Pixels with GrapheneOS are your best and safest bet.
In my specific case, I couldn't use Pixels because the terrible PWM on the screen was painful to me. Bought a cheap Motorola G Power 2024 with an IPS screen. Never logged into Google. Used Obtanium and FDroid for most things. Used Aurora for the one Play-only app that I needed. Running Netguard (a non-root firewall) with a whitelist so almost nothing phones home. Deleted or disabled almost all the non-essential built-in apps.
I like the Moto but wouldn't recommend it due to the lack of OS updates. But this setup could be easily duplicated on almost any Android without needing root or roms.
Pixels with GrapheneOS are your best and safest bet.
In my specific case, I couldn't use Pixels because the terrible PWM on the screen was painful to me. Bought a cheap Motorola G Power 2024 with an IPS screen. Never logged into Google. Used Obtanium and FDroid for most things. Used Aurora for the one Play-only app that I needed. Running Netguard (a non-root firewall) with a whitelist so almost nothing phones home. Deleted or disabled almost all the non-essential built-in apps.
I like the Moto but wouldn't recommend it due to the lack of OS updates. But this setup could be easily duplicated on almost any Android without needing root or roms.
Ironically, Google Pixel phones are the best phones for leaving Google behind.
The have an unlocked bootloader and are the only phones supported by GrapheneOS [1].
If you don't want to go to GrapheneOS, any Android phone should be able to use F-Droid.
[1] https://grapheneos.org/faq#supported-devices