After my Nexus 5's power button finally gave out (third battery.) I upgraded to a LG V30. Had a similar feeling of lack of selection. Wanted to wait for the pixel 3 but it was way too far away.

The slippery glass back and round sides kills me. (Ducttapped the back panel/sides as a decent fix, black tape nobody ever asks, probly just think I'm poor eh)

Not happy with the weight on my pinky either. (Two hands required.) Size similar issue, can't type with one hand like I could with the nexus 5. There is a screen shrink feature but it's awkward and the weight is the real issue.

Software being non stock is annoying but you get used to it quick enough.

Other than those issues it's pretty decent.

Enjoying the 4k video, wide angle photos and software stabilizer a lot.

The dual Sim or sim+ micro SD feature comes in handy for travel/video shooting.

I probably wouldn't recommend unless you have money to burn or really need the video.

Something cheaper probably has relatively same specs/features.

Grab a cheap protection sticker for the back of your phone from eBay. They usually offer better grip than the slippery glass, and look more presentable than black duck tape.

Not in the US, but I'm happy with my Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact. (It's a year old now.)

I was able to disable almost all the Sony apps with little difficulty, and the "What's new?" notification that appears every 2-3 months I just swipe away.

(Of flagship-level Android phones that aren't huge, i.e. fit in my pocket without bending even while cycling or sitting, the Sony ### Compacts have been the only choice for the last few years.)

The "What's new" annoyance will go away in a year or two, when they stop making upgrades for your phone. :-/

IMO, the times I've tried Android it always ended up being a mistake to use something other than the Nexus and now Pixel. Android and privacy is whole other situation though.

I've settled on my iPhoneX for now.

Motorola has started providing ifixit and other 3rd party repairs with official parts for phones out of warranty. That was enough for me to decide to buy one of their lower end phones (Moto g6 plus).

The low end shows sometimes, but I am generally very satisfied. They also provide decent apps and not too much extra on top of stock Android. Upgrades could be better.

I've been looking into Blackberry (Key2 specifically) because they seem to be putting security first and I don't mind if my platform is a tiny bit behind on the raw system specs. If anyone has experiences to share I am ALL ears!

You could do a lot better than Blackberry from a security standpoint. The URLs tell a pretty scary story all on their own:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/canadian-police-obtained-black...

https://thenextweb.com/asia/2013/07/10/after-a-lengthy-battl...

https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/219661-blackberry-ceo-bla...

I was actually about to get a KeyOne when I was shopping! The primary concerns I had that stopped me from going through with it were: 1) not sure if I'd actually like the keyboard enough to be worth the screen size tradeoff, and 2) I'd read bad things about the build quality (screens falling off?!?) since Blackberry apparently has little oversight over the actual production. I'd be glad to hear from someone else if these concerns were justified.