Phone hardware is a hellscape it doesn’t surprise me at all that they need to keep the number of supported devices small in order to deliver a decent product.
Despite Google's other failings, it was the OG supporter of data portability, and that spirit extends to its phones. No other phone manufacturer with wide distribution comes close. It's unfortunate that the people who design the hardware do such a poor job with the resources at their disposal.
Is it still the case that Android backups leave much to be desired when compared to iphone? Pretty much the only reason I use Apple is that I can switch to a replacement phone and it’s exactly the same state as the last backup.
How do you reconcile that position with what Graphene OS lists as requirements for support, as linked by another commenter? https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices
I’m not an expert, but all the listed points there sound reasonable. If indeed only the Pixels support them, well, it’s too bad there’s not other, similarly secure hardware out there.
