I wouldn't say LG and HTC are the cheapest phones you can get. The parent comment recommended Samsung S series or the Sony Xperia series, which are $700-$900 phones which is squarely in iPhone territory.
I'm using the Sony Xperia XZ1 compact, a truly excellent device which launched around $580 USD and which I bought new for $450 last year. It's a bit cheaper than the non-compact version that more people know about, but has all the same specs and internals, just a smaller size and smaller screen. After a full year of use and updates it doesn't seem any slower than when I bought it, and because it has a microSD slot I will never run out of space.