FrameXX

The Xiaomi Android One line-up was unlockable without any hassle, but is long time discontinued. I used to use the Mi A2 lite as my main phone and you could just unlock it yourself offline. Only thing blocking you from doing it was the OEM unlocking toggle in developer settings. I still have the phone and it is running Android 14 like a charm.

RCS is an open standard, but Google's implementation of it isn't AFAIK. That's why there exist no 3rd party RCS client outside of those praised by Google.

I don't understand why the control panel UI wasn't modernized instead? Would that really be unfeasible? I think it still might have been less work than to maintain 2 coexistent "settings/control panel" apps and migrate from one to another. Sometimes you have to throw out the old code base and start from scratch. But if you do so shouldn't you rather distrubute the result when your finished and not in a half-baked compromise-like state?

I don't understand why the control panel UI wasn't modernized instead? Would that really be unfeasible? I think it still might have been less work than to maintain 2 coexistent "settings/control panel" apps and migrate from one to another. Sometimes you have to throw out the old code base and start from scratch. But if you do so shouldn't you rather distrubute the result when your finished and not in a half-baked compromise-like state?

they never worked very reliably in my experience.

It works perfectly on my phone (Poco X3 NFC). It is probably different from phone to phone.

Lawnchair 2 is no longer under development. The development team always starts to develop a new launcher based on the latest stock launcher every time a new Android version is released (so basically every year). This way the app usually never gets past the alpha or beta builds till they already move on to start from scratch. I don't understand their strategy.

I use Google Lens and I also have to keep Google app installed. I agree it's annoying that they just can't make the apps work standalone. There already is a package that nearly all Google apps dependend on. The package is Google Play Services. Why can't they implement this into Google Play Services as they do with all the other stuff (quick share, find my phone, location services etc...)?

To anyone with a TV running Android I recommend SmartTubeNext: https://github.com/yuliskov/smarttube

I am not aware of any.

Well the messages app that comes with samsung does support Google's RCS as far as I know.

Google implementation of RCS (Jibe I think it's called) is proprietary. A third party client has to be explicitly allowed and supported by Google.

Did you flash a custom ROM? Maybe it will work with a custom ROM.

EDIT: Your phone uses Mediatek processor, so it's not going to be well supported. I recommend you to stick to locked bootloader and just live with the phone as it is.