@edross I have a #SamsungTablet that’s about four years old (so my information is out of date as well, and note that this is a tablet, not a phone). As well as offering the Google Play Store, It has its own #Samsung app store and a number of apps that duplicate Google’s. The default keyboard is also Samsung’s, but it’s not hard to switch to Gboard. Gboard generally works better.
If you ignore Samsung’s parallel app store and switch to Gboard then the main interface is very similar to stock #Android. However, Samsung also offers a Gui called #Dex that lets you run multiple Android apps side-by-side in movable, resizable, overlapping windows. The processor is just about fast enough to keep up without it getting too frustrating. Dex is actually worth having. You switch in and out of it as separate mode; it takes a few seconds.
#Blokada (a DNS filter that everyone should run on every Android device) has a “Goodbye Ads” list with a special Samsung section, which, I assume, kills some of the phoning home that the device likes to do.
If you have any questions, do ask.