I need a new phone, as I've stated before. I use a Motorola e815 and generally like it, but if I have to buy another phone (I have to replace one for my daughter) I thought I'd check out Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Motorola, and so on. I spent hours on this yesterday and came away disgusted.

I tried the Blackberry 8130, and I liked its size and form factor. The typing for text messages was pretty great even with two keys per button -- I did have trouble finding the period when doing a web address, but I assume with a few minutes practice it would be second nature. The browser on it, however, totally sucked. It was the worst of any of the smart phones I tried. It didn't even render the whole page -- let alone render it in any way resembling readable. I'd love to have ssh access to my linux boxes with it, but the way rendering is handled I can't see doing anything real with it. It also would cost me another $40 a month to have it on the Blackberry network so I could have it hit my BES and thus get my own Notes mail.

I tried the LG Voyager - its big and thick, and it promises a big screen with touch controls, but the browser didn't do the job and the touch screen was so insensitive that I couldn't comfortably use it. It felt half-functional and bulky.

I tried the LG VX-Envy - it does have a keyboard so text messaging would be better, but they ruin it by using fully half the open size where a nice wide browser screen could be with a pair of bad stereo speakers.

There was only one phone I tried all day that was exciting. Yeah, it was the iPhone. I hate myself for buying into the hype, but the truth is in 5 minutes of using it I was totally blown away by its form and function. It rendered web sites extremely well - even using AJAX to pull in the comments on my blog site. The touch screen was intuitive and friendly even to my thick fingers, and the size was small and thin enough to carry around. Verizon doesn't carry it and won't be any time soon and I'm not switching to AT&T for it - coverage here is too weak, and I'm not giving up my internal EV-DO rev. A. for anyone. If Verizon carried this thing, I'd have paid cash for it yesterday.

Blackberry, LG, Samsung, Motorola, and Palm -- listen up. Apple has indeed raised the bar here so much higher than you're even close to getting near -- and on their FIRST TRY -- that I'm disgusted by the rest of you. You should be embarrassed by the half measures you've been getting away with. I'm not an Apple fan boy either. I prefer XP to OSX, use linux only through the command line, and carry a Zen Vision M instead of an iPod. Still, Apple's phone product is so clearly and fully superior to the crap the rest of you are pushing out that you should be ashamed.