What was the best and worst phone you ever owned?

[pete6032]

For me:

Best: Blackberry Pearl
This thing was my first smartphone and first qwerty keyboard phone. It was miles ahead of anything I had ever owned and I loved the trackpad and click-clack of the keyboard when typing. Coming into the Blackberry world was like having my eyes opened to what a phone could actually do.

Worst: Palm Pixi
I only needed a few weeks before seeing how terrible this phone was. WebOS had so much promise, and then they released it way before it was stable. By the time the Pixi rolled around, WebOS didn't even have a spell check feature. The keyboard was crap compared to Blackberry, and I had two devices that randomly turned off during the day/night, leading to missed alarms.

 

[Red Storm]

Worst Phone: iPhone 6. Buggy, slow, tolerated only because it was an employer issued phone.

Best phone: Nexus 6P. Beautiful phone, fast performance, have fond memories of that thing.

 

[Oyeve]

Best, Note 7. Love it, still have it.

Worst: Blackberry Storm. Buggy as hell, slow as hell, no WIFI!

 

[Commodus]

For me, it's more a question of phones I've used than ones I've owned, since I've had devices I've used for extended periods but didn't technically own.

The iPhone 7 is the best phone I've owned. Yeah, no built-in headphone jack, but it's fast, takes great photos, lasts a good time on battery... and the haptic feedback is the most interesting I've ever experienced.

Of phones I've used: I have an extreme fondness for the HTC One M8. Sure, the camera was low-resolution and the depth feature was a bit of a gimmick at the time, but it had amazing industrial design and had just the right blend between stock Android features and customization.

Worst phone I've owned: probably the iPhone 3GS. Not that it was actually bad, just that it was unexciting. Neither the novelty of the 3G nor the raw technical excellence of the 4S I got to replace it. That and the first example I got suffered from the heat issue that stained white models.

Worst phone I've used: ZTE Open. The phone itself was fundamentally mediocre with so-so performance, cheap build quality a tiny screen and 2MP fixed focus camera that was terrible even in broad daylight. Then you throw Firefox OS on top... ever tried to use a phone that relies exclusively on web apps (and I don't mean webOS)? Nope.

 

[gorcorps]

Hard to say... pretty much every new phone I've had has felt like the best I've used. With the exception of the 6P which was at best a sidegrade from my Note 4, and in some ways a downgrade as it gets older and has more issues.

I'm surprised at how much I dislike the iphone 6 which I have to use for work. The last iphone I had was the iphone 4, which was the last straw before going to Android and never looking back. I remember it being even more polished and easy to use back then. It's like they've kept adding more and more things to it without taking anything else away so it's become bloated and complicated... very different from how they used to be IMO. I guess if I switch over entirely to the iphone for my personal device I'd learn how to use it more effectively, but it just seems more awkward than it used to.

 

[Yakk]

Best phone : With the Note 7 taken out of the market, the S7 is just about perfect all around from business to VR use. Amazing phone.

Worst phone EVER: easy...

The original Motorola Atrix. Biggest disappointment in a phone I've ever seen. Hot mess of a phone with promised features which were never delivered, and then support was dropped right away. I know most (or all) of the issues were nvidia's fault and not Motorola's. This mess put the final nail in the coffin for Tegra chips in phones, but they teamed up so the blame goes all around.

 

[Insomniator]

Best - Galaxy S7 (though I probably liked my S5 more at the time)

Worst - HTC Rezound

 

[Yuriman]

For me, OG Droid -> Galaxy S2 -> Moto X (1st Gen) -> Galaxy S7 (work) + Pixel (personal)

Honestly all of them were great phones by the standards of the day.

-I liked the industrial design of the Droid and the great support from the development community. It was my first smartphone and exceeded my expectations. It flew with a +125% overclock.

-The S2 was slim and fast, with great battery life, crappy stock firmware but also great developer support.

-The Moto X was fantastic out of the box but was also effectively the end of my time playing with ROMs. After 3 years it was starting to get unstable though.

-The S7 is probably my least favorite. It's fast(ish) and has a nice design, and Samsung's software has come a long way, but I've already dealt with a ton of annoying bugs.

-The Pixel has been perfect from a software perspective, and honestly if the worst I can say about it is that I wish it had smaller bezels, it might take my pick as best phone.

 

[IamDavid]

Best = Nokia 1520.

Worst = S7. Still upset i switched to it.

 

[iwajabitw]

Best= Nokia 1520
Worst=Ericsson phone that had the camera attachment, don't remember the model.

Currently Lumia 950XL with Win 10, its great, but just isn't the 1520.

 

[jhansman]

Best-GS7 Edge. Best all around mobile device I've yet owned.
Worst- ZTE temporary POS I had to buy to get out of my contract with AT&T. Can't expect much for $50, though.

 

[foghorn67]

Best. Nexus 6P. Ugly phone though.
Worst: iPhone 5c. Icky, work issued.

 

[Kalvin00]

Worst: Galaxy S6

Best: iPhone 7+

 

[citan x]

Best: Galaxy Note 2. The phone was the best when I got it and the screen was huge back then. I kept it a full 2 years.

