I'm sure you're not alone. People make fun in this thread, but there were definitely legitimate Samsung users who wanted the sd card and removable battery and now the option is gone. While the average consumer most probably doesn't know or care, there will definitely be people considering the competition like yourself.
I'm with you on the "ios hurdle"...I love the ipad but I don't think I could go back to the iPhone. Will probably stick with the g3 until another android phone strikes my fancy.
I was honestly expecting HTC for their 3rd gen of the One M9 to shake things up.
they had potential. They had hype. They had leaked renders of devices that people were literally drooling over.
And then they announced a device that looked and fundamentally was identical to the M8, with bug fixes. they fixed the camera and made it average and on par with current makers, and upgraded the internals to todays standards for Android, which will put it on par with performance of this generation.
but outside of that, the things that grab attention, they did absolutely zero new. people wanted an updated design to make the device more reasonable for the display. they changed nothing. same black HTC bar with no purpose. same size borders around the same 1080p display.
think about it. if you were a consumer today and you heard "HTC" and went to the store to buy a phone.
you were shown the M8 for .99 on contract or the M9 for 199.99 on contract, there is virtually NOTHING in the M9 to sell itself over the m8. In fact, an uneducated consumer would likely go for the cheaper, m8, because it is cheaper, and hey, it has TWO cameras on the back!