I don’t know where you’re at, but around here there are stores with refurbished phones, where you can play with last year’s models, and buy them at low-mid range prices. Sometimes they have 2-3 year old phones at a steal, some of the online ones have generous return policies as well, where you can try it for a bit and then send it back.

I’ve had Samsung androids for over a decade, and they’ve had smoother animation and less loading lag since about iPhone 4 (which I’ve used for work in the same period). They’ve also had comparable feedback on presses.

Then again, the HTC androids I’ve tried occasionally have been real bad, so I get the question.

You shouldn’t have to rely on the words of Internet random though, go try one out.