> Except that it's all Android?

If only this were true. Samsung makes arguably the best hardware, but I refuse to buy a phone with Facebook pre-loaded and unremovable, a second (worse) app store preloaded and unremovable, and a bunch of redundant samsung-branded copies of the google apps. The best android images are as close to vanilla AOSP android as possible -- this used to mean Sony or Google branded phones, except Sony doesn't really market phones in the United States anymore and the Pixel phones are diverging from AOSP

I'm writing this from a Samsung. Their store software hasn't ever gotten in the way and I like most of the UI changes they made besides the extra apps that you can mostly hide or remove (in my case especially because root, but alas I'd not encourage anyone to buy Samsung anymore without the option to control the hardware as if you own it)

Not to defend Samsung specifically, just that most phones' software is fine after a bit of setup whereas you can't download more RAM (don't believe the scams that are out there! :P). Even on Huawei I remember there were some things better than on stock but forgot what specifically (the only thing that comes to mind was a lockscreen menu that you could open with a gesture and I used all the time)

Apropos Sony, that was the only brand where I kept having issues because my mom, who had the phone, constantly had questions about what to do with some notification that the OS was pushing and we couldn't get rid of. Basically product ads, iirc to try this-or-that app or function

I do get what you mean about bloatware, just that it's more of a tie-breaker (saving you an hour of debloating, assuming you stay on stock) as compared to the permanent differences in hardware capabilities