I currently have an HTC Desire, the last HTC phone to come out before they went to (at least) a dual core. It is crapping out on me-random crashes, low battery life, restarting and restarting but only as far as the loading screen, just a mess. Won't run the newer apps because it has an old OS, etc., time for a new phone.

I am even thinking of maybe getting an iPhone (shudder!!). Never had anything "Apple". So, I suppose if I go with an iPhone (isn't that a cute way of spelling it?), there isn't much thought involved.

But what if I go with an Android device, what would you recommend? Priorities are a great PHONE, weather apps, surfing the internet, that's about it. I don't really play games on the phone.

I'm really at a loss as to which way to go, sigh.

I've Got a Motorola Moto G and it works fine.

http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Moto-2nd-generation-Unlocked/dp/B00MWI4HW0

S5 or G4 if you care about good battery life and being able to use a SD card for extra storage etc.,

S6 Edge if you just want something cool looking and metal with a great camera but willing to sacrifice some battery life

Samsung Note4 Android 5.01 working great here, I came from an iPhone4 and the large screen on the Note4 is great for browsing and reading, so much so that my iPad2 is now only used when I play strategy games on it but I never use it for surfing anymore.

Love my Nokia Lumia Icon with windows 8.1 , has 32gb and takes 20 megapixal images
and 1080p video. And if you are use windows it also has the complete Office suite
built into it, and with cortana, its hands free. Just tell it what you want. It is
totally amazing once you get Cortana use to your voice. Personal assistant like
no other.


BTW, the remote print feature blows me away, Can print email attachments from anywhere
on my home WiFi printer. They will be waiting for me when I get there.


http://www.amazon.com/Nokia-Lumia-Icon-Verizon-Wireless/dp/B00HWEMZ1E

Samsung

I'm still on my Android Samsung Galaxy S2 running nearly 5 years old and don't see a need to change.

Spidey's recommedations are good. I find I prefer Android more than Apple for flexibility, functionality and ease of use. There are bucketloads of Android apps out there. Most of them are garbage, but the handful I have on my phone are very functional and useful.

Samsung is churning out iterations of their flagship Galaxy model almost as frequently as one would change their underwear. S5 did not wow the market but the S6 is an altogether different beast but falls short in terms of battery life and lack of MicroSD slot (I never understood why they took away the last feature).

Are you an Amazon Prime member? If so take a look at the Fire Phone, you get a year of Prime so you basically end up getting a pretty solid phone spec wise for $80.00.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OC0USA6/ref=topnav_storetab_fp

Whatever you get don't buy Apple.

How's the interface? I have a Note 3 and find the interface is fiendishly awkward and counterintuitive compared to other Android phones I've used.

I played with the Note3 alot before buying the Note4 and cross-shopped them while I waited for it to come out, the main thing I noticed about the UI for the Note4 compared to Note 3 was that TouchWiz was changed to look and feel like Android 5 Lollipop, so lighter colors and streamlined and looked like the UI for the LG G3 which I was also cross shopping.

The main difference from Note3 to Note4 was the faster/sleeker UI and newer gen hardware upgrade: higher screen resolution 1440p vs 1080p, camera 16MP vs 13MP, 64MB RAM vs 32MB, S-Pen has higher resolution as well. So unless those things are important for you, then you might not see a lot of improvement, I'd recommend playing with one at a store.

Note5 will probably be announced in the next couple of months and come out in the fall to compete with the Iphone 6 Plus GS or whatever will be coming out... I'm not going to be upgrading since the Note4 does everything I need, I love it and haven't missed iPhone at all.

I'm with JimK on the Nokias. My windows phone has been good to me. I might consider an Amazon phone, they care about their brand, but otherwise no more Android phones/tablets for the time being. I'm sick of launcher errors, chrome has stopped working, general unexplained slowness...even restoring doesn't last long, I assume due to poor updates.
iPhones...pretty much a given it will be solid if you want to shell out for it. I'm not crazy about the interface for some reason, even though everyone else has just copied them.

