I just bought the phone Saturday from Verizon and so far really love it. I'm coming from the Nexus 5X so from a hardware standpoint this is a huge difference. The screen is incredible to me. I thought the software and would take more getting used to but I really like it so far. Then there's buying from Verizon and not unlocked and once you disable and uninstall the bloatware you can't really tell.
Literally comparing this to a note 8 or something might help make a decision but in normal use you wouldn't look at this phone and think it looks bad because you wouldn't be holding it side by side with another phone.