Something that’s only just occurred to me (as I post my last long-form to social media and disappear into the noise) is, of course, devices that run other things entirely.

Mozilla have been pushing Firefox OS as a great thing for phones.

Canonical are trying to crowdfund (and I suspect they’ll just succeed) the development of the Ubuntu Edge device.

The charred, Elop’d remnants of the once-great Symbian OS.

Maemo.

MeeGo.

Ye gods, they’ve proliferated. And it’s definitely a good idea to check out any and every one of these to see how closely they fit with what you want if you’re picking a phone.