I have been considering replacing my nearly 7 year old iPhone (although very reluctant) and I was checking for options. Really the only phone that caught my eye was the Sony xperia 1 V, but I found no information about how to degoogle and lock down the device. I really like the features and the built in camera apps, etc. Is there a way to degoogle the phone without loosing the funcionality/ease of use?
In Short, No.
The Xperia phones are often horrendously locked down and don't provide bootloader unlocks all the time.
I would definitely recommend a Pixel device if you're going to go De-Googling. That, or go select your desired ROM beforehand and buy whatever they support the best. You can find out if you look into Graphene or Calyx or Lineage as examples for which devices they support the best right now. Buy it unlocked, and unlock your bootloader.
The Xperia phones are often horrendously locked down
Not really, at least when compared to most other brands. I've had three or four different Xperia models, and unlocked the bootloader on every one of them using official Sony tools. They even have official open-source software archives, which are very helpful to people who build de-googled "ROMs".
The one thing that has been especially locked down is the TA partition, which contains DRM keys used for Sony's proprietary apps. It's not needed for an open-source OS like LineageOS.
For this phone specifically, it looks like official LineageOS support is already underway, despite it being a fairly new model:
https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/pdx234/
I would definitely recommend a Pixel device if you’re going to go De-Googling.
Pixels do have unusually good support for user-installed OS, but the irony here is that you can't truly de-google them, because no OS will change the fact that Google controls the hardware and firmware.
This is the best suggestion for this purpose. Check out degoogled ROMs like e/os/, Divest, Graphene, Calyx, etc. Find which one better fits what you want, and then get a device that is 100% supported by that ROM.
To add to this I'd also pay attention to the Android version that the OS is based on. Last I checked e/OS is a few versions outdated. GrapheneOS works very very well, you (OP) just have to understand how to set it up for your use case.
Gotta love this community. So many people, most trying to smooth the road for newcomers.
I have an Xperia 5 III.
All the Sony Xperia phones consistently & eventually make it to LineageOS mainline (so LineageOS for microG support too), but these ROMs don’t tend to come until near then end of a device’s 2 year warranty. I would assume that this is when they get cheap/used enough that developers can get their hands on them. Sony provides all the tools to unlock so it isn’t difficult or locked behind some centralized server for unlock keys. However, the nice cameras the come with… well you need their proprietary app unfortunately or the camera becomes a plenty bad device with the default LineageOS software.
On the plus side you get to support the only brand still shipping flagships with microSD, a headphone jack, and the ability to unlock bootloader (bonus the the 5s are <6" screens which is rough to find smaller phones now). Google Pixels won’t get you a headphone jack or microSD & Asus Zenfones don’t have unlockable bootloaders.
I suggest you get a pixel and there are a ton of guides for grapheneos or lineageos.
DivestOS is the most degoogled (removes the most proprietary blobs) android ROM. See if your device is on this list: https://divestos.org/pages/devices
