New Phone thread - need help deciding

nguyendot

So my company phone is up for renewal this month. I told my boss to defer it as nothing is out right now that I really want. I was going to get the Galaxy S4 Active but all my coworkers have one now and I am never one to be part of the crowd. Usually I am the cutting edge or "bigger is better".

Here's some background:

I started with the Motorola Atrix when I started two years ago instead of the Infuse (which is actually a great phone) because I wanted a dual core phone...the cutting edge at the time. It turned out to be underwhelming and small. I shelved it since I couldn't sell a company phone and acquired a Galaxy S2. It was awesome but about a week later I acquired the S2 internation which was even neater (physical home key). Yet a week later I picked up the S2 Skyrocket to use LTE and it was BLAZING. It however chewed through batteries so I traded it for a Note1 which was decent but a little buggy here and there. After that came the Galaxy S3, and then about a month later the Note 2 which I currently have.

My personal phone was an iPhone5, which recently was replaced with an S4.

Anyways, within the next say, 3 months I want to try out a new phablet phone but I am unsure which to go for. There's the Xperia ZR which is water proof as well, the Note 3, and a few others I've forgotten. What do you think? I mainly use it for web, tethering, and maybe 5% calls. Stylus is not required - I never use mine. I'm just wondering if I've missed any particular models coming out soon. I'm willing to wait. Normally I just trade for what I want, but since the company is buying this one I have to choose carefully.

jflail2

I had such bad battery life out of my Samsung Charge, that that was at the top of my list of requirements when I re-upped with Verizon.

While not a phablet (nice one...), the Razr Maxx by Motorola has done me justice. I can get about 2 days out of each charge, and never have to worry about finding a place to charge up in the middle of the day. The screen res looks good, and I'm not sure what's under the hood, but it runs everything I throw at it well enough. I've used it for tethering a few times, and everything was perfectly smooth.

So if you're willing to sacrifice screen real estate, the Razr Maxx will treat you well on the battery life side of things.

nguyendot

I forgot to mention - AT&T since my company is buying.

The Note2 can give me about two days of usage (and I use it heavily). The battery is 3100mah which is pretty crazy. I like the real estate a lot. Leaning towards Note3 if the specs will ever come out. I like Super AmoLED and 1080 screens as well - I do hold it close when I am laying in bed without glasses on so that does matter.