[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] zxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzx:
My Galaxy S5 on Verizon has been rooted since the beginning. No problems. However, the lack of ability to have a custom recovery is very limiting.

Not being able to fully back up your phone at the block level for restore through a custom recovery means that at any time you could have to lose a day or two to redoing everything if something goes wrong. It only happened once in 3 years for this phone, but it could have been avoided altogether with a custom recovery, and there was some data lost forever like call history etc. There are yes third party apps to back these things up, but not only is it time consuming but also you'd have to keep it running all the time and this is not practical on devices which only last half a day under normal use without backup programs running in the background.

Not only that but I like (need) maximum control of my device. Rooting I can achieve most things, but a custom recovery I can flash whole new roms, there is just so much more you can do. (p.s. Don't try to talk me out of rooting, it would be a waste of your time and energy.)

CARRIER

Verizon is awesome as far as coverage. I always have bars when everyone else doesn't. But these morons like to lock their bootloader and I hate them for it. At this point I am open to LEAVING VERIZON and accepting not having service in remote areas (which I rarely go to) just so I cannot have to deal with these stupid locked bootloader.

For example, the S9/Note 9 CAN'T EVEN BE ROOTED on Verizon, and probably won't either. As a result, I will probably get the previous model in order to have root if I stay with Verizon.

The next choice is T-Mobile. T-Mobile has the second best coverage but much better for international travelling which I plan to do at some point. They also have far better customer service in recent ratings. But regardless of those, being #2 out of the carriers, they are #1 if you care about rooting, because you can BYOD (bring your own device) which can be a totally unlocked GSM model, and you'll have full access to your device. This is gold to me.

Plus, the prices for the plan I use (unlimited talk text + a bunch of data) for $40 per month prepaid. Both Verizon and T-Mobile have nearly identical plans here, so that's basically irrelevant. I laugh at people who have hundreds per month cell phone bills.

PHONES

Galaxy IMO are still the best devices, and while some other competing flagships have done well, they neglected things like a MicroSD slot (OnePlus 6T) or used an inferior IPS instead of AMOLED screen (Xiaomi Pocophone F1).

As a result, I may end up with another Galaxy device, but if I do leave Verizon then it opens up my options of phones since I can root nearly any phone + have a custom recovery, even custom roms on nearly any device if I use another carrier like T-Mobile.

Then again, I'm not really clear on if the snapdragon S9/Note 9 can ever been rooted at all on any carrier.

RECOMMENDATIONS?

I have several requirements:

Full root achieved (deal breaker)

MicroSD slot (deal breaker)

AMOLED (deal breaker)

6+ GB RAM (deal breaker)

And a couple preferences which aren't necessarily a deal breaker, but preferred:

64+ GB Internal Memory

Custom recovery possible

Which devices + carriers would you suggest?

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