Galaxy S4's general stability vs its competitors

[Scratch4]

I will be up for an upgrade in a few months. Currently running a Droid X2 which requires a reboot (due to a memory leak) every 4-6 days. Before that, I had a Droid 2's power on/off button stop working after a phone lockup and had to pull out the battery to get it to power off. I have read countless reviews of phones, and general stability (needing a reboot) is rarely mentioned. My wife's iPhone 4 is rock stable with all her apps running.

Currently looking at

Galaxy S4 - great screen, 2 gigs ram, replaceable battery / memory card, but wonder if the gigs of samsung and verizon apps will cause general stability issues??

Razr Maxx HD - Biggest battery but burned twice in the past. found a blurb from on Moto support site basically saying "recommend a reboot every few days to keep running optimally" which is unacceptable to me.

HTC One (when Verizon gets it). Hear mixed reviews of HTC's quality in general.

iPhone 5(s) - small screen and don't really want to be associated with apple products due to their fanboys, but if it gives me a stable product.. I will consider.

I think I was in the same boat as you were a week ago. At this point in my life, I want a stable phone that just works well and thus was considering the iPhone 5. But after playing with the Galaxy S4, and not wanting to leave the google ecosystem and all the things Android has to offer, I pulled the trigger on the Galaxy S4 for me and my wife. While not a perfect phone, I couldn't be happier. Fyi, one of the first things I did was 'disable' all of the bloatware.

 

[dkjbama]

I upgraded to my Galaxy S4 from a Droid X2 when the S4 launched on verizon. Like you my X2 was the bane of my existence. The constant lockups and random reboots drove me insane. I am an attorney, and need a phone that just works. At the same time I just don't care for Apple products. I also wanted a bigger screen and top end hardware that won't be unbearably sluggish a year before I'm due for my next upgrade along with SD card capability. My expectations have been met by the S4. Before I installed the update this evening, my phone's uptime was at 552 hours (23 days). My Droid X2 and the Motorola Droid I had before it could never dream of that sort of stability. The phone is fast, has a beautiful screen, and a great camera. My only gripe is a minor one, but is echoed by others: the wifi nofication on the drop-down menu that never goes away.

If the HTC One had been available at the time on Verizon at the time (Is it even available now?), I would have given it a serious look.At that point I just needed a new phone "RIGHT NOW". I had held out as long as I could waiting for the S4 to launch on Verizon. The unstable Droid X2 was seriously screwing with my universe.