Just my 2 cents, I own a Nokia 6.1 and bought it for the exact reasons OP had, a cheap stock android phone. Unfortunately the hardware is really poor and I still don't have Android 9 available to me yet. The camera is really really bad, it sometimes shows a photo has been taken and when you view it later it turns out the shutter captured whatever was in view 2 seconds later. Something is also really wrong with the audio firmware, music will just stop randomly followed by a loud pop, it's like a buffer overflows or something.
I got the Nokia 6 (2017) and can confirm that the camera was also very bad there. But security updates are still coming (just updated to patch level October 2018) and Android 9 has been announced to come at the end of this year, which is absolutely fine for me because that's a much better support than a lot of "premium" phones ($600+) get. Samsung's Galaxy S9 - its top smartphone - is still running Android 8.0 (8.1 is out since end of 2017) and it will get Android 9 not before next year.
Considering that the Nokia 6 costed me only ~$170 when I bought it a few months back, this is top value.
Grumble. The 6.1 was an emergency upgrade for dad when the Nexus 5X started bootlooping in the airport. He hasn't mentioned the camera (damn, the 5X set a really high bar for a $400 phone) or audio issues yet
