What is your price range? That can help quite a bit.

Galaxy Note 4 is your safest bet.

That's what I use. Great phone all around. I definitely won't be upgrading to the Note 5, that's for fucking sure.

Also,+1 for Dave's comments. I sold Luis both of my old AT&T Note 2's (that I had bootloader unlocked and custom kerneled/ROMed). That phone is a workhorse.

It's definitely a good very cheap option if you want a big screen, don't care that it's not 1080p or need the latest and greatest camera, and you want hardware buttons, expandable storage, and a big battery. It actually has more capacity than the GN5 does, and will stomp it in terms of screen on time. I definitely preferred the textured back cover of my old Note to the gloss on this one, but at least it's easily replaceable if it gets scratched up, unlike the Note 5. Even if they stick with sealed batteries in the future, I hope Samsung at least goes back to removable back covers, similar to the OnePlus 2.

If you've never owned a smartphone, I'd strongly suggest going for a device without dedicated capacitive buttons. All of the research I've been privy to shows that the navigation paradigm stocl android is using today is significantly easier for new users than Samsung's dedicated capacitive buttons.

Depending on price, I'd recommend the G4. If you really must have a Samsung device and want something hefty, go for a note 4. That being said, having used a nexus 6 extensively for the past year and had a note 4 on and off, I'm still embarrassed by the perceived UI latency of Samsung devices.

If you're willing to sacrifice the removable battery, I find the new Moto G 2015 to be a great device for a great price. I will try the Moto X Play out soon as well.

The biggest issue I can see with hardware buttons, particularly on older pre GS5/GN4 Samsungs, is the menu key. It's technically been deprecated for years now, and yet a lot of applications are still coded to use it, either by duplicating their on screen menu button, or with some other pop up menu. On other applications it does absolutely nothing.

Once they made the switch to the dedicated recent apps button though, their buttons behave pretty much like everyone else's. One of the things I like about Android is that the choice of button type is up to you, and I'm glad that there are plenty of manufacturers still supporting both formats, regardless of what Google may or may not want. SD card support on the other hand seems to be largely going the way of the Dodo.

Personally I hope more Chinese companies start offering North American specific models with support for AT&T LTE bands. I'm curious about the Xiaomi Mi Note Pro for example, but I'm not going to go back to a 3G only phone. I've never liked HTC's current One design, and considering their financial situation, it seems like I'm not alone there. Same thing with Sony. The Xperia design is just a boring flat slab that they keep relaunching every 6 months and nobody seems to care.

The new X Play/X Pure is cool, and you can actually make it look interesting via Moto Maker. With the very reasonable price, LESS than the ZTE phone, I think it'll likely do very well for them. The Axon I expect will probably bomb. $450 is too step for what it offers, and the design is pretty cheesy, like an obviously fake knockoff designer handbag.