I'm in Canada. I got myself a Sony Xperia and bought a Sailfish licence for it so I could get the Waydroid integration and predictive text keyboard. Works pretty well. So if you are interested in the OS rather than the hardware, that could be a route to go.

Technically, the licence is not for sale in Canada (or US), but meh, it did work at the time. Probably still does.

Anyway, I quite enjoy Sailfish. Been using it for about 4 years now or thereabouts. There's a fair number of native apps, especially with Chum and Storeman. With Waydroid, many Android apps work too, though definitely not all.

Oh yes, that one is great. I play it pretty much every day!

I just got into Andor's Trail recently. Pretty neat so far!

Oh, hey, they are doing that in my city right now. It's a classic!

I'm not quite sure how reliable these battery indicators are. I have a thirdreality moisture sensor at 0% for a week now. Still the original battery too, so you'd think that was actually properly calibrated. 😆

So I just go with the unavailable and deal with it then. Though the notification automation that I made for that did break at some point. I need to figure that one out again.

Huh, I'm running it on a rpi 3B which was (barely) supported when I installed Home Assistant on it. It has only 1GB of memory but it's still working very well! I don't have a ton of automations though

Heh, I used to run Whatapp in an Android VM for use in a Matrix bridge. I got my phone number banned in about a week or so. So I guess it's really important to use an actual phone.

That was years ago and I used that to get my family to install Element, so it still ended well.

I do quite like the Space Quest Historian who reviews very old games in a very funny way.
https://spectra.video/c/spacequesthistorian

I also like Arthur who shares random little tech tidbits.
https://tilvids.com/c/arthurpizza

Heh, I rounded the number too much. I'm actually in Ottawa where there is a Dutch grocery store with a large selection. I'm just baffled why Canadians are so reluctant about that stuff. There seems to be only a 50% chance of people liking licorice. Weird! 😆

I would say it was worth it. I moved from the Netherlands to Germany for three years for a Master's and then to Canada for a PhD and stayed there and got a job. It's a great way to experience different cultures (though all Western of course).

For the move to Germany, it was really easy. It's all EU so all I had to really do was register at the Kreisverwaltungsreferat. I had also applied for a grant to study abroad so that paid the tuition as well as the rent. Tuition in Germany is very low by the way. It was also a great way to build independence since I had to rely a lot on myself, having come all alone.

I did meet my lovely Canadian spouse there, so there was the opportunity to move to yet another country. Immigration is a massive pain, even when married to a Canadian, but it all worked out with student visa, permanent resident, and finally citizen. Took years!

The downside is of course being 6000km away from my family. Especially from my parents who are not getting any younger. So it's hard to be there for them if something happens. But overall, I would say it was worth it. The experiences have been great and I get to spread ideas that work well from places I've been to my new home in Canada. The lack of proper licorice here is baffling though!

Oh yeah, I also daily drive a Sony with Sailfish (Xperia XA2) and the GPS is very unreliable to get a lock. It's very rare that it works sadly. Other than that the phone works very well.

From the product page:

Powered by Linux at its core, our device transforms the mobile experience into something far beyond ordinary smartphones. It combines the stability and openness of a full desktop-class operating system with the convenience of a pocket-sized device. This means it is not limited to mobile apps alone. Native Linux applications and Android apps run side by side, delivering true versatility and freedom of choice

I suspect it uses Waydroid so there may be issues with Android apps that rely on Google Play services or even worse, depend on the Play Integrity API.