Not really, just make sure that you're getting a carrier-unlocked device, since carrier locks often also come with permanent bootloader locks. As long as you can unlock the bootloader (i.e. the OEM unlocking setting in the developer settings is NOT greyed out), everything will be fine.
It's a shame that no smartphone vendor other than Apple or Google bothers to properly implement hardware security features like a secure element (e.g. Apple's Secure Enclave or the Google Titan M2).
I understand the decision. Itβs kind of unreasonable to expect a developer to maintain a release without access to reasonably-maintained source to work on.
But in the Real World, what's the pragmatic difference between Graphene and a well-managed Lineage or DivestOS device, since security and privacy are both managed via layers?
I'm genuinely not being snarky. I tried running Graphene and had issues, and their support was atrociously condescending and critical, so now I'm running DivestOS instead. I've run Lineage on other devices without Google.