Answering your first: absolutely, and suprised anyone need ask.

It's a Trojan horse serving manipulation, advertising, surveillance, and propaganda. It's also intentionally crippled in numerous ways. The applications-store model is horrendously broken from not only this perspective, but in terms of utility, quality, and trust.

Alternatives:

For mobile compute: a Linux laptop. An ultralight sacrifices some features, but at least delivers the full software-based capabilities.

An alternative might be a set of separate components which could be used standalone or together: a CPU, additional storage, networking (WiFi / Wireless), power (battery / PSU), display, keyboard. A mobile device similar to a smartphone or keyboard-equipped device (think RIM, Palm Treo) might make a useful casual interface to the broader system, speaking to the hardware attributes rather than the OS / SW necessarily. More: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33014529>

For a phone: none at all, or a dumbphone / limited-feature phone. The main dissuasion here is actually PSTN (public-switched telephone networks), which are increasingly obsolete under an onslaught of spam calls, as well as, increasingly, the deepfakes threat. VOIP over the laptop (using an unlisted wireless hotspot where necessary, otherwise WiFi or cabled ethernet) would suffice for nearly all usage.

Other than as an e-reader or podcast device, tablets are a worst-of-all-worlds compromise. See: <https://diaspora.glasswings.com/posts/880e5c403edb013918e100...> particularly the comparison table in this comment: <https://diaspora.glasswings.com/posts/880e5c403edb013918e100...>. That post and thread address most concerns and considerations.

For photos, video, or audio, a dedicated device seems to me the preferred option. I'm well aware the market is largely seeing otherwise, though professional still/video cameras (often the same device now), and audio recorders remain viable. Having to intentionally transfer content is to me a positive.

An e-ink tablet is a game-changer for reading content, and is quite good for listening to podcasts. I've owned one for over two years, large format (13"), and find it ... useful, though again with some limitations. I'd most especially like to boost onboard storage from 64 GB to 512 GB -- 1 TB (Apple's iPads offer as much or more as an option). More: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35280532>, <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31412042>, <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29236211>, and <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29303195>. There are additional comments available via search: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...>

I'd strongly suggest that an 8" device is a minimum size I'd consider and that there are immense readability improvements at 10" and 13". (Devices rely on the same OEM vendor, so form-factor and display characteristics are strongly standardised and uniform, at least within a given production cycle.)

I've discussed Android and its limitations numerous times on HN:

"I certainly don't trust the OS or its application ecosystem..." (Nov. 2021) <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29306994>

"Tablets --- and not just Apple's --- suffer from numerous arbitrarily-imposed limitations..." (Nov. 2021) <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25220885>

"Tablets offer a near-ideal form-factor, and impressively good battery life. The story from there is exceedingly poor, and remains so..." (Jan. 2020) <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22089820>

Issues with devices which were presumed rootable (proved otherwise) and unsupported with firmware updates: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21055547> and <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20416488>

Issues with Google Play Store: "At what point does a competitive applications marketplace backfire in encouraging, intentionally or otherwise, Very Bad Behaviour?" <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29236211>

I've watched the alternative-OS tablet space for well over a decade, and there's been vanishingly little to get excited about. Several e-book readers are based on non-Android Linux (Barnes & Nobel's Nook, Kobo Reader, the Remarkable Tablet, and some Sony models AFAIA). Remarkable was on my purchase-candidate list but left it pre-purchase due to the miserly on-board storage (16 GB), and post-purchase by its pivot to a subscription model. Nook or Kobo might be interesting, I've not played with them. Mozilla and Ubuntu have both killed their tablet-OS. Pine and Purism remain interesting but not yet compelling, again, I've not tried these directly.