I went with the 9 ultimately - and recently - and am very happy so far. I was prepared for a buggy or difficult experience but grapheme is really smooth in my experience so far.
After months of trying to degoogle a Samsung running stock OS, finally having control and proper security is a relief.
I also went with the 256gb and would recommend spending on storage whatever model you go with. Personally i don't see much in the 9;pro that i don't already have in the 9.
Signal, Lemmy (Voyager), Mastodon, PipePipe etc all running smoothly.
Learning that many apps you can get on Aurora will work, but most apparently rely on Google Play services to send notifications. So it's annoying to not receive those or need to set up workarounds, but honestly think about that. The app is telling google every single item it wants to notify you and relying on google to deliver it. That really sucks as a strategy.
Thankfully Signal has its own way of delivering notifications
Many appa that seem to "need" Google Play Services to run will work without it, especially with Exploit Compatibility turned on in that specific app settings. Even worked for banking for me, no play services needed in that profile etc.
Just bought a 9 for Graphene. Up and running - works like a charm. Devs are not announcing end of the line for Graphene development- they are making daily updates on their way to bringing out Android 16. At this point I'd grab a 9 rather than wait for the 10. Get yourself up and running before Google tries to lock us out of more apps - right now everything I need runs fine without any play services whatsoever. The OS is solid, Vanadium is really good - I could go on and on. If you are onboard and interested in the project its 100% worth it from where I sit.
Nothing is ever perfectly future proof