I don’t even use google anymore, I am currently using brave search (actually pretty good).
Not sure in terms of privacy if they respect that much but in my perspective brave aggregates results by themselves instead of just using the google or bing results so they are at least a decent alternative.
Also the ai integration has been good in the search results imo.
I have recently unlocked the bootloader of one xiaomi phone and it was kinda annoying imo, you basically have to wait (7 days I think, or more) when using the official unlocker of the xiaomi website for them to unlock the bootloader (without it you can’t degoogle the phone).
There is a lot more telemetry then usual, its China + google that are collecting all your data instead of just google if it was a pixel phone for example. The good side is that there is support for custom roms like lineageOS and its derivatives but I would much rather pick a pixel and put grapheneOS in it if the price wasnt a issue or if you could grab one second-handed.
Besides that, I guess if I was buying regardless I would try unlock the bootloader and install the a custom rom like lineageOS as fast as possible.
At least might help compete with Firefox to improve Foss browsers.