It's time for a new cell phone..

What's your budget and preferred OS?

 

Do you have any brand preferences? And what's your main use? Photos? Games? Or why do you need a good amount of memory?

 

I have an LG G4. It has a really good camera, 32 GB memory (external with micro SD up to 2TB) and it has a good enough processor for mild gaming and in my opinion the battery life is good enough. Other phones I like are the Sony xperias. The also have good cameras and usually external memory options. And if you have enough money the Samsung Galaxy S6 or S6 edge....

 

The new Sony Z5 looks quite interesting, nice screen, good specs and is waterproof! I personally have a Nexus 6 and I love it.

 

Ok, here we go!

I got two propositions for you (technically 3, but we'll get on that below):

The first one is the recently released Nexus 6P, the latest in Google's own line of premium Android devices. As far as functionality goes, this is it. You won't get a better experience with Android in any other phone simply because here you are getting the full, unfiltered stock version directly from the source. This is basically the Android equivalent of an iPhone, in the sense that the guys making the software are the same ones designing the hardware, which means the phone is tailor-made to get the best performance out of the OS.

With other manufacturers (like Samsung or HTC) you will be getting a version of Android filtered through their proprietary bloatware, which usually means not as good as stock Android (often considerably worse). They will come with pre-installed apps that you can't delete, you won't use (because they suck), will run in the background sapping your data, battery-life, and processor without your knowledge—unless you are savvy enough and have the patience to dive deep into the settings in order to disable them—as well as the whole experience being saddled with a custom UI; a custom UI that more often than not will get in the way of the simplicity Android stands for. Take TouchWiz (Samsung's version of Android), for instance; I have a Samsung tablet and the UI is absolutely disgusting in comparison to stock Android.

There are many other Android phones out there with crazy good hardware specifications (some of them even surpassing the Nexus in that department), but none of them are optimized to run the software half as well as the Nexus (plural) do. There is also the added bonus that you will always have the latest version of Android available on the same day it releases, as opposed to having to wait indefinitely until other manufacturers run it through their bloatware before allowing you to update (I believe the Nexus phones are the only ones with Marshmallow at the moment).

Now, on the hardware side of things; the battery can last you a full day without a charge; it has a 12.3 megapixel rear camera (8 megapixels for the front-facing one), which is more than enough to take great pictures and up to par with the competition; it has the latest iteration of the processor all self-respecting flagships phones are using (Snapdragon 810 octa-core); it comes with a QHD OLED display, for reference OLED screens provide better contrasts and richer colors than their LCD counterparts; 3 GB of RAM and, as an added bonus, it comes with a USB Type-C port—which is the future of charging for reasons I won't get into here (currently this is one of the very few phones that come with it). Storage will vary depending on the model you purchase, for $499 you get 32GBs of internal memory, for $549 you get 64 GBs, and for $649 you get 128 GBs (which is insane lol). The one dealbreaker in my opinion, is the size. This is a 5'7" monster of a phone, which I find too big for comfortable handling, but that's personal preference. Plenty of people like it this way, enough so that phones this size have become the norm, so this is something you'll find all across the board when shopping for phones.

That said, there is a smaller Nexus phone that was released alongside the 6P, the Nexus 5X. Everything I mentioned in the first three paragraphs about the software applies to the 5X too, it's in the hardware that the Nexus differ. The 5X is more a budget phone and as such has inferior specs—Snapdragon 808 processor, 2 GBs of RAM, 16/32 GBs of internal storage, 13 MP rear/5 MP front camera, HD LCD display—but make no mistake, it still works fantastically (and for $350 few other phones can compete with it in that price-range) it's just not as future-proof as the 6P. More importantly tho, this one is only 5.2 inches big, so if you find the 6P too big, the 5X could be the one for you.

I wanted to recommend another phone (this time, a Motorola one) but I ended up sucking Google's dick so hard this post is already long enough. I'll post my other recommendation a little later, tell me what you think about the Nexus in the meantime and feel free to ask any questions.

EDIT: For comparison, here is how the Nexus phones stack against the competition in terms of specs:

Spoiler

 

5.7"*

I took the "monster of a phone" bit too far lol.

 

Well I know jack about phones
Recently two friends got new phones so I'll talk about those, and both of them were previously android users.

One of them has an ipad, and because of the release of ios 9, was convinced to get an iphone 6s, as now he believes that the soft ware of apple phones has caught up to that of android, if not surpassed it. There's not much to say about it, you know what it is most likley.

The other got a OnePlus X, an android phone running on the OxygenOS UI with a 5" screen, a 13MP camera and a quad core 2.3 cpu. It's meant to be really good, and it's relatively cheap at only £200, and he was upgrading from a galaxy S4, so I guess there's a fair chance you might like it as you're going up from the same phone.

