I never understood why Samsung phones were constantly receiving praise by tech reviewers while LG got crapped on. Samsung always wanted to do things their way -- different (shitty) UI, Samsung versions of all the core Google apps (but worse), reorganizing preferences for no reason, the stupid bottom button placement, non-remappable Bixby button, aggressively killing apps for power management and breaking widgets, etc…
Google Apps aren't gold standard. I own a Samsung phone I have replaced launcher (MS launcher) /SMS (SMS organizer). Contacts and Phone app maybe Samsung's but they never troubled me. Only Settings search is unexplicably slow which annoys sometimes. In terms of hardware/updates Samsung is good enough. Only Chinese phones may give better value for money but they come with too many software quirks, which I don't like.
I noticed the launcher was sending traffic whenever I started an app and it was affecting app start times when in low and slow signal areas.
I didn't dig in to it, but I suspected it was sending app usage analytics and the launcher was blocking until its usage data was transferred.
Another MS app "Your phone companion" is also sus. Preinstalled on my S10, it uses 20mb of data a month and I don't use it at all. Receives very frequent updates, its changelog is "Not provided by developer", and it has many permissions.