Fantastic post.
I've been using Graphene for almost a year now after switching from iOS. For the most part there is no degradation in UX, but a few things bug me:
  • Keyboard autocorrect (even with Floris board, or Openboard which I use) is much worse and really slows me down sometimes. Just need to concentrate more!
  • System updates and required restarts are much more frequent
  • Camera just isn't as responsive, and I miss some photos that would have been caught with my iPhone
  • I've backed up with USB, but I have low confidence this will work based on the warnings I've seen from the developers
  • For some reason Bitwarden autofill didn't work at first, but now does and its really convenient. This is a bit erratic.
Apart from those, its great and gives me such peace of mind knowing that I'm a bit more protected against big tech and other bad actors.
Also I'm not yet fully degoogled... but getting there. Slowly changing email logins and using legacy Google and Apple stuff less and less. One step at a time!