If you had an old PC lying around spare, or could get your hands on a working one from the local dump, you could run Droid KitKat on that instead and do your test cycles there. If you do decide to go for a new phone, I was recently tasked with choosing a new mobile phone for myself. Here's my experience:
Having had all the "geeky" phones in the past, my most recent oldie being the N900 Nokia, I decided it was time I tried out something a little more socially acceptable this time. I couldn't believe the rubbish companies were churning out, bigger screen this, more memory or widgets that, all I really wanted was something that rang and wouldn't get me thrown out the local pub if I tried to use it to call a taxi. After much testing, faffing around in phone shops, asking questions and reading reviews, I finally settled on the 1st Gen Moto G with LTE as being the best bang for buck out there just now, albeit it's one of those pesky, in my mind, "Android" devices. It's reasonably quick generally, has decent cameras front and back, a really good screen and feels great in the hand. Now don't get me wrong here, I dislike Motorola as a company, based on past experience with their Semi's, so choosing one of their end user products was difficult for me to justify in my head. I have only had the device for 3 Months, but so far it has exceeded my expectations in every way and is a real joy to use. In fact, I really don't know why I didn't do it sooner. No, I still haven't changed my mind about Motorola, but I feel like I may just have to accept that they really pulled a rabbit out the hat with this phone. At least now I'm one step up from rotary dialling, so to speak