The current state of phones is WILD. Two bad options yet most everyone (including me) still use them. I actually like to use it as evidence that most people would be fine if plopped in front of Ubuntu or Debian+Gnome/KDE

That's why my current phone is a Pixel running GrapheneOS. I still hate Android, but at least I don't have to run Play services on my main profile. I do run it on a separate profile though for a couple services that need it.

I really just want Linux with decent support for phone features (MMS/calls/data on any carrier, with full wake from sleep reliability), decent battery life, and decent audio quality. Unfortunately, PinePhone doesn't seem to handle those things properly (maybe it does MMS now?), so I stick w/ my GrapheneOS phone, which at least cuts out most of the crap from Android.

Honestly I wish we just had dumb phones and went back to Palm Pilots. But there's so much stuff that makes a phone mandatory nowadays.