P2P being what made it popular is still the truth. It democratises media distribution as you do not have to pay for expensive hosting or cloud storage, meaning you can download pirate files without having to pay Turbobit, Rapidgator or other service for a speed faster than a few hundred kb/s.
They are just different layouts for Gnome, but it's annoying that they call what is essentially a donation to them a Pro edition. A donate button would likely make more as it feels philanphropic.
They chose Google because they are the only major OEM to allow you to relock the bootloader after installing a custom ROM. Samsung, Motarola, Huawei, Xiaomi etc all don't.
Get a cheap phone like a Galaxy A36 for the trip, then install some VPNs with GFW circumvention like Windscribe, Proton and Psiphon before you go.
You should also get a roaming SIM card, preferably from an MVNO or an eSIM app do you don't get rip-off prices.
Roaming SIM cards usually route traffic through their native network like a VPN which bypasses the GFW and gives you some extra privacy.
And once you get there, don't say anything negative about the Chinese government or politics.
Watching YouTube videos and reading posts here about unrelated subjects is okay as long as you are using a roaming SIM card, a VPN or preferably both togther.
I think the best choice is to get a non-gaming Windows laptop and install Linux on it.
If you don't need something super powerful then get a refurbished Thinkpad T14 or Elitebook 840 G7 from eBay or Amazon.
Or if you need more CPU, a better screen, etc get a new Omnibook (7 or above) or Ideapad (5 or above) for a Macbook like feel or a Thinkpad for repairability.
Thinkpads are what you want to look for. You can get a refurbished one from eBay or Amazon Renewed for $300 and they almost all have upgradable storage and RAM, as well as having the rest of the parts being easier to replace than a consumer laptop.
You can remove it. There is actually an "IoT Enterprise LTSC" edition that is fresh from the start, though it may not support the very latest hardware so install 11 Pro then use Revo uninstaller's Windows apps tab to remove the junk.
Go to your Google account settings and make sure that web & app activity, location history and ad personalisation are turned off.
Then uninstall/disable the Google apps you won't need then replace them with alternatives from F-droid (add the Izzyondroid repo too) like Cromite (in FFUpdater), Comaps, Thunderbird and QUIK SMS.
You should also follow standard practices like setting a non-easy to guess PIN code and also installing security updates.
Just don't connect it to the internet. The radio and Bluetooth do not need an internet connection to work and you can use your phone for maps and music streaming.
But his ISP router will have UPNP enabled which does it for him.