Just a heads up, the Pixel 7a’s price fell to $399 on Amazon US (MSRP is $499 but it also used to retail for around $450), which makes it very interesting given that the phone came out in May this year, meaning that there will be guaranteed updates until May 2028.
If you want to upgrade to a recent Pixel but can’t afford to overspend on a Pixel 8, you might want to check that one out, or maybe even some of the used ones on Ebay as people wanting to upgrade to the Pixel 8 are selling their old phones: https://lemmy.world/post/6515996
Coming from a traditional reader, I was ready to agree with you. Honestly though the in screen reader has been so smooth as to be invisible to me. Android 14 now reports individual figures for use with Tasker and the functionally is as seamless and snappy as it was with the classic FP reader.