Not forgetting the Nokia Lumia 1020, best camera phone on the market...

Check it out.

Personally i would go with the IPhone 5s

This question always brings up a flame war, apple fans against samsung fans.. PERSONALLY I like Apple more, because I've had their products for so long, and I understand them better.. I know that the Samsung S4 is a very good phone, but I'd rather buy iPhone5S, the HTC one on other hand I've heard is sh!t, my sister had it and it did nothing else than annoy her, this is only my point and I wish you luck with picking your future phone!
Also if it really was real, I would recommend phonebloks: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]

Samsung galaxy s4 or iphone 5s

To be quite honest, there's flaws with every phone, and over time those flaws will start appearing. So with whatever phone you get, spend the extra money and buy insurance.

But onto the phones themselves:

Iphone: Personally I own the white 4s, and i'm due for an upgrade in the upcoming months (can't remember when). Let me tell you, more than likely I will not be buying another Iphone. Unless the Iphone 6 is amazing in every aspect, in that case i'll wait for it to arrive. My Iphone has constant problems that make me just want to chunk it across the room. Current problems I have know: Battery barley lasts a day without heavy use, loops back to on when shutting off(doesn't shutoff). Previous problem: was that the sleep button broke. Though it doesn't happen to all, just be aware that it does happen frequently.

Samsung: Many of my friends, over the past couple months, canceled their plans (which ain't cheap) from the Galaxy S3, and transferred to the the IPhone. Not sure what problems they were having, but they all said the Iphone had a smoother feel, with transitioning between pages.

My opinion: go to your phone store, be it Verizon,AT&T,T-Mobile,etc and play with the phones they have on display. We can't tell what you like, only you can decide. Don't talk to the sales people, most will feed you a biased view, just to get you to buy it.

And remember the decision you choose, will be with you for the next two years, pick wisely!

I'd say iPhone 5S is the best phone at the moment.

GS4, iPhone 5s, HTC One, or the Note 3. All really great phones. I have the 5s and freaken love it.

I got the iPhone 5S like 3 days ago, prior to this I had an iPhone 4 for over 3 years.

I must say I'm impressed with the upgrades. It does exactly what I need it to do, and I can't really fault it at all.

It's all down to what qualities you want out of your phone.

I have a Nexus 4 and to be honest it's a great phone. Pure android, google experience, project butter making it flawlessly fast, etc.

Iphone 5s
i got 3 but i cracked two screens lol