Alright Vizzed community. Need some opinions from you guys. I am thinking of upgrading to an actual smartphone through one of the main cellphone carriers. (Used a cheap phone with a cheap carrier before). I am hoping to get one of the latest phones without needing to pay more than $25 a month on the phone (This is a current baseline, but I might change it to $30 if I have to). If you have one of the latest phones or if you have a good knowledge of some of the latest phones, tell me which one you think is the best phone to get. I accept both fandom answers and unbiased answers as long as they provide detailed support in their posts.

I would suggest getting a phone in the line that I've been using for the past 15 months and that's a Nokia Lumia. I had the very first one, the Lumia 520 for a year and got the 635 last month. I don't really know about may places that offer $25 a month, you're talking about the service, right? Not the actual phone?

Neither of the ones I have are actually new, the one I have now was released about a year ago, but its still really good, it comes with Windows 8.1, Cortana, and more importantly if you write a lot, it comes with Microsoft Office for free, as in word, excel, and I believe a PowerPoint viewer. If you write a lot, I would suggest this because you can do documents wherever you are and have it directly sync to any windows PC or email instantly.

The only problems I had with my old phone were un updates apps closing randomly and the occasional slowness, but that was an old phone model after a year, so all the newer ones are really good, and cheap I might add. The one I just got last month I bought at Best Buy with ATT Go Phone and it was $50 straight up for the phone, and its pre paid, meaning there's no contract, you can just buy the phone itself and buy talk text, and web whenever you want. The prices for talk text and web might be a bit rough though depending on what you want.

You could probably give me a list of everything you would want in a phone and ill tell you the pros and cons.

If you're looking for the best bang for your buck, then I would have to suggest the Moto G. 
It's prepaid and everything, and still functions just like a top-of-the-line phone. 

Otherwise, if you don't have money limits, then I'm gonna shriek and say to get the Nexus 6. (or 5, at the very least.)
That, or maybe Moto X, last time I checked that phone it was pretty dope.

As for the plans...
I can't exactly help you on that since I live in Canada and I assume practically everyone else here are American.
However, the prepaid plans should be around in that price range... should...

Snow's right, but don't roll with the prepaid idea. Republic Wireless costs $25 (not including tax) for unlimited talk, text, and 3g data (runs off the sprint network). I've been using it for over a year now, had exactly 0 problems with it, and still love using it.

https://republicwireless.com/