[Q] What's the best android to get for Verizon?

crhylove said:

My new job is getting my whole department the verizon phone of our choice. What's the most hackable? Which runs CM the best? Etc?

Thanks in advance!

Rhy

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Depends on what your options are... The best would be to get a Developer Edition of any of the premium phones. However, these are typically only available online and/or at full retail, so probably not gonna be much of an option there. Otherwise, most of the phones from VZW are gonna have a much smaller dev community for a couple reasons: they are still mostly CDMA and much of the development goes for the GSM versions because they share much more with worldwide phones so it is easier to port or use different mods across the carriers AND VZW specifically asks the manufacturers to lock the bootloader, which creates all kinds of trouble for those wanting custom recoveries and kernels. All of the newer Android flagships are great phones in some manner or another. Everyone has different likes and dislikes. You just have to figure out which features are most important because no phone does everything perfectly and everyone uses their phone differently. Things to consider:

Battery life - Do you HAVE to have your phone make it all day?
Prefer something with a removable battery?
Screen / phone size - How big is too big?
Do you need external storage?
Camera quality / speed
Are you being given a budget or just carte blanche?
Is AOSP / CM a MUST...? Because with the locked bootloader situation for most VZW phones, you'll have to research that for feasibility (and stablity)...
Do you need any other special features like Miracast, DLNA, USB OTG, etc?
Are you an accessories fan? Not all phones have that many aftermarket accessories.

So, that's a good starting point at least to start weighing pros and cons.

In NO particular order, here are the best phones from VZW to consider:

Samsung Galaxy S4 / S5
Samsung Galaxy Note 3
HTC One M7 / Max / M8
LG G2
Moto X
Moto Droid Ultra / Maxx

Are you sure you want to hack a company phone?