Just spent a couple hours setting up a Huawei smartphone for my dad. No Google play, no spyware, no nothing. The Huawei account is entirely optional (as in: not even the app store requires you to be logged in), which is good.

Fdroid runs like a charm, so does Aurora.

Essentially, these smartphones are as close as it gets to having a Google-free smartphone without flashing, rooting and tinkering with bootloader and shit.