My friend..This is a hands down win when it comes to the usuability of a smartphone. What you must understand is those smackdowns will always be biased against Android products. But the things that make the photon a clear winner.
1. Superior build quality and look
2. Evo3d is horrible when it comes to speaker quality and this is a known FACT!!
3. Audio quality from the jack almost matches CD quality
4. FACT - Evo suffers from connection issues both 3g and 4g
5. Photon screen is much better
6. Battery last longer
7. Thinner and lighter than a 2nd generation Evo
8. Camera and Video quality is superior to Evo 3d
9. Video audio quality matches Samsung.
These are all tested FACTS my friend and I am a DIEHARD HTC EVO phone but I took the 3d back because i had much buyers remorse. With the Photon I have none.
First, I've had an issue free EVO 3D since launch day. 2nd, where is the bias u speak of? The comparison was of two Android phones. 3rd, the readers choice poll greatly disagrees with your sentiment. Seems quite a few people out there believe the 3D is sprint's best right now. There's also a would you return your 3D and get a photon poll, and again the overwhelming majority disagrees with you. Personally, with the dual core class of phones I don't think it'll be possible to label one as the best. Specs and performance will be about the same, each device will do some things a lil better or worse than the others. You can still get the best phone for YOU though, which is what makes Android great.
1. Build quality is fine, are there some lemons out there? Sure, but that's true of all mass produced products. There are people in this forum whose phones are randomly rebooting, freezing up etc. Does that mean photon build quality is terrible too? As far as look goes, that's a subjective thing, don't see how that can be a plus or minus. We all like different things. I personally don't like the cut off edges on the photon, prefer the more uniform look of the 3D.
2. Speaker isn't horrible, I think that's a bit much. While It's not as loud as the original EVO, music to me sounds more crisp and clear. Besides, there are apps in the market that u can use to improve volume, change bass, treble, reverb etc. The problem is software, not hardware.
3. Audio quality is fine, my songs sound as good on the EVO 3D as they do on my car stereo. I haven't seen anything anywhere about people complaining about quality. The big issue has been volume.
4. I don't know where all the people with connection and reception issues are located, but here in NYC 3g and 4g work great. All the places I got full bars with my EVO 4G, I get full bars with my EVO 3D. Complaints from people in rural areas or places that Sprint just turned on 4G mean nothing. Now if you've got people in well covered metropolitan areas like NYC, Philadelphia etc returning the phone in droves because of connection/reception issues then you have a story.
5. Better screen? Again that's a subjective thing for the most part and being that I haven't used a photon I can't make a judgment either way. However I have noticed alot of photon users complaining about the screen, I believe there's even a complaint thread about it in this forum which tells me that there is no consensus about the screen being so much better in ur words.
6. Battery life - Everyone has different usage so there is pretty much no way to quantify this. Both phones can be dead in 5hrs or go 12+ hrs, depends on who's using them.
7. While thinner and lighter may be a pro to you, it may be a con to others. Leave Personal preferences out and stick to FACTS. Tell me something that out of the box the photon can do that the 3D can't. Or something that the photon does so much better. Answer : nothing. They're both top of the line devices with similar specs which is why in the video, neither vastly outdid the other. The only reason the differences are noticeable is because they were side by side.
As far as 8 and 9 that may be true but I think for a smartphone the camera and camcorder capabilities and more than adequate. I wouldn't be recording anything of real importance (graduation, child birth, wedding) on a camera phone anyway, Id use a real camera.
As I said before, both are great. Each will do something a bit better or faster than the other. at the end of the day however, neither is a bad choice.