I have a few apps that make my iPhone inespensible. But when I got a new phone this year it came down to the Galaxy S4 and the LG G2. Based on what I will be using it for, I went with the Galaxy S4. There are lots of good phones out there and it all comes down to what you are going to be using it for. I believe most of them can be used to make phone calls with too, but I haven't tested that feature yet.

LArry, I would be very interested to know what your top 3 -5 favorite phone apps are? Just curious.

Thanks.

My wife and I both have the Sony Xperia Z. She likes it more than the Galaxy S3 she had previously. It's a great phone in terms of specs and it's waterproof. We got them when we told Verizon to shove it and switched to T-mobile. Worth checking out.
-Eli

Funny you should mention that. I do have a couple of mushroom apps on my phone, but all have been unimpressive or dissappointing. So I still rely on my books. I am always on the lookout for a good mushroom app.

JP I'll chime in on this one since I have a good deal of background having had 15 or 20 phones in the last 2 years for work I have done with various teams.

First choice is Apple or Android OS. There are pros and cons of both. If you pick Apple great, your search for a phone is going to be quick as there is only one MFG.

If you pick Android you are going to have a slew of various phones to checkout.

The size of the phone should be something you pick first in my opinion.

The next question is frame & body. Do you want the waterproof and rugged design. If so that will quickly reduce your options.

The final question is where larry is going. Most phones all have similar tools. Show me a phone today without GPS? How about a camera, more like how many and what size although today mega pixels is less important that lens types and software functions. So yea pick your little bells and whistles too.

Finally understand that every phone is released with a version of Android that is proprietary to that phones model and mfg. You can root a device and install something different but results can be poor. I say this because the camera tool and interface on a phone makes a huge difference in the quality of photos and while some phones have a superior piece of hardware in that little frame the OS and interface on the phone might have been neglected and in a sense you end up with a Porsche Engine mounted into a VW Vanagon... You might like that but it won't really be a sportscar.

Ok so here is what you really want to know. What phone do I recommend, I mean lets be real, you probably just want to see what other people use, what they like and what they don't so you can make your choice.

I hate the Galaxy S3. Poor phone in general the S4 has been improved quite a bit. The S3 had a crappy battery and poor OS support. The S4 is clearly the flagship however the battery still leaves quite a bit to be desired.

Next common choice is the HTC one. Great phone in general I have always liked the HTC lineup. The Rezound was an amazing phone and the One is too. I don't like the fact that like most other phones this phone now has a secure case. I loved the removable battery option on the Rezound and had the extended and standard batteries for long trips. Camera, case and OS all make this a really contender.

But not my first choice. The single most impressive phone on the market right now in my view is the Motorola Droid MAXX. Why? Not just all the normal gadgets and gizmos, the slim case and well constructed design... no no my friend it is the 3500mha battery that sends this phone to the podium. Although there might be some phones out right now that rival it, as of three months ago it was the single largest battery on the market and still in a tight little chassis.

I have 5 different phones at the moment. Some rooted some running odd releases and some stock. The Droid Maxx Stock with a few simple battery saving apps can last almost a full week on standby. Now here is the wild part. With WIFI on, Bluetooth, GPS and browsing the web on 4G ALL DAY the battery will still be well over 60% that evening when I go to re-charge. No other phone can even begin to compare to the battery life on this little handset, and that is in my opinion the single biggest feature I care about. After all if you loose your battery life all the gadgets in the world don't matter.

Now if only this thing were waterproof and had a projector lens!!!

Serious though read about Battery Ratings before your next purchase that can make or break a good phone.

One more point, regardless of what phone you get, they will come out with the exact phone you want right after you buy it and sign the 2 year contract.

Thanks for the input, yall.

Yeah, Battery Life is certainly up near the top of the list, for me.

Next wood be internet access in places where the coverage is spotty, situations where I have no access to wifi. I mean, I try to only use wifi, but sometimes you just gotta be able to load the Robe Forecast Graph while chillin' at the Top Tye take out. The 4G coverage is gonna come down to the carrier's infrastructure, and when I first got my HTC it was spotty w/ AT&T. Seems to have gotten better.

