Although I never had enough money as a student to get Pixel devices, I made sure to get devices with an unlockable bootloader. Xiaomi devices have been quite a

Although I never had enough money as a student to get Pixel devices, I made sure to get devices with an unlockable bootloader. Xiaomi devices have been quite a good choice if you're in the market for cheaper devices with an unlockable bootloader. I cycled through Lineage OS, Pixel Experience, and Project Elixir, and I am currently using CrDroid on my 2019 phone. Still works like charm. I'm surprised at how bloatware-free the devices can be. Just flash core Gapps to get the bare minimum of Google Play Services working for apps that need GPS and push notifications. The battery backup has also been quite amazing as compared to the default MiUI ROM. I do sympathize with other posters with their experience of Safety Net and Device Integrity checks forcing them to not use banking and payments apps, but going through XDA or Telegram clears up this confusion of which ROM passes these checks OOB without any fiddling. I've decided that I won't play this custom ROM security nightmare game anymore and will get any Pixel device with GrapheneOS in the future. Often, it's just one guy developing each ROM for each device.