I was paying £40 or so, and back in 2018 that got me an S8+ which I loved. Unfortunately it broke.
Went to see what my £40 per month would get me in early 2020, and wasn't the equivalent S8+, that's for sure. Looked at buying a handset outright and the upper-mid range seemed to be the sweet spot, and also hugely popular, especially if Apple had reduced themselves to making affordable iPhones.
As I'm not paying over £40 a month for a phone/contract or £1000+ outright, upper-mid it was. bought a OnePlus 7 Pro instead for £530 odd from John Lewis. Beautiful notch free display, 90hz, 855 processor, novelty pop-up camera, great speakers, in-display fingerprint scanner, excellent ultra-wide camera, and I'll never, ever buy a 60hz phone again. The difference is so obvious to me. Pay £10 a month SIM free.
Not read much about the Pixel 5 but it didn't seem that Google made a song and dance about this device, did they? I'm sure it'll be good though - Pixel owners always appear very fond of their devices.