Choices right now are:
Google Pixel 8 pro or 9 pro xl.
Samsung S23
Oneplus 12

I'm kinda leaning towards the one plus. Only exept I am wary because it's another Chinese company and privacy reasons and all that.

But I'll be honest, I've been using my Huawei p20 Pro forever and it's the best the best phone I've used. If it wasn't for the whole Google fiasco that made their phones no longer an option, I'd stick to Huawei.

But with... State of US right now, I don't know if they'll go after any other Chinese phone brands and make their phones unusable in the future. Though... I guess that wouldn't affect any phones I have already bought?

I have the Pixel 8 Pro if you have any questions about it. I mostly went with that one because I love the camera options (SO much fancier than anything I've had before).

siderealtime: how do you find the battery?

it's pretty good! I tend to use it a LOT during the day and only have to charge it up once a day (or like... in the car while I'm going somewhere). let me see if it's keeping track of the particulars itself....

it's at 100% now, and says it's good to go until 4:30pm tomorrow- that seems pretty accurate to me.

I never have the battery saver turned on, but I suspect that'd lengthen it, too.

Yeah, I definitely hard use my phone in a way that is rather crazy. To the point I have 2 phones I use daily.

oh geez, that's not good. :/

siderealtime: does it use stock android? I always get confused whether they use normal android, or they use some sort of Google option.

siderealtime: it's not bad. I use one exclusively for gaming/entertainment, etc. Usually it's a refurbished one that I don't care as much and kinda abuse. Lol

Pixels use Android, but like...the best version of that experience, I think? They tend to offer beta tests and early new features, which is nice.

I had to use some of Samsung's bloatware (which isn't too bad, honestly! It works) when I was setting up my parent's phones and was happy I didn't have to deal with any of that extra stuff on Pixel.

ah, yeah I definitely know how it can go having the one phone for games and poking at and another for work/family stuff. Still good to get everything on the one, though.

Yeaaah, bloat ware is a pain too. I kinda like having a second phone, cause that way I don't need to worry about privacy reasons for what gets installed on my phone if I do it random stuff on it. Or use cracked versions of things.

well, that's true. that's a good use case.