I agree with everyone that's saying Motorola. I've lined my Motorola smartphone up against an HTC Thunderbolt and an iPhone, and the Motorola always had better signal, even in the basement of my inlaws' lake house in the country in Wisconsin.
I've used both the RAZR HD and the RAZR MAXX HD. From the regular RAZR HD, I would get 36 hours of battery life. In my opinion, if you're on a budget, that phone is wonderfully awesome. The battery was never a problem for me.
If you have the extra coin, or need the additional internal memory (32GB in the MAXX HD, 16GB in the regular HD), or you are a super-user, then the MAXX HD would be your choice.
(oh, btw, I have my regular RAZR HD for sale currently here in our classifieds
)
Personally, I LOVE both phones!