I do not own an iPhone.

I own a MOTORAZR.
My poor phone has had its balls unceremoniously removed by my wireless carrier. Yes, I admit, I have Verizon.

My Verizon contract is expiring in November. Since the standard cell contract is 2 years, I have been shopping for not only a new phone but a new carrier. I'm going to be graduating with this phone, and this carrier. Verizon got me when I was graduating high school. They were appealing on plan cost, "in" calling. I didn't care much about phones or features. Times have changed. I'm addicted to the internet, I need e-mail at my beck and call, IM available at all times...just in case. My life is ruled by Microsoft exchange. I'd really like to have that calendar at easy access.
My iPod is beginning to die out. Bad battery, freezing hard drive...it's out of warranty. Why buy two devices when I can get one? Unfortunately the only "one" device is the iPhone. There are a few that come close in cool. And given the type of people who've jumped on the iPhone...I've really been trying to avoid buying an iPhone.

So I've been looking for my transition phone on the eve of the release of Apple's next massive lifestyle addon. And HOO-Boy, it's hard to avoid.

However there are several other phones available on the market (Closed source/proprietary OS phones only...I have yet to see hide or hair of a LiMo or Android phone) with compelling feature sets.

This excludes the Windows Mobile and Blackberry phones. I don't know why, but it always feels like these phones are trying to violate my corneas in incredibly inappropriate ways. SO! I ignore them.

The LG Dare: 4 Cool points.
The LG Dare is an all touch screen feature phone. I think it is of note because it is the only phone I have seen that has a concept resembling a desktop, and not just a collection of shortcuts. The "dumped" look of the icons on the "desktop" is very interesting, and very indicative of the amount of eyecandy the phone presents. The phone uses the same mobile e-mail app as most Verizon phones. It also has its balls removed, like most Verizon phones. The calendar is passable by itself, but it doesn't sync to...anything. The e-mail app on the touch phone doesn't provide the most compelling interface, since it's just an update of the old app to use touch interaction, but it serves well. The screen is very bright and clear and the touch is very responsive. But in the pure-touch contest it can't compete with the Samsung Instinct or the iPhone, it just doesn't have the features those do.

The LG Voyager: 6 Cool points.
The Voyager is a dual screen phone carried by Verizon. There is a touch screen on the front allowing access to the phone, contacts list, some other features. It does a very good job here, the phone is very easy to use. To use any of the advanced features like the browser or the text client, you simply FLIP the phone open to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard and another GREAT screen. This one's not touch though. Aside from the interface differences (The keyboard, the dual screen) this one doesn't have anything on the Dare. The Dare I used at the store actually had the e-mail app installed, the Voyager didn't. The phone actually loses there. The Voyager does have several cool points on the Dare, simply by virtue of its unique interface.

The Samsung Instinct: 8 Cool points.
This phone is seriously one of the coolest things I've ever held in my hands, next to girl-parts. This is another all touch screen phone. It has a very large screen, a bit smaller than the iPhone's, but larger than pretty much everything else on the market. Even those eye-porking blackberries. The colors are smooth, the screen is great...even for video. The browser is marginally better than the Verizon standard browser. The phone also has a pretty-ok music player and a standard headphone jack. Which serves my purposes well. I love the interface on the phone, the menus are very intuitive, the keyboard is surprisingly good, the phone app is slick. The haptic feedback is done quite well, it's present but not obnoxious. Sometimes it lags a little bit when switching layouts or moving between applications but it's still better than anything Apple's done. The e-mail application on the phone configures almost effortlessly to work with Outlook Web Access, but doesn't sync to the calendar. The lack of calendar sync is really the ONLY thing I don't like about the phone. Since they're scraping OWA already it'd be pretty inconsequential for Samsung/Sprint to hook this into the calendar, much like the Evolution Linux e-mail client. Unfortunately the platform the phone runs on is closed so no one can write a bridge...Samsung will have to do it, and they really ought to do this, if they want to compete with the iPhone. And WOAH they want to compete with the iPhone.

Apple iPhone 3G: 9 Cool points.
This phone has been written and talked about ad-nauseum. I'll keep it short. Think of the Samsung Instinct: now make it a little wider, taper the edges, brighten the interface, add calendar synchronization to Exchange, add some more applications on the phone by default, remove the haptic feedback, double the maximum storage capacity (but remove the expandability), and add an SDK. The iPhone uses a heat sensitive screen for its touch, not pressure like most of the touch phones on the market, slight difference but given the SDK people could actually use this. Also add that it's an Apple product, and everything that comes along with that.
...Turtlenecks, berets, inability to upgrade computer hardware, a strange desire to round all the corners on websites, goatees...


So there is the not quite objective review of feature phones. Despite my very strong desire to NOT like the iPhone, it still wins on cool...but only barely beyond the Instinct. Unfortunately Apple's always going to have the upper hand since the phone runs OS X under the hood and that allows for the robust SDK. A proprietary platform like the Instinct's will never compete with this. Samsung's only move would be to adopt LiMo or Android. (*wink*) I have reserved the 10/10 cool point rating for a phone like the Samsung Instinct running an open platform. An unencumbered phone WILL beat the iPhone...because OSS developers will make it so.

--PXA