I'd say the OnePlus One because of its price and specs. However, it's not available now except on an invite-only basis in Europe and America.
For available phones, the Samsung Galaxy S5 will be hard to beat but I'm not very fond of Samsung's devices, and that is just a personal thing not that it has anything to do with the awesome devices they manufacture. A close second (except for it's bad back camera) is the HTC One (2014 model) which is a unibody metal device and is easily the best designed device for this year so far. Not even the current crop of iPhones can beat it.
The upcoming LG G3 promises to astound everyone and blow the competition out of the water. Leaked pictures so far prove that it'll indeed be a device worth owning. It's left to LG's unveiling for us to know what else they've cooked into the sequel of their highly successful and popular G2.
However, personally? I've never stopped admiring the Motorola flagship device of last year, moto X. Since I bought a unit for my aunt last month, I've not only come to utterly appreciate the sleek design language of the device but have only words of praise for Motorola's decision to stick to Android's default software User Interface (UI) rather than add to it as others have done to distinguish the way their phones look on the screen from the others (Samsung has TouchWiz, HTC has Sense, and so on). What this means is that the phone doesn't lag anywhere. Things zip through from the micro-second your finger touches the screen to doing the action you intended. It's blazing fast. In addition to that, because there's no added UI, updates of the OS get to the device faster than others. Motorola's KitKat (Android 4.4.2) update arrived at the moto X way ahead of its arrival at the devices of other manufacturers. It was a thing of pride to be among the very first peeps across the Android ecosystem to enjoy the freshly minted version of Android long before other even more expensive device owners got it.
Also in the X's favour is moto maker, an online platform where a buyer can pick from a coterie of options - colours for the back, a different colour for accents (accents refer to the power and volume buttons and the ring around the camera lens), thereby personalising your phone even externally, making it a phone that's truly yours. My aunt picked a Spearmint back, Black front with Red accents.
This says nothing of the added series of Touchless Controls Motorola baked into the device such that a user will neither have to touch the screen nor unlock it to make it useful as merely speaking to the locked and blank screen of the phone, beginning with the words, "Ok, Google Now" unlocks the phone and opens the phone's microphone app ready to listen to what further instructions you want to give it. You can then proceed to perform a Google search, call a contact, ask a question, play a stored song already on your phone, open one of your phone's apps, all without even touching the phone and get results.
It's not outrageously big but designed with a beautiful curve that fits your palm comfortably and has a great battery management process that ensures a full battery doesn't run out before the day is over. Notifications and time gently appear on the locked screen when you pull it out of your bag or pocket so that you may have no need to unlock your screen every time just to check notifications or time or missed calls or whatever, keeping the time your screen will stay on to the minimum. I could go on and on, but I think the point of my admiration is obvious. To even know that a sequel to this device (rumoured to be known as X+1 is planned soon since the initial X is now about 7 months) is exhilarating. I can't wait to see what that'll bring to the game. Maybe a better camera, which will be a big bonus. Their lower spec'ed cousins, the moto G, and the lowest, the moto E carry some of the X's features but reduced for a bargain cost. The X is flagship level, the G is mid-range and the E is entry level.
There's also the Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 devices as well but their atrocious battery makes me refrain from adding them to my small list here.
However, device choices are the most personal decisions people should make and these decisions should not be based on another person's preferences. What each person desires from a device do not always tally with the desires of another. These cover the entire gamut of what makes a device tick, from screen size to operating system, from phone design to camera sharpness, from touchless controls to user interfaces, from range/level to price of a unit, from ease of use to showboating, all these come to play when choice is concerned for individuals who are indeed unique. So, my preferences here aren't binding on anyone, they simply reflect my view of what a device means for me.
