a price drop recently (plus good deals on contracts), and GrapheneOS supports Pixel phones. Also quite a few are now made in Vietnam I believe
On Friday, I switched to the Pixel 7a with GrapheneOS and it's costing me CAD$1 per month for the phone on a 24-month contract and I got a better deal on my monthly phone plan. So far, it seems like an awesome phone and the installation of GrapheneOS via the web installer was incredibly easy.
That's a good question. I tend to plug my phone in whenever I get in the car, so unfortunately I don't have a good feel for battery life yet. I didn't notice an issue with my Pixel 6a, though.
Is there any Android phone brand/model that is not exploiting its users?