[Motorola Droid Bionic] wanderfowl:
I know there's been a lot of discussion of recent handsets, given that the Bionic was the first of a flurry of next-generation phones, made all the worse by Motorola's steadfast refusal to hand us the keys to our phone and the various software issues they've so far completely failed to address. Given all that, it's very easy to down on the Bionic or feel suckered.

But where's the love for the Bionic?

I've been offered a different handset (as the software issues on the Bionic have been killing me) by VzW, offered the Razr, Rezound, and if I'm willing to wait, even the GNex. But as I've been considering that, I've realized that the Bionic really is the sweet spot for me.

We're quite nearly as fast as the Razr, same other specs, none of Moto's rubbish Smart Actions, and we can replace our batteries or get an extended battery. Not to mention that we'll be getting the bugfix release sooner than they will, so likely, our network drops will be fixed first.

The HTC Rezound is a great phone, but it's thicker than the Bionic, and that's without the (still unannounced) extended battery. It's also slowed down by HTC Sense, and they (as of last I checked) still don't even have root. It's got a beautiful screen, and a slight speed bump, but not much else on us.

The Galaxy Nexus LTE hasn't even been released yet, but we know that it won't have an SD Card slot (and thus, won't ever support 64GB cards as the Bionic already does), and that the sound quality from the speakers is very quiet, especially compared to Motorola's speakers. We also know that we can get good battery life, and that our extended battery actually fits the phone nicely versus their (still not announced) batteries. They've got a nicer screen, NFC, and likely a nicer camera, but at the end of the day, if you need extended batteries and extended storage, the Bionic is all you've got.

But, the Nexus Bootloader is unlocked. That's the main temptation for me to go over there, and for many of us, it's a sine qua non. That said, that's something that's well within Motorola's power to fix, either intentionally, by accident, or "by accident". They likely won't, but hey, there's hope. And even now, there's a growing ROM-building community, which will likely only grow larger as the software issues are fixed and ICS nears.

Of course, the software issues are huge, and I don't mean to excuse Motorola's massive screwup there. Motorola has really screwed us over with the software on this phone, and their refusal to unlock the damned bootloaders is huge. But hopefully they'll learn and improve the software from there.

In short, in the Bionic, we've got plenty of (expandable) storage, good speakers, a reasonable extended battery, good cases, promises of ICS, and a chipset that can keep up with anything on the market.

It's not perfect, but nothing ever is. For some of you, the other phones may offer something better, and more power to you, but for people like me who like large battery and storage capacity, even after this latest glut of releases, the Bionic will still be the best choice. It's not a dead headset, surpassed and unworthy of development. It's not been replaced by, well, anything, it's just one good option among other options.

So, if you're one of the people like me for whom the Bionic really still is the best phone on the market, hang in there, and don't let the haters get you down.