[General Questions and Answers] Leomaxwell973:
Hi pretty new here still, and already getting a new phone lol.

Quick Version

-Medium or + Cpu/Gfx performance

- affordable/cost effective (prefer $400 or -)

- Highly compatible with many ROMs, Recoveries, Easily unlocked either OEM allowed or well documented solid exploit, any other custom firmware capable etc.

- Prefer slots for SD card and/or Sim card work well, aren't jenky, if known. Decent Space if possible ~32GB+,

- True Airplane mode / Built in firewall? minimal concern but still nice

- Screen size, not a huge requirement, actually don't want something too large

- USB-C preference, very low on priority though

- "Tough firmware"? hard to perma-brick or has a good last resort that usually works, i.e. EDL cable or something

Original Post /Brainstorm below with more details

Little background, for the longest time I survived on an iphone 4s for various anti-social reasons

recently thats changed and been getting into phones more

Unfortunately I got suckered into a V500KL ZenFone 5 Live, a feature starved, bland, boot-loader locked, boring pos

well while trying to spruce it up i hard bricked it, and well, I brought it back

but in my frustration I destroyed something in the sim port while doing desperate last attempts before figuring out the correct UN-brick method.

(which Ive documented in my first post, its over in the zenfone 5 forum , check it out :)

oh and i promise the un-brick method didn't do it, shoving tweezers in a dead phone to see what i could reach, because phones been dead for days and YOLO was the cause of sim death lol.

so now i have a phone that can't be a phone... time for a new phone ya?

I wanna do it right and get opinions from pros and community opinions, so that would be here right? :P

So what am i looking for? decent performance, the V500KL was 2nd from the bottom pretty much for the ZenFone line i think.

I don't required the best for CPU/GFX performance, but definitely not bottom group tier.

With that said, affordable, no $1k phones please lol, maybe in the ballpark of.... $400 tops? the bigger bang but for less buck the better :P

I also want it to be a very compatible phone, i made the switch from my iPhone brand to android because they had a reputation, or used to, of being super customizable, rooting/jailbreaking was a non-issue etc.

Well i was shocked to find out that my V500KL had a locked bootloader with no OEM permission to unlock for that specific model.... i blame Verizon.

SO I want a phone that's unlock-able out of the box without having to do my own R&D on it, whether its OEM or a known solid exploit that's not going away either way works.

Also compatible with as many custom ROMs as possible, was very sad that CWM and TWRP were not compatible with my last phone :( and could never get magisk due to the boot loader.

- space, looking for 32GB give or take, with EASILY removable SD card expanded storage, not one that feels like its a d20 roll if its going to break every time

I suppose if i had to choose between the 2 it would be a smooth SD card slot though since I could always just get more SD lol, and this isn't something you can easily tell from a product sheet/page so input on this greatly appreciated :).

- also extra plus if it has a easily removable sim card slot as well, or has a confirmed TRUE airplane mode.

(Verizon/Asus phones will still download FOTA/OTA updates even with wifi off and airplane mode on, mobile data off, etc.)

- Not really a screen size buff, so average size works i suppose, not against something a bit larger, but id rather it fit in something smaller than my cargo pockets :P

- Being USB-C would be nice, I've recently made a USB-C EDL cable so if it just so happens to be compatible or easily reconfigured for something/anything the phone may need one for could come in handy, fine with others though, more easy to get a charger from a friend, pros and cons i suppose.

- Tough to perma-brick, i abused the crap out of the software on my V500KL and never perma-bricked it, came close though, and its still not even bricked, i just fryed the sim card port... but its not bricked. Something hard to perma-brick would be nice, if it soft-bricks thats fine, and if hard-bricks are recoverable with an EDL cable thats a plus. Something thats just... perma-bricked prone somehow though, would make me nervous.

well that's all i can really think of....

if there's any key detail that needs to be added ill be happy to add, and if anyone else has a similar list feel free to thread hijack lol I'm just reaching for whats out there and really anything with some hands-on-experince information is appreciated. im in no rush and just wanna know whats good out there :).