Are there better brands?

Probably. I’ll echo the thoughts and opinions of others, sorry for the repeat.

Pixel phones will continue to receive updates (and GrapheneOS supports Pixels as long as Google supports them). If you go full tinfoil hat, you’ll see that there are people out there accusing Google of being an NSA partner and more.

Fairphone is a neat idea for reparability reasons. They also try to support their devices for a long time. But, they can be expensive for less than premium hardware.

Try to find devices that ship with very little bloatware:

• Nokia makes some cheap phones that might be tempting, but HMD Global (licence-holder for Nokia) has messed stuff up in the past. My Nokia 5.3, for example, received a bad update. What was bad? Well, if you tried to factory reset it bricked the phone. I did not read the forum before resetting my phone (https://community.phones.nokia.com/discussion/66312/warning-do-not-factory-reset-nokia-5-3-bricked-phone) so that cheap little guy didn’t even make it to year 2. Probably for the best as they were once accused of sharing data with [2 very large countries].
• Motorola, like Nokia, makes some cheaper devices. And, like Nokia, tends to ship with little to no bloatware. But, they are notorious for abandoning devices.
• Sony and Asus does not fall under the cheap category, unless you buy used.

If you really want to save, buy a broken phone and fix it. Rounded.com sells spare parts for different phones, so you could even find a phone for cheap and make it last using spare parts.