Worst: Iphone 6 plus. The 1 GB of ram was horrible. Every time I went back to a browser tab it had to reload and the same was true of apps. It was made worse since it would show the original screen for like a second or two. I would try to scroll or continue where I left off but then it just reloaded. Very annoying. Kept it only 3 months.
For the money I paid for it, it was the biggest disappointment and a big let down since Apple had finally released an Iphone with a decent sized screen.

 

[Zaap]

Best by far: The Note 7. Despite the disaster, that phone was sheer awesomeness. Not a single compromise (well, arguably removable battery but since few other flagships have...) and pretty much every innovation I care about packed into a single sleek, beautifully designed device. Samsung nailed it with everything but the whole 'explodey' bit.

Worst: haven't really owned a bad phone since I'm not that compulsive but I'd have to say the Droid X simply because of its age compared to everything I've owned since.

That, or the Galaxy S3 which at the time I thought was great but now I see it as the ugly retro throwback between the S2 and S4.

 

[lxskllr]

I've only had two smartphones, an S5, and this Kyocera temp phone. I like both of them a lot. I'm enjoying this Kyocera far more than I thought I would. It has great speaker volume, which works well for me being outside. For another ~$50($90 total price) in features, I would use this over any modern flagship.

I had a Nokia stick phone that had hard keys that were hard to accurately press. I got it free with net10, but that was my worst phone overall.

 

[Raduque]

Best: Note 7

Worst. Galaxy S6. Maybe

 

[KentState]

Best: iPhone 7 plus
Worst: BB Storm

 

[wilds]

Best: rooted exynos note 4 with giant battery. I expect to use this phone for another 2-3 years.

I love having an average of 15 hours of on screen battery life, no ads whatsoever, expandable storage, and an s-pen for a mouse on desktop sites.

Worst:
iphone 5

Despicable battery life coupled with an ad infested operating system made this a horrid user experience for me. The lack of RAM and the awful web browser meant I hated using Safari, especially due to the ads.

The first two weeks of owning my first iPhone 5 the home button broke. The next two months the second iphone's display went all purple. The third iphone was bug free.

It left a bad taste in my mouth and I left the Apple ecosystem for good.

The iPhone 7 Plus finally has the specs I would want in an iPhone. If only Firefox had addons in iOS and I would jump back to iOS. And I would be forced to jailbreak due to the ads. Autoplaying ads are everywhere on iOS apps. I hate it!

 

[Kini1000]

Best- probably the 2015 Moto G. Especially for the price. USB port started going bad, would not charge occasionally otherwise I'd still be using it.

Worst- for the price- S7. Great camera, that's about it. Poor reception, lousy battery life, slow and choppy, Samsung bloatware.

 

[Jodiuh]

The iPhone 7 Plus finally has the specs I would want in an iPhone. If only Firefox had addons in iOS and I would jump back to iOS. And I would be forced to jailbreak due to the ads. Autoplaying ads are everywhere on iOS apps. I hate it!

Can't help you with FF, but...

I suffered for a few months when I made the switch from rooted Android to iOS. Let me save you some time.

AdBlock by FutureMind
https://appsto.re/us/R2AmP.i

Gets rid of ads across all apps, no need to jailbreak. I have mine configured to allow for google shopping ads only and rarely do I see an ad in any app. Occasionally, I have to disable it for something.

I recently got an iPad and haven't installed Adblock yet. I cannot imagine using an iOS device "naked" like that. Ads EVERYWHERE. It's...nasty! Just look at how obtrusive they are here!

Anand:
http://imgur.com/HQYtaqz
http://imgur.com/cVcueH8
http://imgur.com/aG6Nwx1

Anand on Adblock:
http://imgur.com/fwYzria

 

[boomhower]

Best: Initially Palm Pre. Love the form factor and OS. Had some build issues but absolutely loved and wished it had continued on. Next my iPhone 7+. iPhone junky and just the latest and greatest, camera probably it's best feature.

Worst: The hand me down bad phone I had in high school. Worst: A Sprint iPhone fighter, can't remember maybe the Instinct but that it was but it was horrible.

 

[Commodus]

Can't help you with FF, but...

I suffered for a few months when I made the switch from rooted Android to iOS. Let me save you some time.

AdBlock by FutureMind
https://appsto.re/us/R2AmP.i

Gets rid of ads across all apps, no need to jailbreak. I have mine configured to allow for google shopping ads only and rarely do I see an ad in any app. Occasionally, I have to disable it for something.

I recently got an iPad and haven't installed Adblock yet. I cannot imagine using an iOS device "naked" like that. Ads EVERYWHERE. It's...nasty! Just look at how obtrusive they are here!

Anand:
http://imgur.com/HQYtaqz
http://imgur.com/cVcueH8
http://imgur.com/aG6Nwx1

Anand on Adblock:
http://imgur.com/fwYzria

I don't know why people act as if any ad is somehow a horrible, terrible burden that must be eliminated at all costs. Some ads are intrusive, yes, but even those "from around the web" ads aren't really interfering -- scroll a bit more. Personally, I would rather know that an app developer or website creator is getting paid for their work, and if the ads are so offensive that I can't bear to look at them, I go somewhere else.

 

[hans007]

Worst: HTC thunderbolt

Best: Moto z play

 

[desura]

Best: HTC one m8 (my primary phone ATM) and iPhone 5.

Worst: moto e 2nd gen. The Moto e 2nd gen theoretically should have been an okay phone, but in actuality it was lousy and underperforming all around.