Hi there,
I have just seen your review of the HiSense A5, and I was wondering
what version you bought & from where? CECT offers a multi-language
version with GooglePlay unlocked, but that would disable OTA, so I am
wondering if getting one with the original firmware and following your
approach would be better.
Thanks in advance for your help!
Cheers,
Nico

Hey sorry for the late reply! I bought mine from this seller on Aliexpress:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002467800237.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.11.5df418028UrIzd

I found them quite responsive and friendly. Mine _is_ in English, but it's worth noting that there are a few spots with poor translations or missing translations if you really look for them. I've still had no real issues with not having google play installed and I actually have a handful of apps installed with Aurora including discord, google maps, a banking app (some of these won't work I just got bit lucky), and some apps for climbing and other local things that aren't on fdroid. If you have an old phone around you might be able to try installing lineage without google play and see if you can live with it?