Get a renewed & unlocked device on Amazon for $200-$300 and your install should be literally a few clicks
Discussion
they highly recommend that you use the official cable to mitigate any issues in installing. Otherwise, super easy.
Awesome. Thank you. What’s your take on specs? I don’t want to scrimp, nor do I need best of the best.
Pixel 9a is the cheapest version of the 9-series and it's good
Used Pixel 8 Pro from swappa.com
My experience, its less about specs and more about staying away from EOL. Graphene on my 6a is smooth, but i needed to upgrade because the touch screen isn't usable, so I got a Pixel7 instead. I also have it on a Pixel Tablet.
Amethyst is known to be a heavy app, and I get very few hickups with it.
Is it your daily driver?
Daily driver, new install on Pixel 7, everything good so far! Some caveats
I don't make much use of the sensors, most of the apps I use i can get from Zapstore & Obtainium,
Aurora Store lets you download apps without Google play. Some may not work without it, but I've been able to get by and not worry about those apps. You can however, use sandboxed Google Play (Graphene gives you an option to enable it), which should take care of those issues.