Technology

Mostly: Price

Are you willing to, either: (a) spend $500-$600 for a new Google Pixel? (the 9 that is, I don't think 10 is ready for GrapheneOS yet), or (b) willing to dig into the second hand market and potentially get not-unlockable phones? (those run rampant in the used market, note that Carrier Unlock does not equate to Bootloader Unlock, and Verizon ones are guaranteed to not allow bootloader unlocking, I'm unsure about other carriers)

(Also you are kinda supporting google if you get a new one btw.)

I personally don't wanna spend $500 since if it ever breaks, its hard to replace or even repair. And I hate dealing with the used market.

So for me, Graphene isn't an option.

I went for the cheapest new Moto that has custom ROM support, Moto G 5G 2024 for $140 (carrier variants do not unlock).

I'm basically still testing to see what wouldn't work, haven't really be using it as a "daily driver"

I've also come across the CMF Phone 1 which is OLED and supports e/OS its about $300

TLDR: Get Graphene if you can afford a pixel or willing to look for a used phone from a reputable source. I personally do not like used phones because I think there's too much risks IMO, you might assess the risks differently. Other options are Moto G 5G 2024 for $140 which runs both LineageOS and e/OS, or CMF (by Nothing) Phone 1 which runs e/OS and is an overall much better phone, but its more expensive, at $250 for 128 GB and $300 for the 256 GB.

Oh one last thing: Even "New" "Unlocked" cheap Pixels on sites like Amazon aren't guaranteed to unlock. I was looking at older pixels like the 6a, 7, 7a and checked the reviews and some comments indicate they are locked to Verizon because the reseller didn't unlock it for some reason, so I'm get the vibes that its unsold stock previously owned by carriers, so I don't know if they'll bootloader unlock, even if its SIM unlocked. Where as CMF never has carrier variants, so they all should unlock.

Edit: Also, the CMF phone needs the IMEI added in to carriers such as ATT and Verizon, since they use IMEI whitelisting, Tmobile is fine. For some countries like, Australia they also does nationwide whitelisting. Custom ROMs can break VoLTE, rendering it not work with cell service for csrriers that require VoLTE, Might wanna research about that.

Because ICE targets people not from the US?