Not looking for me personally, so leaving the specs/features open, and generally interested in what people might recommend.
Imo there’s almost always some surprising budget phones floating around to learn about. Only condition I might add is that preferably they’re from 2022-2023, and if not, mention their release year to help know its version/update situation.
I’ve found the article I mentioned earlier. It’s the bootloader that currently needs a Xiaomi account to unlock.
https://xiaomiui.net/how-to-unlock-xiaomi-bootloader-and-install-custom-rom-7098/
I’m sure that I’ve read that they are going to restrict rooting and bootloader unlocking though, probably on here somewhere. I just can’t find the post.