So I'm going to give Android another chance on a phone, Nexus 4 on the way. 

Any must have Android apps for a phone?

Llama (hacker's choice. Quirky. Very powerful)
Jort calendar (offline google calendar management)

Disclaimer: just passing along from Louise's phone.

Using Jort as well And MoonReader+ (good when lying awake in bed). File Manager of course: does wifi.
And Buienalarm(.nl) but that's very Dutch........

ConnectBot for SSH and Real VNC's VNC Viewer for, er...

Ah Jort, good I have used that before and forgot about it.  Much better than the stock calendar .

I hear from Rooftop Dolphin browser is good.    And somebody told me about Go Messenger as a good replacement for the stock messenger, long ago.

opera mobile ...but only because i can't get icab.

I'm still rather fond of Opera.

not to hijack the thread but opera was what I could make work most like a desktop.  ...except when it smells gmail, then it goes into full-blown-app-apeshit mode like the others.

I've found on my Android booting Touchpad that I prefer the individual email apps from Yahoo! And Gmail better than the native email app.  I suspect this will still be true with the phone.

I have to say that based on my experience with the Androided tablet mentioned above, that Android apps have improved tremendously since I last had a Android phone back in 2011.

• Feedly RSS reader
• Instabridge share WiFi login info
• LastPass for all your passwords
• Wifi Analyzer check local signals
• inSSIDer wireless network scanner
• Orbot: Tor on Android
• Orweb: Proxy+Privacy Browser for use with Orbot
• Gibberbot: Secure Messaging
• Prey Anti-Theft

Not for just android but I really like appygeek to be kept informed of the main news floating about
http://www.mobilesrepublic.com/appygeek-en/

Thanks for all the suggestions.  You guys helped a lot!

The phone is really fast.  No problems no lags.  Screen is stunning.  I'm liking pure Android.

Jury is still out for more testing, but the antenna may not be quite as good as the iPhone 4S.  Hard to say.

I've always gone for pure android.
But if you want more bling and functionality then this is pretty good - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gau.go.launcherex&hl=en
They have extra addons too

But then I'm sure Facebook Home will be the next craze

SAMSUNG IS SELLING SO MANY SMARTPHONES THAT ITS CHIP DIVISION CAN'T KEEP UP

http://bgr.com/2013/04/12/samsung-smartphone-sales-memory-chips-431181/

I really like Gesture Search, nice quiet and fast.  And because I always feel stupid talking to my phone.

YouMail is working for free, third party, visual voice mail.

QR Droid is a great app for scanning QR codes, making QR codes and just about anything to do with QR codes. Fast.

Zite, News Republic and Appy Geek are good for news.