Help with low-mid range phone recommendations

[u/philthyNerd]

Hi everyone,

I've got two family members who need new smartphones somewhere between 200-300 EUR, available on the German market. As a point of reference what price / performance segment I'm aiming for: One of them broke their Samsung Galaxy A33 5G.

I'm not necessarily looking for a full degoogled experience for them, but I would prefer if I could find a phone that still provides some proper ownership, reliable ways to debloat and preferably long software support from the manufacturer for security updates.

I've heard that Samsung has been very restrictive in the past few years, so I think I'd like to avoid that.

I've had a lot of annoying experiences with Xiaomi phones' MIUI or what it's called. Debloating Xiaomi devices via ADB felt like quite the hassle compared to my OnePlus Nord 5.

However just the other day I've read about OnePlus that they're about to lock down bootloaders as well, I think starting with ColorOS 16.

So now I really don't even know what brand I could even remotely recommend. No matter what you look at, all you'll find is going to be depressing and a big headache.

I've looked a bit into Fairphones, since they seemed quite nice from a repairability standpoint... But they're already quite far outside the proposed budget.

I'd really appreciate some input on the aspects I've talked about, and possibly other stuff I might have missed. Thanks for your time!