My 2012 Verizon 4G cell phone died. What is a good cell phone to get?

[mr_lebowski]

2. Getting stuff off depends on just how dead it is ...

'Dead' can mean a variety of things.

Did you ever put an SD memory card in it? If so maybe your pics & stuff are on that, in which case you're golden, just pop it out and move it to the next phone.

If you ever plugged it into your PC via USB you may've backed them up at some point also. A lot of phones have an automated process to do so when plugged into a PC.

Check the Motorola phones, they have a few decent, inexpensive phones and if you buy one like on Amazon TTBOMK they are 'unlocked' and can be hooked up to your choice of carriers including Verizon. SOME phones on Amazon say 'unlocked' but have limited carriers, when this is the case, IIRC typically they'll work on AT&T and T-Mobile (these ones are unlocked but GSM networks only) but not Verizon (CDMA network).

Not sure WRT unlocked phones working on Sprint, but Sprint kinda sucks IMHO ...