I'm upgrading because my phone is losing (lost?) support. I use a OnePlus 7 Pro and love it and wouldn't bother upgrading otherwise. I'd appreciate some recommendations of android phones you like, please.
I recently upgraded from a Pixel (the first generation) to a 5, so the first one lasted a long time. I do miss the headphone jack. But in general these phones do everything I need without fuss.
I see OnePlus in the top comments. I was a OnePlus fanboi from day one. From one through ten, I think I only missed one serious - otherwise, I bought some iteration of every series during that span. I honestly couldn't say exactly why at the moment, so maybe this comment is trash, but after my OnePlus 10 Pro 5G or whatever the specific name was, I swapped over to the Pixel 7 Pro, and refuse to look back at this point. I just upgraded to the 8 Pro and I have zero complaints.
If I had to venture a guess, part of the reason for the switch had to do with the gradual increase in price of the OnePlus flagship phones over time. I think the first one was something like $299, and was a solid phone, especially compared to the Samsung flagship at the time which was probably twice that, at least. At this point, OnePlus is pretty close to equal cost when comparing models with similar features. I like being on top of the newest software features, so with all else being more or less equal, the Pixel phones are where it's at. Of course, with Samsung cooperating with Google on phones being Android nekkid, maybe Samsung is worth a try?
TL;DR - OnePlus isn't worth it anymore. Go Pixel, or maybe Samsung. If you've got an especially itchy privacy concern, then don't ask me - sounds like other people got you covered there.
Edit: just looked up the Fairphone, and its sustainability angle is intriguing...
Fairphone is definitely a good option if you can get your hands on one. They don't sell the latest model in the states and only recently started selling in the states at all. If I remember right, the main thing though has been that they'll give you years of software updates and well, Google just kinda blew that out of the water with 8 years of updates for the Pixel 8.
OnePlus I never really looked at... I'm anti-CCP so I'm anti-OnePlus by default. Google announced recently they're going to start making phones in India, (which, it'll be a welcome change to manufacturer inside of another democracy instead of a foreign autocracy like China or Vietnam).