Chinese phones should generall check your boxes, they have giant batteries most of the time. Smaller screen might be difficult though.

I also get that oversharpening effect on my Zenfone 10 :(

Nope, works on non-rooted phones too. There’a a new installation framework in recent Android versions that allows background installs by apps other than the Play Store!

I’s suggest Droid-ify as the F-Droid client, it properly supports background installs.

But you might wanna support the artists :)

I actually have a friend that uses such a small phone, they use a regular querty keyboard, just usually in combination with glide/swipe typing. I don’t think you can install WearOS keyboards, and afaik the default keyboard on WearOS is a full-size querty anyway…