Sprint or Verizon?

[destrekor]

I have an Evo now, and had several HTC phones in the past dating back to WinMo days. I've never been happy with HTC hardware build quality, battery life, and overall hardware. My poor Evo is squeaky, the screen is coming off, bad backlight bleed, and the GPS will cut out if you're using the speakerphone due to EMI. Software support -- especially for Android -- has been pretty good, however.

I think Motorola or LG would be good bets in the near future. I seem to recall that Moto was promising unlocked bootloaders from now on (easy root and thusly custom ROM), and LG has usually made good phones, though I have no idea what their high-end lineup is.

I don't think the unlimited data plan is going to be around till late summer. I've read as early as May 15, and as late as mid July.

Agreed.

I've heard most HTC owners support the statement that build quality is generally abysmal. I mean, holding an HTC phone, and holding my Droid... I shudder to think of how these things would stand up to what my Droid has. Oh I baby this thing, but due to the fact it goes everywhere I go, well clumsiness is in my nature, which is odd considering how much I visually pay attention to my surroundings. That and I think I get too comfortable with my devices after awhile... I baby them when new, but after a few months the first drop occurs. After that it goes downhill... I think seeing them survive the first fall and generally accepting it's no longer perfect anymore has an impact.... I digress.

While other Motorola phones have felt lighter than the Droid, they still have a good heft to them.

Motorola does tend to make reliable hardware. That's the trend I've noticed through all the Motorola phones I've owned in the past, versus other brands, Samsung being the flashiest but not as consistent in overall reliability but hardware-wise being a little more consistent in comparison, but less-so than Motorola, by far... especially today. I never originally looked at phones by brand, not that specifically (I shied away from some for sure, Kyocera anyone?), usually just went with that seemed to be "the one" I was looking for.

Lately, I've been focusing on Motorola because their efforts on Verizon have been perfectly filling in my category of "the one."
The Droid Bionic, for instance, was destined to be The One... and I was almost going to accept the locked bootloader, if only because my contract is up now and I want 4G and all that hardware... though I would have held out if the unlimited plan was still going on at that point, as I do want an unlocked phone.
But now I'm just confused. Going to have to take a broader look instead of focusing on Motorola. Some rumors seem to be pointing to some phones packing a punch with hardware, but other factors are still chief concerns. Gotta weed through some awesome-sounding phones to find the one truly perfect one.