having stable software - yeah that wasn't my experience. I used early and late Series 40 phones and they had plenty of problems. Mostly minor but not clearly getting better. And then it got worse. My N97 mini was a good phone with pretty terrible software. It was bad. And then it didn't matter anymore.

I'm not excited about the current duopoly, but a decent mid-range phone from either is better now that in was five years ago.