TL;DR: Overly altruistic rant on how 7 years of GrapheneOS has genuinely changed my life and rejuvenated (de-rotted?) my brain and autonomy.
Have been rocking a Pixel 3 right up until it completely died, 2 weeks before the Pixel 10 released. Buying the Pixel 10 Pro was a no-brainer for me. GrapheneOS was such an incredible experience for those 7 years.
Even by the end, I could successfully pair Battery Saver with disabling Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to squeeze out 4 days of battery life for remote camping trips where GPS and emergency call capabilities needed to be easily accessible. It still felt more snappy in a lot of scenarios than my mates' new phones running stock OSes. The USB-C port kept dying much like most Pixel 3s, but wireless charging was able to get me through the last year.
The final release of GrapheneOS for the Pixel 3 (Android 12R, or 12.1, or something, IIRC) was rock solid and bug-free. A separate profile with Play Services for 2 critical apps performed brilliantly. The newest version of GrapheneOS's Play Services is quite flaky due to it being shoe-horned into a terribly out-of-date version of Android (I was surprised to find it worked at all), so I was lucky the 2 apps I needed didn't throw up any sign-in screens or use parts of Play Services that caused a crash.
GrapheneOS provided an unshakeable foundation for F-Droid and Aurora Store, getting me the closest I've been to my unrealistic ideal mobile phone experience. Without GrapheneOS, I wouldn't have such a healthy relationship with tech. Battery usage stats (serving as a poor man's screen time monitor) showed 30 minutes of active phone use per day on average, not including background usage for apps like Fintunes or Spotify. I went from being social media-addicted in my late teens to completely absent from all but YouTube (still addicted, oops) within the first year, resulting in more accomplishments, mistakes, experiences, self-improvement, regrets, and excited curiosity/learning in my 20s than my Gen Z internet-raised brain thought possible.
I've made a few donations over the years, and it's high time I made another when my next pay comes in. I eagerly wait for news on whether or not Google releases the source code required to enable GrapheneOS support for my shiny new Pixel 10 Pro (can't help but laugh at how this uncertain scenario has occurred right as I finally upgrade my phone), and even then it's up to the GrapheneOS team to decide whether they want (or if it's even possible) to work their magic.
Regardless of whether or not the team can bring GrapheneOS to the Pixel 10, I remain incredibly grateful to everyone involved for all their hard work and handing me something so life-changing on a silver platter. If I told flashy tech-obsessed 18-year-old me that I was dreading upgrading my phone, but also entirely immune to every single new feature and tactic Google's stock OS was throwing at me to encourage addiction and overdosing on everything the tech industry has to offer, he'd think I'd pulled off the impossible. Yeah, the Pixel 10 is just as terrible an experience as every other new phone I've poked around on and I'm absolutely hoping to get back on GrapheneOS, but I won't have a problem with this being my device for the next 7 years. Using my Pixel 3 has turned my new phone into a tool, not a source of addiction carried on my person 24/7.
P.S Yeah lol I know, using a seriously out-of-date phone is like a cardinal sin in the Android security community, but it turned into a game to see how little I could make myself care if my phone was breached wide open. She'll be right, mate.