I don't know how good /e/OS is, but at least there is a place to get it factory loaded on cell phones and install it on phone brands other than Google.

And then there is Lineage OS, which I've had good luck using the extend the life of phones in the past. I haven't tried it since Play Integrity started being such an important feature, but I suppose that just pushes one to be even more open source on their Lineage device. I've been wanting to try Lineage again, but I misplaced the phone I want to try it on.

We're already at a point where smartphones have reached hardware stagnation, and white-labeled devices are coming. There will be no 6G. Smartphones and laptops are converging. The idea that a computer that happens to be smaller than most gives a random company the right or ability to build a wall around it and collect a tax is going to look, in retrospect, really silly.

I've been using GrapheneOS for about a year and it has worked well. Only have two minor issues:

1) I'd like the ability to have timestamp data added to the EXIF image info. There is an option to have the GPS data added, so timestamp really ought to be an option too, though I certainly understand why some users would choose neither. I'll probably end up writing a Perl driver for exiftool to add the timestamp based on the image filename which is YYYYMMDD_HH_MMSS_MSEC.

2) There aren't many fonts and Roboto supplies 1037 glyphs. The card suit symbols are missing which matters to a bridge player. E-books that display correctly almost everywhere don't on GrapheneOS unless the e-book explicitly includes a font with glyphs for the suits.