I had a similar experience with the Cat S22 Flip when I picked it up for a month-long minimalist productivity challenge. It was a perfect device to test custom internal tools. Even when stripped down to its core essentials (messaging, navigation, notes), it handled the load surprisingly well under consistent use. I did experience some overheating early on mainly due to charging and background syncing but like you said, disabling bloatware and adjusting the adaptive brightness did wonders in stabilizing the performance.
From a QA/dev perspective, it’s a fantastic tool for stress-testing app behavior in constrained scenarios. The way it handles battery optimization, offline functionality, and crash recovery is drastically different from high-spec phones. If your team is working on apps for underserved or non-tech-savvy audiences, testing on the Cat S22 Flip will give you valuable insights into how your app performs in these types of environments.