Apple processors always blow away the competitors by miles and it takes them the competitors up to a year to catch up. They have amazing cameras, music quality, build, looks, display, security, etc. If they aren't the best, they are in the top 3. And that is all in 1 phone.
I do not personally prefer Apple cause it is not my cup of tea (and I need headphone jack) but they have been coming up with amazing phones year after year, and you can easily skip a year without it affecting your usage.
Cause if there was indeed "backdoored motherboard", it'd be very easy to produce the said device and say "Look!".