I would never go for any other touch phone other than the iPhone. The iPhones have had a lot of bad rep as have most phones, but id have to agree with what hoot says... How do I know what the new android phone out is? There's so many these days. I started with the t-mobile G1 back in 08 and I mist say, I much preferred it to the iPhone for ease of use and slide out qwerty keyboard. However at the time, iPhone were still relatively the new kids on the block in mobile technology (Phone wise) but since then I think iPhone have truly and wholeheartedly upped their game with the generations released up to the iPhone 4. iPhone 4, as much of a bad rep it got in terms of looks and faulty signals for the anti-anberdextrious, iPhone 4 in my personal honest opinion is, and will be for a long time, a cut above the rest of the smart touch phone competitors.
Give me a smart touch phone to compare with the iPhone 4 and I will give my honest opinion in comparison. I am in no way an iPhone famboy, I'm open to all touchphones up and coming, I just haven't come across a phone that has wowed me as much as the iPhone did!
My 2 cents 
(wrote this on my girlfriends iPhone!)
"How do I know what the new android phone out is?" -
Apple has brainwashed people into thinking new > functional ... which just ins't the case.
When you ask "Why is the iPhone a good phone?" to the consumers... a lot of the answers are "it's just better..." , "it feels better..." "it's cooler..." no real facts. Above is a perfect example.
The facts:
Camera: Camera quality on a phone doesn't matter. If you understand what the specs of the camera are, you're likely not using a phone to take pictures. If you're using it for general use, mega pixels, lens, shutter speeds, and other buzz words just sound nice as long as they're big numbers.
Memory: Memory should be up to the user... yeah you can buy a 32G iPhone, but what happens when you buy the 8G and want more space later? Gotta buy a new phone. All other smart phones support external memory, and there's no reason not to.
Flash: Apple is partially right about Flash not being "needed." HTML 5 can achieve most of what Flash does, but not ALL. And most websites haven't accommodated for this shift. Even so, why block it from the device all together? Firefox 4 isn't going to have the Flash plug-in included in the download, but you can still add it later if you want.
Materials: Glass is not a rugged or cheap material at all. It makes the device more expensive (on consumer side) and more fragile. The two biggest issues with any phone...They're expensive and break easily. To be honest, the best phone I've ever owned was a Nokia GoPhone from Walmart. It costs $25 and was washed, went for a swim, was dropped several times and even run over in the 4 years I had it. I can still call people on it.
UI: One constant on all touch phones today minus Windows Phone 7 is that psudo-button, slider, click-selection method. Why on earth would a UI simulate physical buttons in a virtual UI? If I can't feel it, it's not a button. Also, the method of clicking a single selection, waiting for a new page load and repeating the process is a primitive UI concept designed for a mouse on a desktop. A multi-touch surface opens the door to much more creative and innovative solutions when it comes to users getting the information they want. The best UI solutions I've seen were for ads. but i guess that's where the money is.
