Opinions on Android phones on the market right now?

It’s upgrade time and I want to retire my archaic S5. I only want to get an android phone (that’s Verizon capable) and I’m looking at the:
Galaxy S8
Google Pixel
LG G6
HTC U11 (coming in June)

Any opinions? I see that for the S8 they gave it a curved screen and took away the home button and that sounds kind-of annoying. Perhaps previous-gen galaxy users can speak to the transition?

The Google Pixel is my least favorite, aesthetically speaking. Having such a small screen on a phone with no home button is just irritating. It reminds me of an old apartment I lived in that had a 4 extra feet of wall making it more annoying to walk from the hallway into the living room lol. I know the camera is supposed to be amazing but I hear the other options have good cameras too.

One thing that’s important to me is battery life. There are often days where I leave my apartment before 8AM and don’t get back until after 10PM because of class. I can charge at work or during class of course, but if one of these phones has a significantly worse battery life that’s important for me to know.

I should mention I don’t care about VR, and apparently the HTC U11 is going the way of apple and it only has one jack for all functions (usb-c)