I can give you my opinions on my 17 Colorado Z71 for your consideration. I've now owned it for 2 years (was a loaner the dealership sold to me in June 2018 with 3K miles as a new vehicle, never titled). Mine is 2WD and has the long bed, but it should give you a general impression as to what the new ones will be like.
The 3.6 V6 is a good powerplant and has given me zero problems. It has decent power and torque. The 8 speed tranny I am not so fond of however. At around 25K miles I was having shifting issues and it had to be serviced and fluid and filter changed. This was an issue with the 17 models and has been updated to a different fluid according to the dealer and is what they did with mine. Another thing I don't like about the tranny is the shift points the electronics pick for it. Sometimes it seems that it will run the revs up way past you would expect a shift point to be, mostly when you are accelerating slowly to highway speed. Harder acceleration seems to be fine on the shift points though. Another thing that bugs me is when you set up to manually shift; your choice of gears is more of a suggestion than a command to the electronics that control the shifting. The fit and finish on the whole vehicle is pretty decent and the front seats fit me decently. On the Z71 package, the seats are leather trimmed with a durable cloth in the middle of them. The heated seats heat up very quickly and have multiple heat levels as well as heating the whole seat or just the seat back.
As far as mileage goes, it averages around 19-20 mpg running at 75-80 mph on the Interstate. I do have 18 inch tires on mine; they had upgraded them at the dealership when they decided to sell it. With the stock 17 inch tires your mileage might be better.
I also had a Line-X bed liner installed at the Line-X dealer in Lafayette, LA shortly after buying my truck; well worth the cost and it's protecting the bed just fine.
Overall, I like my Colorado just fine. I don't lose much room inside as compared to a full size truck and it's a bit easier to maneuver and park compared to a full size truck. I also like the fact that is doesn't have a turbo in it too.
When I bought this truck, the Ford Ranger wasn't in production. I did look at the Tacoma and the Toyota has much less interior leg room for the back seat as compared to the Colorado. I also looked at the Frontier and it felt dated and they didn't have any V6 versions in stock.
I can give you some impressions on what the turbo 4 engine in the Ford is like though. That 2.3 Ecotec motor is based off technology that Ford and Mazda jointly developed in the 2000's with the Mazdaspeed DISI turbo 4s used in the Mazdaspeed 6 and Mazdaspeed 3. I owned an 07 Mazdaspeed 6 from 07 until I bought my Colorado. The 2.3 Ecotec is the direct descendant of that Mazda motor. In my Speed 6, that motor would come on like gangbusters after about 2500 rpm and pull like crazy to around 6-6.5K, then fall off. The way it made power reminded me of some of the 2 stroke motorcycles I owned in my youth, like "coming on the pipe". I did find that spark plug life was shorter than expected, with me having to do plug changes around 40K miles, but it was easy enough for me to do myself. When I traded the car in, I had around 150,000 miles on the odometer and had no real problems with the motor bedsides shorter plug life. They turbo gave no problems.
Hope this helps you out in your decision making.
EDIT: Here is my truck as it sits now, after adding the Roll-N-Lock bed cover and the brush guard.
