On the pixel:

I have a love/hate thing with it. You say it’s closed software, but it’s the opposite and it’s the only reason I got it; how easy it is to remove the google garbage and install something better. I don’t like graphene and I’m planning to try other things, but it’s soooo much better than the default google experience. If you don’t want google software, ironically google phones are the best ones for that.

But the pixel5 is the last “small” phone. And no sd card, no headphone. The phone itself I hate. I liked my s10 (which I lost) much better. But not having any google software on it is worthy, and after this last experience, it’s much more so now. That said I am planning on buying an s10 again and trying to put Lineage on it. It was perfect. Great hardware, acceptable size, sd card, headphone jack… There is nothing like it anymore…

On the g54:

Did you try installing another rom? Do you know if it’s easy? It seems like an ok option, though the camera and cpu seems to be worse than the s10. It may not have bloat (it’s funny because people are ok with all the google garbage, and to me that’s bloat), but it still have the google play virus on it, so it’s dangerous without a custom rom.

About the bricking:

Yeah, I thought I bricked many phones in the past, but there was always a way around. But never before it was by design, with a virus made by the manufacturer. Unless there is an unpatched hole (and unfortunately it is up to date), I doubt there’s a software solution. I don’t have a windows computer, but I’ll try to get one to try that droidkit. I fear it’s like those “kingroot” softwares to try to root phones, that only worked on old unpatched phones and installed a bunch of nasty stuff on the way.