Most comments seem to be focused on the logistics of applying and financial concerns. Those are important, but before that I would strongly suggest you evaluate your reasons for doing the program and understand your commitment. For one, interviews and applications will want to know this anyway, and two, these reasons can be tested when things get difficult.

A few insights: school has changed in the last few decades. Things are more lean and there is more expected from students. A big divide if you consider a PhD program is whether it is a researched based (eg R1) or teaching school. A research based school is more competitive and honestly feels like a business sometimes. How many papers can you crank out? Can you devote extra time to helping research professors so that you get better opportunities?

There is a changing (and unclear) landscape of software. Sources libraries and PDF organizers can be helpful. Most the students I know are using some form of AI to read or write papers, and they make edits and such. There is ongoing debate on the ethics, but people are using it regardless. If the precedent becomes writing papers at the efficiency of using AI to structure the papers, the level of expectations again rises.

Also be sure to have a support system in place. Things can get overwhelming and frustrating, and leaning on people when needed will be important.

Start with really pondering your reasons for doing the program and see if a program would fit those needs. And it would be a great idea to reach out to current students at least a couple of different schools to get their input on how the program is. There is only so much you can gain from reading the website. If it is really what you want to do, start looking at the requirements and email the program director or assistant to see if you’re missing anything.

I guess if the VPN speeds were fine, if there were drops in connection, and whether you can manually choose a location.

Have you used the cloud service for photo backup? I currently have an iPhone and it sounds neat to switch to bundling Proton and dropping the iCloud subscription.

I’d probably just use Proton’s mail app on mobile. It’s actually pretty snappy and intuitive, and it has always had the basic features I need.

I’m not sure what you’re using it for, but I use an ebook reader called eBoox. It’s free with no ads, not sure if open-source. I had bookmarks but I don’t think annotations. I like it because it can open my epub, mobi, and pdf books, change the font and font size, sepia and night modes, has many options for how to change the page, and fairly simple UI. The creator markets it as a cutesy cat thing, but that is only present on the initial setup and then it’s just a regular e-reader app.

I have tried a few. Duolingo seemed to be good for making it fun to get interest but a lot of it was semi-random vocabulary. Try the Mango app for more practical conversation practice. It has flash cards that remind me of Anki that are nice for reinforcing memorization. It is free but I think has a premium option now.

Also, Tandem for practicing conversation with real people that speak the language via text, voice message, call, or video call.

Thank you for the list of suggestions; that’s really helpful. I haven’t been on Android in a while, is the Gcam app noticeably better than a stock camera app? What sorts of things would it do better? Low lighting or blur reduction?

I agree about the ROM. I’d really like to have something that is simple and looks to have continued support when necessary for security and other major updates. I also agree about the camera. It seems to be a deciding factor for smartphones. The last I checked the Pixels had excellent sensors but had some camera software issues that I believe were eventually resolved. I’m hoping that isn’t an issue if I’m just using a basic OS.

I’ve had a good experience with an old Kindle 3G and the Calibre program. You can get the old Kindles pretty cheap and they don’t have the built-in ads and some of the slightly useless features of the new ones.

That, or like the16bitgamer mentioned, an iPad has good options for free ebook apps without ads or tracking. I found this one called eBoox that has great usability and no ads. It’s weirdly marketed as a “cute” ebooks app, but it’s honestly better than the stock one and doesn’t actually have cats or those pictures that are in the description in the actual app.