Back in the day, I made two horrible phone purchases in a row - a Blackberry Pearl and then a lousy Palm (I think it was the Pre). These were both disheartening, as I paid full price for these phones and had terrible 3 year contracts that were over $100 a month. Both of these phones had unreliable service and basic features (like messaging and voicemail) stopped working regularly. To make things even worse, the internet service on both phones was unreliable and spotty.
As I was trying to get out of my horrible Palm Pre contract, settled on the idea that my next phone would be a Samsung, as I have always had good experiences with Samsung TVs. It was the fall of 2012, and I went to the AT&T store. The salesperson was really reasonable and recommended the new Samsung phone and set me with a contract for $59.99 a month.
I got a Samsung Galaxy S3 and it has been my phone since that day (November of 2012 through today - i.e. 8 years and counting). In 2014, my boss (who had just upgraded from an S3 to an S4) gave me her Anker batteries for the Galaxy S3. These are amazing batteries that last nearly a week.
It's amazing that the phone I bought back in November of 2012 is still my phone today. Such a great contrast to my old phones.