Help Picking a Phone

The only times I hear about forced updates are in the US (I'm elsewhere).

The UA carriers really screw people over.

Yeah unfortunately in the USA, the carriers are very strong. You are lucky that you five have to deal with this.
 
Update. Put a query into Hewaei along the lines of where are the updates...?
Response, I paraphrase - we only do fill version updates ie 6 to 7, 7 to 8 don't do incremental 7 to 7.1 type updates. As expected they offer no assurance as to when or even if my 3 month old phone will get Android 8. Obviously no monthly security update either.

Installed Heawei HiSuite (the current version v4.0.1.0) today to my fully patched and updated Win 10 box today and guess what, that doesn't talk to my phone at all just says connect phone by USB, poking around on the forums its not an uncommon issue but no solutions...

Since factory reset a week or so ago the phone has behaved itself but time will tell...

Android seems to be a reasonable platform and the Play Store is great (after the Windows store) but the handset manufacturers, oh dear...

Whilst I'm not an intensive or power user with relatively modest requirements it seems that if I want a device that is maintained with updates and any level of support at all I do need to spend flagship money and if I'm doing that Apple are the only game in town, Android handset makers are just too unreliable and a gamble. I'd normally keep a handset for 2 - 3 years, this will be lucky to get to Christmas.
 
Huawei isn't no name. It's actually the 2nd largest Android manufacturer in the world. It's much larger than HTC or LG, possibly larger than them combined in term of Android sales.

That's astounding, that a company that sell unsupported crap like the P8 lite 2017 have such a big market share, astounding, absolutely astounding.

My fault entirely, should have done my homework before buying.