What's your budget? Carrier? Contract or no contract?
What will you use it for? What phone do you have now?
We have to know these things.

 

The Samsung Galaxy S3 is currently the top smartphone. It has phenominal battery life, even when using 4G.

The LG Nexus 4 is close, though. Because the Nexus 4 is a "Google Nexus" brand phone, it will get OS updates more frequently. It's a niche phone, though, and finding accessories to fit it will be harder than the carrier-ubiquitous GS3.

The Nexus 4 uses an LCD screen, as opposed to the GS3's AMOLED screen. AMOLED screens have problems with black dots appearing on them and can be annoying when watching video in a dark room. The flip-side is that AMOLED screens can be brighter and (when used with a dark background) allow for better battery life.

Rooting is a snap. You go to XDA, look for a rooting guide (that for the GS3 DOES NOT INCREASE THE BINARY COUNTER), and follow it.

 

Right now is not a good time to buy a phone. Here's why:

1) The Galaxy S3 is going to be replaced by the S4 come February.
2) HTC are also planning to release their latest flagship, the Butterfly (it's currently available as a Verizon only contract phone).
3) The Nexus 4 is either sold out everywhere, or is sold at prices $200 higher than its original price.

So yeah, I'd suggest you wait it out. Also, rooting an Android phone is a breeze. If you're not familiar with ADB (Android Debug Bridge) or are uncomfortable with command lines, you could very easily find a 'toolkit' or the likes of it on XDA. You need to unlock the bootloader (which removes all your data) on most devices before rooting, so make sure you do that out of the box. Oh, and about Samsung's retarded binary counter, I'm pretty sure you could just use 'Triangle Away' by XDA dev Chainfire to reset it.

 

I don't own a Samsung phone currently, but doesn't the binary counter increase even by flashing roms? Anyway, $2.49 is almost nothing. Would you rather get a chips packet than have a valid warranty and ROMs of your choice? Also, it doesn't go without saying that you can get it free elsewhere. Anyway, triangle away is pretty nifty because you can set it to reset the counter on boot when you flash new roms, so very little effort is required.

 

Did you read my previous posts? Also, a device gets rooted even before it's released sometimes. I'm pretty sure there will be a root method by the time you get it, if even on day 1.

 

NEXUS 4
Buy it from google for cheap and it's already unlocked
Rooting is as easy as plugging it into a computer, downloading an app and clicking a button
Go learn from XDA-developers

 

what about if I want to use my existing plan(fido) on the android?

 

Not really? Unrooting a phone and locking the bootloader is as easy as doing the opposite. People root devices to also play with their CPU frequencies, install custom kernels, tweak governors, etc. AND, to flash custom roms. Although I'll give you that rooting isn't necessarily a prerequisite to that.

 

If you buy a phone from a carrier it will be locked to that network. To remove that lock you need an unlock code from the carrier. Enter it into the right place on the phone and your phone will accept SIM cards for other networks.

 

You can... if you are happy with them you can buy second hand locked to rogers or fido they are the same. I really recommend buying your device used. It really depends what you are looking for but google <phone> specs and you got them.

minimum specs to have a enjoyable android experience:

Known brand(Sony, LG, Samsung, HTC)
Android 2.2 (to have tethering)
800mhz processor
4GB base memory(some will be used by android based rom)
1gb ram
5 megapixel camera with a flash

Specs that are a plus for me:
Physical keyboard
Front facing camera
FM radio
LTE support
OTG support
MicroSD slot
Long battery life (can't really know this one appart from reviews)
Android 4.1 (not really needed but nice)