Oneplus 5, Pixel, Xperia XZ or Galaxy S8 plus?

And if I go for the Galaxy, is Gear VR worth it for 50 quid?

I've had nothing but hassle with my last 3 Galaxys. I won't touch Samsung, nor their incompetent customer service again. It speaks volumes about a company's desire to provide good after-sales when their retail presence is outsourced to Carphone Warehouse.

Your mileage may vary.

Pixel or One+ 5 for me next.

 

Had an s3 and s4, went off them after that but I'm struggling to remember why. Sure I had good reason at the time.

Not been overly impressed with the camera samples from Oneplus 5, and I've had two one plus one's where the microphone fails (but only for calls, speakerphone works fine and replacing the microphone board doesn't fix it either). Pixel is expensive and is fairly boring looking, had a play in PC world today and it didn't really do anything for me.

Have phones always been this boring?

Smartphones are like multifunction printers. They do several things, none especially well.

> Have phones always been this boring?

Only since Apple and Google fucked them up.