Do I am gonna talk about my phone history briefly and go in depth with my more recent ones. My first smartphone was the Moto Droid back in 2009. I was in 9th grade then and man did I think it was decent. But laggy as fuck and slow ass camera. Great for running custom ROMs.
My second was a Moto Droid Bionic back in 2011. I even played that promotional game where you went around to specific locations searching for things with your camera and google maps. It was about the same as my OG droid. Still laggy even for having a dualcore (the first mind you for Verizon). It still had a slow ass camera, but took decent pics and videos nonetheless coming in at a whopping 8mp. I was a junior in HS. Another good one for custom ROMs. I recall the display on this being pretty terrible with noticeable pixelization with its pentile matrix display (qHD).
My third was the Samsung Galaxy SIII. It being the Verizon model, it came with a dual core instead of a quad core (international variant; US came as dual core). The display was a step up for sure from the one on the Bionic. Even with a dual core it was surprisingly less laggy with use (even with its larger display). It fit perfectly well in my hand other than the fact that within the week of receiving it I cracked the glass. I got this in the September of 2012. I was being very impatient with a available upgrade I had, I nearly bought the Samsung Droid Charge (I think?) which had a single core process but ran smoothly. A month later the SIII came out. Good thing. Bad thing was Verizon (dont get angry at me for saying this) jewed the shit out of me. I had unlimited data with my OG Droid and Bionic, the Bionic being grandfathered in. I was paying 40 a month for my phone. When I went to upgrade to the SIII they told me I could not grandfather it in. I went ahead and got the phone anyways and have been stuck on 2gb of data since for 50 dollars (more than I was paying and less than what I was receiving...tremendously so unlimited to 2gb). To this day I am on 2gb (the 10gbs you see on tv are for new customers). Anyways the following spring I looked into this further and found people were still grandfathering it in. My friend included.
My fourth and favorite to this day is the Samsung Note II which I got the same year as the SIII, the following December. My mom had an upgrade and got me the Note while she took the SIII. Now having two smartphones in the family + actually my dads which he got for Xmas too was a Droid 3 Global. The Note has one of the best cameras, comparable to the 8mp shooter on the iphone line. It has a removable battery and microsd card slot. It was my first phablet coming in at 5.5in @ 720p. This was my driver until the fall of 2014.
In Sept 2014 I got a free phone with a 2 year contract via Amazon Wireless (amazing no?). It being the LG G3 and at the Verizon store it was actually $200 for 2 years. Anyways it has a good 13mp shooter with OIS for the allowance of 4k @ 30fps. It is my second phablet and is the same exact 5.5" diagonal. Though it is jumping from 720p to 2k, I loved it spec wise, even having a good quadcore cpu for its time (801 Snapdragon). Best thing it had an IR blaster and back buttons for better accommodation. It was beautiful, thin, sturdy, and another well known South Koran brand. A few months down the line an OTA upgrade really messed things up for me. This is according to multiple people. The issue is when you bump your headphones plug in the slightest it often pauses/plays music and opens the LG voicemate app. I ended up buying bluetooth headphones to fix this, but wtf LG? Software issues that need fixed arent being addressed.
In August 2015 I received another upgrade. I decided this was going to be my last before I leave Verizon in two years. Anyways I thought the LG G4 was a much need improvement over the LG G3. Going to 16mp from 13mp and improving upon the 2k screen. Increasing and decreasing the brightness allowance (can be brighter and darker), better colors (better than AMOLED in my opinion found on the newer S6 and Note), better contrast. Same size at 5.5" and fits just as well in my palm. The buttons on the back are better designed. The camera even adds Laser Auto Focus for instant snaps. Lowering the aperture to f/1.8. The manual control is even DSLR like.
The bad about the G4 is that I am approaching a month now (Aug 28th and I got it Aug 6th) I am noticing the same audio port bug that has doomed the LG G3. It is not as common, but it has paused my music once and opened the voicemate app numerous times. Am I screwed? It only has happened in the last few days and Verizons return policy is definitely up. Man oh man am I pissed.