I am honestly not sure as to what the benefit of that is compared to the approach of CalyxOS with MicroG. It has worked for me perfectly, except for one app, BeReal for some reason gives a pop-up telling that Google Play Services is missing, even though I already have MicroG fully setup and working. Other apps have all worked fine, including Google Apps like YouTube and my banking app.

I though the official response was that they couldn’t fit one without making the phone larger than it already is and that it was a hard decision.

Mine already runs CalyOS so there’s that.

Yeah same here. The micro SD slot is inside after you remove the battery.