Looks like I must give up on HTC - where should I look for a replacement?

Get a Samsung. I had an HTC. Big mistake. I love my Galaxy S5 I've had for the past year.

I always preffered samsung
Just don't buy a Iphone

I just replaced my HTC One Remix with a Galaxy S5 and I love it. If you don't need a removable battery, you could look into the S7. I love that my phone is waterproof to a certain extent, has a removable battery and sd card slot, and can run marshmallow. I haven't had any problems with it yet. I bought it new from a third party seller rather than paying an exorbitant amount for a two year old phone directly from Verizon though. The battery in my previous phone was completely trashed months before the two year contract was up, so I decided to get a phone with a removable battery so that wouldn't happen again.

Edit: Before the HTC, I had a Droid Razr Maxx that I loved and it had an amazing battery, but I have no experience with the models that have been released over the past 4 years.

Samsung's TouchWiz UI is AIDS although there devices are not that bad :D. If you settle for Samsung please for the love of god install another launcher. The Nova launcher is pretty good IMO.
But I would go with a Motorola or Sony (but they are a bit overpriced).

One Plus 3 ;)
Or if you dont like it just buy an iphone.. you will be limited but it will work ;)

don't get an LG; worst phone I've ever had in my life

Moto G/Oneplus/Nexus: You can not go wrong with these flagships.

Asus Zenfone 2

That's what you need =)

I had an HTC Desire and eventually replaced it with a Samsung S4 Mini expecting it to be better-supported with things like Cyanogen. Big mistake. It was no better supported (uncommon model, dual sim) and the Knox bullshit pissed me off no end. I'm never buying another samsung piece of shit phone and I may as well extend that to their ad-ware TVs since that was no doubt a trial for a wider rollout.

If I buy some hardware, it's MY goddamn hardware. That message is for Microsoft as well while we're at it.

i had a htc but it lagged so muths now i bought me a nexus 6P best phone i ever have no bloutware and i can do any thing with it really check it out you will be surprised how good it is or just check some reviews or comparisons with iphone and samsung :)

Samsung is shit. Had the S3 Mini and now the S5 Mini.
The S5 Mini is full of bloatware, but equipped with KNOX, so you need to decide whether to keep your warranty but have a shitty OS, or to root/flash it and loose warranty. Also, Samsungs update policy is shit. My update to Lollipop came February 2016 - Marshmallow propably won't make it to my device.
After one and a half year of using my S5 Mini:

• the microphone seems broken, at least i get constant complaints from poeple I talk with
• the brightness-sensor is casually not working, wich means the screen is not turned off automatically when holding the phone on the ear, and also sometimes the display seems black when you are in bright sunlight but the automatically brightness regluation would not recognize it and keep the screen on minimum brighness. You then have to "guess" where the "automatically" checkbox in the notification bar is and hope to hit it blindly to change it to manually.
• There is an issue with bluetooth since the beginning. I experienced lags when playing music on several devices. Also, when connected to my bluetooth speakers, there is background noise, which is an issue with my phone, because other phones don't have it.

I think my next phone will be a OnePlus. A friend of mine had the One and Two and he was fully satisfied with both.

//Edit: Not to forget the random restarts and the poor GPS accuracy.

Get LETV Leeco 2 x620 (Yes, it's not a brand phone like Samsung or HTC), you'll get a bang for your buck with this phone, it can even compare with last/this year's flagship phones, killer phone for it's price (187$), believe me. http://www.gearbest.com/cell-phones/pp_414484.html?wid=21

I am currently rocking the Honor 5x. Depending on what you use your phone for, it might be a good fit. For YouTube and general internet use it's more than adequate, but the PlayStation Vue app UI lags a bit. Oh and I had to download a file and extract it to get the Android marshmallow upgrade, but that should be OTA soon I believe.

I have a Xiaomi Redmi 3 and I'm totally in love with it so far. The UI customization options are the best I've seen and it has all the bells and whistles a smartphone should have.
It needs some tinkering initially, since it does not have Google Play by default, but once you are past that it is just great. There is also a Pro version of it now or it has a bigger brother the Redmi Note 3 too.

I got myself a Redmi Note 3 after hearing how great it was by some friends. Always used Samsung before but the quality has clearly dropped on some models. ..

Get a Nokia 950. Its fabulous value and power, especially when you consider how efficient WIndows Phone is. Also that battery life tho!
As for the haters, tell em you got the btter phone and faster OS, so deal with it.

Xiaomi. It is as good as any Samsung or even better, and costs a lot less.

Or accept that Android will be never be good unless you run it on a small supercomputer, and just buy a Lumia. :)

I like Samsung. I use the galaxy active, because they're more damage resistant and have an extra two-function button you can assign to do whatever you want. For example mine goes to text messages on press and to the camera on hold.

i only had Sony not because i am a fanboy, just the way it panned out, went to the phone store with an idea of what i wanted from a phone and for some reason they always been Sonys... but i do tent to keep using a single phone for a long long time, had my current phone an Xperia ArcS (Told ya, long ass time) for years now, it can call people use the WhatsApp, listen to the hip musics kids are listenning these days and even plays Nintendo 64 games, what more can i ask for.

Samsung phones are a safe choice. They usually are good quality (aside from some cheap models) but in my opinion aren't the best bang for the buck. They're aware of their brand and it can be seen in the prices of their higher-end models.

I'd recommend a phone that should have a long expectancy for updates, such as the Nexus series. I've seen the trend where some companies are giving empty promises on updates and not possibly honoring them. Although, if you're used to rooting your phones at some point, then official updates isn't an issue.

I've had the same samsung smartphone for the past 4 years. It fell on the ground, went into the sea and even survived a campfire, I couldn't replace it even if I want to.

Sony Xperia are rumored to be the better part of the Android phone spectrum, but are expensive too.

I bought OnePlus 3 and I have been quite positively surprised by this one.
Haven't had any issues with it It's really fast and I really like the Oxygen OS.

I've had an LG p705 (also known as L7) for almost 3 years. It's a low-end phone (512mb of RAM and a bad CPU), but hey, not every cellphone lasts this long these days! So yeah, I vouch for LG.

What's your budget? What do you find important for a phone? (e.g. OS update, good sound / display / specs, etc)