IMO the only two phone manufacturers worth considering are Apple and Samsung. Their devices are the most polished, the customer support is good, the hardware is

IMO the only two phone manufacturers worth considering are Apple and Samsung. Their devices are the most polished, the customer support is good, the hardware is innovative. Just compare the latest iPhone and the latest Galaxy and buy the one you like. Everything else is an also ran. You will always have some shitty problem that will ruin your experience. For example, camera with Sony, random Bluetooth glitches with pixel, generally shitty reliability from HTC and LG, weird sim card issues with Xiaomi, WiFi issues with OnePlus. Both of them may seem a tad too expensive if you compare similar hardware from others, with Apple even more expensive than Samsung. But the extra money is there for a reason. It takes more money to deliver a good experience. It takes more money to develop your own chips and your own software.