Nexus 5 was not a tank in my experience.

On mine the plastic frame cracked between the power button and the volume control (I think a reasonably common problem with this phone, I've never had a frame crack on any other phone). After that one button gets stuck on, which makes phone cycle reboot - OK - I can workaround that. Then the microphone went bad: that is caused by the crack causing pressure on the micro-connector which causes an electrical issue. That wasted more time and eventually my workaround for that issue failed.

I have had close experience with 5 different Nexus devices, and 4 of the 5 had nasty failure modes.

The Nexus line has been far less reliable than the iOS devices I have had experience with, and all the Apple devices got far more security updates over their useful life. Note: I usually use Android phones and iPad tablets (although I have also personally had iPhones and Android tablets).

The Nexus 5 is one of my favorite devices for PostmarketOS (project to get sustainable mainline Linux on smartphones and tablets): https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Google_Nexus_5_(lg-hammer...

I loved mine, I'd still be using it if I could have found one that didn't have motherboard issues. It was a pinnacle of industrial design and I'm sad that smartphone designs have moved away from it.

Pixel 2 XL, since I also had to stop using a Nexus 7 at the same time and I didn't want to have to deal with not having a large screen to read on. It's been good so far. I haven't had any issues with the lack of a headphone jack, mostly because that jack was also the one part of the Nexus 5 that'd also failed so I was already on bluetooth-only. I upgraded about eight months after the release so they'd hammered out the QC issues on the screen. I see some black smears when I'm scrolling over pictures with black backgrounds on dark themes with the brightness all the way down in a dark room, but that's not something I'd call an issue. The real problem is actually the curved screen, which is sensitive to touch all the way out to the bezel a millimeter or two around the side of the phone, so I get a few misclicks a month when my palm hits the side of the screen while I'm trying to type. I get about two days of battery out of it despite heavy use while I'm on the subway to and from work. It does not feel a sturdy as my Nexus 5, and the screen is not as nice to read on as the Nexus 7 was; the aspect ratio is far too tall. It's definitely better than my old Droid Incredible, though I still miss the physical keyboard. I don't know if it'll be as good as the Nexus 5. It's so far only a sixth as old.

OnePlus phones (originally replaced N5 with a OnePlus 3 .. now upgraded to 6T) .. they have the same "flagship killer" ethos of the original N5