iPhone to GrapheneOS

A new phone protector arrives in the mail today, which means I can finally activate my GrapheneOS device for everyday carry. 

I will keep the iPhone around the house for working with family screentime and media rental stuff, at least for now.  Probably this moves to an iPad on the shelf eventually.

I'm using a Pixel 8a from eBay, $150 (with a minor crack on the glass). Setup required a bunch of steps, but I just walked through them as directed in Graphene's install docs and had no issues at all.

I appreciate the security and privacy orientation, but I'm equally interested in whether it provides a better UX (not sluggish, settings easily found, not filling up my storage with useless junk). 

I had not considered Graphene until recently, because why would I want a Google device when I'm trying to de-Google?  This Reddit thread put my mind at ease.