re: What is preordering a phone like? I want to pre-order the Samsung Note 7.

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I thought the narrative from the Android crowd was that Samsung phones were garbage?

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I have very little experience with Samsung phones, except for the Galaxy S5 and the S7. I can tell from using the two phones briefly that Samsung has toned down Touchwiz since the S5. The S5 also does not feel as much like a "premium" phone, but that's not really a comment on how well it functions (it seemed more like middle-of-the-pack for its time, with the added bonus of a removable battery).

I can't speak to the Snapdragon 820 version, but my wife's S7 with Exynos is fast and smooth. It's also well-cooled. My Nexus 6's 805 gets uncomfortably hot playing graphic-intensive games for more than an hour or so, and it's not even as bad as other phones I've seen.

However, my only gripe with Samsung phones is that while they still offer inherently more freedom of customization than iOS, there are still some things that are locked down (most people wouldn't care). For example, I had to buy the international version (Exynos CPU) of the S7 for my wife or else I wouldn't have been able to unlock the bootloader and root. Apparently this was not the case with previous Samsung phones, and may even vary by model (Note vs. S). I haven't looked into it further, but even with my wife's S7 there are some very specific steps you must follow or else you end up soft-bricking. On top of that, you will still trigger Samsung's built-in detection that I believe voids the warranty.

All of the above may apply to more than just Samsung, but when I switched to Android, I went straight to the Nexus, which lets you do anything at your leisure and/or peril.

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A little too rich for my blood.

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Same... especially with the rapid depreciation. My $650 N6 is now worth about 200 bucks. I'll probably stay at least a cycle behind for the foreseeable future. I can't imagine anything performing that much better that it would justify the cost.