What android should I get? I don't know what my budget is yet. Talk about your experiences, or your friends' experiences.

Jibb

I've got a ZTE Blade, it's not a Galaxy S2 but it's cheap and has a very active developers community

My brother has a Galaxy S and its faster and has flash support, but is also more expensive

If you are into a lot into gaming, I can recommend the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play. It has a gamepad, so it is perfect for emulators. Playstation games all run smoothtly, N64 games sometimes have small lags. Needless to say Gameboy and stuff runs completely lag-free, too.
Some apps are optimised for the XPeria Play, so they can be played with the gamepad, but for me personally, the emulators are already enough reason to get it.
I think it's around 350€ now.

If you don't want to game a lot on your phone, but rather text much and/or surf and/or do much social networking, you should get a cheaper one.

I haven't looked into all the models recently, but I can say you shouldn't take a phone as slow as the HTC Wildfire (or even its successor although I only got the original one), because that is really annoying how much is lags and needs to render a website (not download, it's actually slow at RENDERING it). Also, don't get a screen with only a 240x320 resolution, because it is really annoying how much you have to zoom into websites to read something properly.


And one thing I recommend regardless of the purpose of your phone: Don't buy a phone with capacitive buttons! It's annoying if you want to tap on the screen but accidentally hit the home key.

Also, make sure the phone has a Dpad. Some don't have that anymore. But it's especially useful when you are typing and want to move the cursor. Each time I held an iPhone in my hands, I was annoyed by the fact the I could only move the cursor with the touchscreen which is very unprecise...


You man also want to check if your phone can be rooted, before you buy it. Even if you're not interested in rooting your phone now, you might be later.

And if you're buying a new phone, better get one that already has the newest version (currently 2.3 "Gingerbread").

HTC has great mobiles (I think on their website, you can even enter your desired functions to see the best mobile for you), I don't like Samsung, but It is the strongest Android on the market (DualCore 1.5Ghz) you might consider it.

I don't like the XperiaPlay, I can't game with those Touch(exAnalog)Sticks. Instead of sticks, there are touch surfaces. Don't like it

And pay attention to a D-Pad/Trackball or so because moving the cursor isn't fun without it. I never rooted my phone, no hints from me there, never needed to as Android lets you install everything just by checking "Allow 3rd party software" once.

Thanks for the info! I'd like to hear input from more users (not that I don't trust anyone who has already posted, but that I want to consider all my options ).
Is it possible to keep the OS up-to-date by downloading an update?

Jibb

mostly depends on the hardware
major versions generally require better hardware but if your device can handle it the manufacturer will probably publish an update.
if manufacturer does not, but device is widely used, cimmunity will port new versions.

i have a samsung galaxy spica, samsung updated it up to 2.1 but i am using a community built 2.3 version.

i also have an advent vega, which i am using to post this message. it's a nvidia tegra2 tablet, advent is yet to publish an android 3.x update but it runs perfectly on a community built 3.2

I know, they could at least have made them like on the Nintendo 3DS, but e.g. for Gameboy, you won't need them anyways. Emulators don't support them anyways. For apps that support them, it's still better than using the touchscreen.
So I'm already happy enough for the rest of the gamepad. Having a real Dpad and real buttons is way better than using a touchscreen.



Well, that isn't the point of rooting. It means you are logged in as root on the Linux system the Android system runs on. (And yeah, Apps can send commands to the Linux shell and I assume that most root apps work like that.)
That gives you many possibilities, like a Firewall app, that forwards IP requests of not-whitelisted apps to localhost (that means no ads! And there is an other app that takes care about ads (AdFree), it doesn't hurt to have both). Or you can easily backup and restore apps and their data (with TitaniumBackup). You can deinstall bloatware-system-apps. You can move apps to your SDcard you normally couldn't. You can mount the system partition with rw rights, theoretically enabling you to brick your phone...



Yeah, but an update has to exist. If you want to wait for the official update by the manufacturer, you could have to wait pretty long, like I had to for the Froyo update for the HTC Wildfire. Also, the Wildfire won't get a Gingerbread update.
That's why it's wise to get a phone that already has Gingerbread, because you don't have to worry about getting Gingergread, and you can expect your phone to get an update to the next version.
Of course, there are also custum roms with user-made updates. It's kinda risky if you don't know what you are doing. And someone has to make them first, so it's still better to get one with the newest Android version now.

I know what I can do with a rooted phone, never felt like I had to root it. I just used the comparison because you can install 3rd party software with one click instead of jailbreaking the phone.

HTC is very slow with their updates, I waited around 6 months for a 2.1 Update, so you may want to get the newest version pre-installed