[General Topics] extremecarver:
That's only true for global OS. There are no promises for support on most China OS phones - and if you look back at the support timeframe for older China OS flagship phones from Vivo and Oppo for example - they mostly got a single major android upgrade only! There own OS usually got 2 major upgrades - but one was based on the same android major version as another version.

Security updates come only every 2-3 months with one month delay in the first year - and stop alltogether after 2.5 years.

For Vivo their IQOO series is a bit more frequent on security updates. Well at least officially because if you use snoopsnitch you will often notice they actually update less frequent than what they say in their release notes and simply upgrade the android certified date but skip any actualy security patches (this becomes clear when an actual security update arrives later).

No single Vivo X series (their flagship serise) has received 2 major android upgrades yet.

The update situation is much better for their global OS versions. Also the software stack is really different in general. Spyware is only a problem on China OS, not on global OS. Also battery life is way worse on China OS of same phone in general as the spyware is very aggressive in uploading what you do causing thousands of wakelocks per day.

And yes - most people buy a new phone every 2-3 years. However they may not buy it at launch but 1 year later. Then with China OS you often only have 1.5 years of security updates left. In China with the pricing that makes not much sense - so there phones are mostly sold only for 6 months after appearing - hence also the fast update cycle on models.

The charging speed on USB-PD on china phones at max is 18-20w/hour - so slower than Samsung. However many models only charged at 10w on USB-PD. Also they are hyper sensitive to cables (BBK) so on thinner or longer cables they may trickle charge while on the same cable and charger my laptop has no problem charging at 60w.

I don't care about supeer fast charging - ruins the battery anyhow. But I care about decent charging speeds with USB-PD because I have plenty of high quality and light USB-PD chargers - and cannot bother to carry around the much bigger per real wattage China speed chargers (if they indicate 85w charging they usually never charge above 60w anyhow - so compare them with 65w USB-PD chargers) - also problems with cables and the chargers usually having a single output only.

The efficiency of shizuku based apps is great for what I experienced. So I prefer to use those features that I need and not have a huge bundle pre installed clogging up the system. And no the battery management on China OS cannot be fully solved - especially when it comes to killing apps like Shizuku. China OS usually doesn't allow much content on AOD, makes it super troublesome to change the launcher and so on.

Yeah - I will never buy a China OS phone anymore. I do know that. I may by China phones with global OS or those that can be flashed to global OS (if they come with all required bands). But right now the price for China phones with global OS is usually ridiculoous compared to Samsung and google, while the software to me is clearly inferior. Oneplus is the only brand that sells for somewhat decent prices vs China in Europe. And yeah of course I know VAT - I'm talking about prices without VAT/Sales tax.

There is however a clear reason for not buying Pixel, and that is battery life. But that is clearly caused by the Samsung node - not by Pixel software. Samsung may catch up with 3nm GAAFET. But who knows when this will make it into production phones. TSMC is already producing 3nm SOC right now for the next Iphone (Pro only?).

Samsung announced production start even earlier than TSMC yet nothing is reported so far about actual SOCs in 3nm. Rumours don't look positive for Pixel 8 (Pro) to be on 3nm node. Rumours about S24 serise sometimes say 3nm, sometimes yet again another lousy Samsung 5nm refresh (4nm for both TSMC and Samsung are just running on 5nm production line refreshes - 3nm gets new production lines).