You know I love some good Android hype, and a phone as slick as the Droid (it really doesn’t get its own name in the series?) is about as good a hype generator as anyone can expect at this point. Still, I’ve found something to complain about. No, I’m not going to insult the grid-style QWERTY. I’m back to rebate shenanigans. A while back, in a post over at PhoneDog, I said that I would cease to mention my detest of rebates, but that was months ago: Rant on.

Does everybody here understand how much I hate mail-in rebates? That I think they are nothing but bait to get you in the store/on the website and an excuse to charge you extra? And that I firmly believe every single company that offers rebates will do absolutely anything in their power to avoid paying out? O.K., I just wanted to make sure we were clear on that.

It turns out that Verizon’s Droid is not $199 on contract on November 6th, as the big print tells you. It’s $299, and, if you’re lucky, you’ll eventually get a gift/debit card with $100 bucks on it. This whole thing could be legit, I suppose. But I’ve been burned too many times and I will never recover. I’m looking at you, carrier(s). Still the phone is pretty hot. Good thing BestBuy takes care of all that rebate mess.

Anyway, check out Noah’s first impressions of Droid and Android 2.0.