Where to start................
You have purchased a Google phone, so its not surprising it has Google products.
I am not sure what your aversion to the "cloud" is, you are lucky enough to get free unlimited space which many of us would love. Instead of mucking around worrying about losing your photos, you can take a photo and it auto uploads to your cloud account. Rather than have to copy all your photos on to your device and carry them around, you can access them all with Google Photos anytime.
Why do you need a Gmail address ? Well you cant download or update apps without one, that's nothing new. You said you had one on your old phone but didn't use it, if your phone updated apps and security updates then you did use it. You just didnt know you did.
You are going from something old to something new. You should always do any updates first up when getting a new phone.
I get a new phone each year (lease). All I do each time is update if it needs updating, then simply login with my gmail address. I have text messages as far back as Oct 2014 on my phone at the moment, email as far back as 2007 and I havent had to transfer photos for years (or more importantly
I wouldn't listen to much to some of the "aluminium foil on your head" stuff that comes up in this forum at times, as far too many haven't progressed with technology for a long, long time.
If you need any help with a particular issue, post back.
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