Samsung Galaxy A54. 5 years of guaranteed updates, including 4 Android version updates. 120hz QHD screen. High quality cameras that record on 4K (yay! I can’t watch that anywhere because I don’t own any 4K screen). Sleek and familiar UI. 25W Fast charging. Seamlessly works with my earphones and Watch. Plays almost all mobile games I could possibly want. Basically it’s just “an phone”.

Things it doesn’t have:

• Wireless charging: doesn’t faze me at all.
• Glass back: which only exist because of wireless charging, not a fan of the aesthetic, so whatever.
• Aluminum body: this is the only thing I wished it had, but it would add a hundred or two more to the price for very little extra durability. As it is, the phone feels very sturdy and doesn’t bend in any way. I rarely drop phones, and keep them permanently in a case. So it’s not a deal-breaker.
• Ultra high performance: don’t need it, I wanted a phone not a graphics behemoth. This chip is plenty enough.
• Only 256 GB without SD expansion: I have to use two sim cards, which rules out using an SD due to the hybrid tray. I have been abusing the storage with application installs and media download though, and still haven’t hit 40% of used space. Unless I start using it as a hard drive I would not need more than this for a long while.
• S-pen support: I once tried this out with a Note phone of an acquaintance. Really cool feature. Definitely not a must have.
• HDR: There isn’t any content or screen in my context that can do this yet either.

I still haven’t met a task I wanted to do that the phone didn’t deliver appropriately. The smoothest and nicer phone I’ve ever owned.

Oh, and the transfer was super smooth too. I picked up the new phone at the end of a mostly hands free one hour process, and it was like I had just picked the soul of my old phone in a new body. Everything was exactly in the same place that I left it in and 100% functional without any extra setup required. I have seen Apple’s transfer and, compared the two, Apple was a pain in the ass and unreliable (several failed tries and the thing only half worked after almost a whole day).