I can get an otterbox. I never got one for my HTC, and I've gotta say that considering the abuse I've put it through, it still holds up surprisingly well. I suppose I was curious to find out. After multiple parking lot drops and assorted dunkings, its amazing the soft keys still type out my lengthy prose. Hell, I dropped it in the hot tub twice, and into the Wenatchee River twice. Each time I rapidly extracted it, took out the battery, and just let it dry out. Its been fine.

I use it as a phone and as my primary connection to internet. A camera is nice. I'm not a fan of having tons of apps. Way too many on my phone already. I mostly want intelligent interface design (notice my avoidence of the word "smart") that won't make me go postal. The HTC is occassionally annoying because its trying too hard to prove at every turn how "smart" it is. Too many bells and whistles.

Its 2014 and at this point I'm most impressed by devices that can be instantly used and figured out. I don' t want to have to invest too much energy learning how to use it. I know enough about application/software design to wonder how much crack some of these designers are smoking sometimes, but I admit that overall my phone has been decent.

I HATE AUTO CORRECT and anything similar. It doesn't bother me as much with search engines, but damn I want to type my texts the way I want to type them. My phone has some crappy blindspots in this regard.

Love the map app, but it won't let me get the cursor in to correct a letter or two- instead it auromaticly starts searching for the incorrect name or spelling- over and over. Pretty frustrating when you are driving and breaking the rules for a second or two to pull up some locations. Also, if I'm in Washington searching for a damn bakery, WHY THE fu*k would I be inquiring about bakerys in Mexico? Seems like the phone isn't "smart" enough to realize that I'm fu*kin HUNGRY, dumb ass- I want a bakery within five miles of where I am. Not on the other side of the mountains.

A bigger screen could work for me.
Waterproofness and ruggedness are important, but I guess a case can solve that.

You know what I really need? The ability to see every missed call. If I got 7 voice mails, I want to see those 7 callers ID'd and listed, so I can selectively listen to the ones I want. I'm surprised in this day and age that I still have to trudge through the "mystery meat" of voicemail, one by one, in the order they pile up, without knowing who left each message till I listen to it. I bet even Alexander Grahm Bell's ghost has a smart phone by now, and he is probably rolling in his grave- 'cuz that bullsh*t is so 1990's. Sick of it. My "call history" lets a lot slip through the cracks... Consequently I hate checking voicemail and sh*t gets piled up and lost in there. Show me an infallible list of every call that pings my number.

Gmail is so interwoven into my phone. Mine is probably just not updated enough, but damn Gmail has gotten surprisingly similar to voice mail in the sense that emails have been getting swallowed up in a void- so I get these Gmail conversations going where I can tell that the correspondant replied to my email, but can't open it. Its like it isn't there at all. Then I go log onto a normal computer and there it is. Gmail also has this weird filing system that to me is too similar to Netflix: Netflix catagorizes the same damn movie in all these pointless subcatagories, making it appear as though thousands of choices exist when its really the same hundered movies cross catagorized. Great! If there's only one hundered options, it should take less time to choose, not more. But instead they apparently want todecieve me. Make me think there are thiusands of choices. Cool. Now it takes two hours to pick a movie, and a half hour to find an email I read four days ago. Thanks, you fu*kin geeks. Smash this device and head to the river asap 'cuz this is driving me crazy. There are just a couple brain cells in my mind that want to go on a shooting spree even bringing this up, but I'll just keep shooting the rapids instead. The problem with this technology for an average user like me is that it can be hard to seperate the device from the OS, the software, and the provider's coverage...I just want this technology to work for me, I don't care how clever these people think they are. Funny how many of these people I take rafting, and how baddly they suck at finding the location and being on time. They designed fu*kin google maps, practically, yet they can't figure out how the hell to drive to Cashmere or GBar or how long it will take. Hmm... Anyway thats another tangent.

I kinda want to check out the HTC One and the Galaxy models, although the battery performance of the Galaxy sounds dissapointing. Thanks for the feedback. This is more helpful for me than sifting through a mountain of reviews on the internet.