 

ASUS Zenfone 2 $299 with a 9.3 of 10 rating
Device type:
Smart phone
OS:
Android (5.0) Zen UI
Dimensions:
6.00 x 3.04 x 0.43 inches (152.5 x 77.2 x 10.9 mm)
Weight:
6.00 oz (170 g)
the average is 5.2 oz (150 g)

Display

Physical size:
5.5 inches
Resolution:
1080 x 1920 pixels
Pixel density:
403 ppi
Technology:
IPS LCD
Screen-to-body ratio:
70.35 %
Colors:
16 777 216
Touchscreen:
Multi-touch
Features:
Light sensor, Proximity sensor, Scratch-resistant glass (Corning Gorilla Glass 3)

Camera

Camera:
13 megapixels
Flash:
Dual LED
Aperture size:
F2.0
Features:
Face detection, Smile detection, Digital zoom, Autofocus, Touch to focus, Geo tagging
Settings:
Exposure compensation, White balance presets
Shooting Modes:

High Dynamic Range mode (HDR)
Camcorder:
Yes
Features:
Video calling
Front-facing camera:
5 megapixels

Hardware
System chip:
Intel Atom Z3580
Processor:
Quad-core, 2300 MHz, 64-bit
Graphics processor:
PowerVR G6430
System memory:
4096 MB RAM
Built-in storage:
64 GB
Storage expansion:
microSD, microSDHC, microSDXC up to 64 GB

Battery

Capacity:
3000 mAh
Not user replaceable:
Yes

Multimedia

Music player:
Filter by:
Album, Artist, Playlists
Features:
Album art cover, Background playback
Speakers:
Earpiece, Loudspeaker
YouTube player:
Yes

Internet browsing

Built-in online services support:
YouTube (upload), Picasa/Google+

Technology

GSM:
850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz
UMTS:
850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz
FDD LTE:
700 (band 17), 700 (band 28), 800 (band 18), 800 (band 19), 800 (band 20), 850 (band 5), 900 (band 8), 1700/2100 (band 4), 1800 (band 3), 1900 (band 2), 2100 (band 1), 2600 (band 7) MHz
TDD LTE:
1900 (band 39), 2300 (band 40), 2500 (band 41), 2600 (band 38) MHz
Data:
LTE Cat 4 (150/50 Mbit/s), HSDPA+ (4G) 42.2 Mbit/s, HSUPA 5.76 Mbit/s, EDGE, GPRS
Micro SIM:
Yes
Multiple SIM cards:
2 slots
Positioning:
GPS, A-GPS, Glonass
Navigation:
Yes

Connectivity

Bluetooth:
4.0
Wi-Fi:
802.11 a, b, g, n, n 5GHz, ac
Mobile hotspot:
Yes
USB:
USB 2.0
Connector:
microUSB
Features:
Mass storage device, USB Host, USB charging
Other:
NFC, Tethering, Computer sync, OTA sync

Other features

Notifications:
Haptic feedback, Music ringtones (MP3), Polyphonic ringtones, Vibration, Flight mode, Silent mode, Speakerphone
Sensors:
Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Compass, Hall
Voice dialing, Voice commands, Voice recording

Availability

Officially announced:
05 Jan 2015

Read more at Asus ZenFone 2 specs

 

I'm biased in my recommendation, but I'd say pretty much anything from the HTC line up, particularly the M8 or M9. They're sleek, suave, and have the specs to compete with the big names. They're very pretty phones, and sturdy to boot.

Regardless of what phone you go for, I strongly recommend checking up on skins that manufacturer puts over the the OS. This may seem trivial and minor, but it's the software you will get the most exposure to in your time with that phone, so you want to make sure you don't end up with a skin you hate.

 

The LG V10 is a pretty slick phone. I don't know if the promo is still going, but they were coming with an extra battery and charging dock, as well as a free 200g micro sd card to compliment the built in 64 gigs.

 

If I was buying I'd quite like a HTC.

I think they are definitely the best looking smartphones on the market in terms of design (due to their unusual materials and coloring). I think most of the companies (with LG maybe the exception) have become a bit boring and uniform now.

The Zenphone "looks" lovely, but I've had a very bad experience with one of their laptops (very poor quality, looked nice but felt cheap, and poor customer service too).

 

Who is your carrier? I recently switched to T-Mobile because there's no roaming or data charges when traveling in Canada and they just announced a pretty tempting promotion for Black Friday. Galaxy S6 32 GB will be free if you trade in a phone. I'm currently using a Nexus 5 that's two years old, but it may be too hard to pass this up especially since it has band 12 which provides better coverage on their network.

T-Mobile gives the gift of unlimited high-speed data at no extra charge | Android Central

 

I upgraded from an S4 to an S6 a couple of months back, which I love. It does not have an SD slot, but using this $13 device to swap back and forth with the phone is incredibly simple: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00J2D7R20?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00. I've never tried it, but I understand it's not recommended to actually run files from the card itself directly with the unit plugged into your phone - no biggie.

 

Just thought I would input... I have a Samsung Magnet. If you don't know what it is, here's why:

 

The newest iPhone I find to be amazing! I only have two types of phone: The iPhone and this other phone that is from, like, the stone age!! It's horrible. So, naturally, I love my iPhone.