After having had an iPhone some time ago, i now have a 'HTC One' since 1 1/2 years (M7, quad core etc., current 'HTC One' is internally M9? M10? no idea). It is very good, i really think it is actually better than an iPhone. Faster, better reaction, but only 16 Gb afaik, iPhone can have 64 Gb, but this version is then much too expensive.
Currently Android 'Lollipop' as OS on my HTC one, looks decent (very nice black and graphically well made app icons, and screens) and works well, even access to remote server MS exchange via eMail/calendar, and synchronizing is easy. Apple has aged a bit and looks plump, in comparison. Also the handling and access to certain menu points is much easier, with the new Android version. The HTC OS version is a bit different, than the normal Android though.

Battery time, well - heavy use will hold for a day, standby for a week. But iPhone's not better in that respect.

However i strongly dislike the idea of not being able to replace the battery. iPhone as well.
IF they already do produce a closed sealed body, why not make it waterproof at least ???
But then all modern smartphones have that planned obsolescence sorry, feature (be positive and vomit where no one sees it)

A Windows phone might be a good idea, but i have no experience with those. Anyone ?

Guess I need to go to a brick and mortar store and play around, although I do like what Catfish has said about the HTC one.

Similar to any hardware I guess, just too many choices for me! The progression is not linear.

Thanks for the info/opinions, all!

What carrier are you on? No, not CVN....haha

v6,
boNes

Android 5+ has really showed some progress. I don't care about removable batteries, but an SD card slot is still important to me.
That said, I have an iPhone 6 from work and a Galaxy S5 personally and I prefer the S5 (running 5.0). The iPhone gets better battery life, but that might be because all I do with it is talk and check emails, only occasionally surfing or using YouTube since it only has a 4.5" screen compared to my S5's 5.1".

I think the Note/6 Plus 5.5" screen is too big, personally, not comfortable to hold up or fit in most pockets.

As for the S6, the battery life is less because the screen resolution went from 1080p to 1440p I think, and higher res takes more power combined with apparently a slightly smaller battery. But the loss of SD card has put me off it, not that I would upgrade till next year anyway (when my S5 is two years old).



The Jedi Master

I asked about carrier because I highly recommend the Droid Maxx or the most recent version Droid Maxx Turbo. But they are exclusive to Verizon. I have both and there isn't much difference, though the Turbo has a slightly better edge over the Maxx. Both of them have the best batteries I've ever seen. With normal use, I have been able to get on average 2 days if not more out of the battery on a single charge. Both can be charged wirelessly, and with the Turbo, it has quick charge technology so you can get about 8 hours of battery life i just about 15 minutes worth of charging time. The Maxx has a 5.1" 720p screen while the Turbo has a 5.2" 1440 x 2560 quad HD screen. Maxx has a 1.7 GHz dual core Snapdragon and the Turbo has 2.7 GHz quad-core w/64 bit memory access. Both have Active Notification, which are customizable alerts for things like text messages and so on which will let you know with icons that you can swipe away so that you don't have to wake your phone or otherwise turn on the screen to view them, wasting battery power. With the Turbo, all you have to do to see the notifications on demand is wave your hand over it.

Speaking of hand waving, the camera is one of the best I've seen too. On both, you give the phone two twists of the wrist and the camera fires up. Touch the screen to shoot, swipe up and down to zoom. Easy peasy--and the camera is fast and has burst mode. Video is 1080p, and while you are shooting if you touch the screen it will take still shots of the video. The Turbo has dual LED flashes and HDR so it's better in the dark than most. Turbo has a 10MP camera while Turbo is 21MP

BOth phones are made with Kevlar for durability too, heh. Turbo comes with an option to be made in ballistic nylon, which is really being pushed but from my understanding Kevlar is stronger than ballistic nylon so I don't know why. Both are water resistant nanocoated. The Maxx comes in 32 GB and 16GB versions and the Turbo comes in 32GB and only the ballistic nylon version comes in 64GB. No SD card, folks, sorry.

v6,
boNes

AT&T

The LG G3 is awesome. I've had mine for 2 weeks and it's the best phone I've owned, and I've owned many.

After 5 years of iPhone ownership I switched to a Sony Xperia Z3 and I'm really happy with it. Lots to customise and make it feel more like MY phone rather than have to fit around Apple's design ethos and the performance is great and battery life is outstanding compared to my old iPhone 5.