Hey, Android users! Your phone OS is a mess; a jumble of parts, inexpertly put together. Equally, so, so many Android phones look like they've been put together out of offcut bits of action figure plastic, designed by a three year old. Even then, when you buy them, you'd better get used to getting no updates at all, because that's the way things are.

Mind you, Apple, you're no better, with your overpriced phones that lack innovation and try to get by on "claiming" new features while blocking older iPhones from getting features they could easily run. But I'd better be quiet now; I know you've got hefty teams of lawyers waiting to pounce on any idea and claim it as your own.

Windows Phone 8? Don't make me laugh.

Blackberry? It's more like crying, not that anybody is.

Right, now that everyone with a smartphone has grabbed a pitchfork, lit one end up of their phone (be careful with those plastic fumes!) and is descending on my mad reviewer's lab to string me up, I should point out that the above is gross exaggeration. I don't think that way.

I'll repeat that slowly, just because.

I don't think that way.

So why say it? I'm not that much of a troll, am I?

I'd like to think not, but if you read the responses to just about any phone review, or for that matter commentary on the state of the smartphone market, you'll find those sentiments -- or some very similar -- popping up all the time. It's simply not possible, in the view of the most ardent fans, for a review that's even the slightest bit critical (or even just analytical) to be anything but the result of deep ingrained bias.

I've clearly got it in for every single company, while simultaneously being on the payroll of all of them as well.

Just think about that for a second. I suppose it could be technically lucrative... for all of a nanosecond. It simply wouldn't work.

The reality, at least as far as I write articles and reviews, is that yes, I do have some personal biases, same as any writer. They're not hard to spot; I like functionality over pretty design, but I'd prefer both. I prefer a smaller, more powerful phone, but that dream it seems is quickly getting away from me. I use just about everything out there on a weekly basis; about the only phone operating environment that actively annoyed me was Symbian, and that's much more because Nokia grimly stuck it onto some excellent phone designs while keeping it up to date with an operating idea that never really jumped beyond about 2005.

But that's just me; I don't see too many Symbian smartphones landing on my desk to review these days, but I do hit plenty of the rest. A review should have a degree of objectivity to it, but at the same time it's also going to have a degree of opinion, often flavoured delicately depending on the target market for that review. Don't expect something appearing in Atomic to be identical to something in The Women's Weekly, by way of example.

Ultimately, even if you disagree with a review, the first step shouldn't be to assume bias or payola on the part of the writer -- or at least not me, anyway; I can't speak for absolutely everyone. It's perfectly acceptable -- polite, even -- to simply disagree with somebody else.

Oh my.

I'm trying to argue for civility on the Internet again. Darn.

You'd think I'd learn.

Back to your rancid mudslinging, everyone; I'll just be in the corner being irritable about it all, although I'm sure you'll think I'm secretly counting all the slush money I get from Microsoft, Apple and the rest...