I don’t know how anyone could possibly trust a premium product from Google, regardless of how good the specs are. Their entire approach to QA and privacy is anti-premium.
When Google bought HTC the idea was the best of Google software and the best of HTC hardware, but we have Google level hardware and HTC level software. The glory days of the HTC One were a decade ago.
Reminds me of that old joke: "Canada could have had British culture, French food, and American industry. Instead they ended up with American culture, British food, and French industry."
Reminds me of an issue I had with the Nexus 6P: when I wanted to get it fixed (I think it was an issue with the ambiental microphone) Huawei said it was a software issue and Google said it was a HW issue.
In the end, none of the two companies fixed the problem, and my 6P eventually died randomly one day.
So, this Google software and X hardware story is very similar to yours w/ HTC, except that if they don't buy the company it's better for them as they can just throw the problem over the fence to the other company. What a clown show
HTC software wasn't bad at all IMO, it was among the less bloated Android layers of the time.
I had three HTC flagships back in the glory days and they were amazing machines, their only problem was that most people preferred to buy the likes of Samsung despite being much worse in almost every respect (software, camera, design, durability, etc.). I don't know if due to bad marketing by HTC or just because they bought reviewers less (they used to have a blatant pro-Samsung bias).
Then of course quality actually degraded when they had to make huge personnel cuts due to bad sales.
When Google bought HTC the idea was the best of Google software and the best of HTC hardware, but we have Google level hardware and HTC level software. The glory days of the HTC One were a decade ago.