I work as a tech at the largest finnish ISP and mobile provider so I deal with basically all phones in existence. Simple truth is, 95% of phone models out there are horrible, 4% is good and 1% is great.

My personal favourite is Nokia N95 8gb edition and I've had it for about 2 years now. I am considering changing to an N900 (Linux Maemo platform) next year. 

I don't have an iPhone. I suppose I'm excluded from the thread, too. 

Apparently not.
I'd love an iPhone, but my ancient handheld works ok, and i can't be arsed learning the new tech (same for OSX), and worring about busting it.

@Jago, thanks for the info. Maybe one day i'll get one of these. 

... 

Not having an iPhone I can accept but no mobile phone at all? I'm the opposite - I don't have a land line. 

Its VERY easy to use, the keys are massive, doesnt have USB, SMD or anything like that - has a camera but you need bluetooth to get the pictures off the phone.

Overall, at �25 or whatever it is very good value for money, very easy to use, reliable and as a "phone" it does exactly what it says on the tin..... 

I have a Nokia E71 smart phone which is very good. I use it frequently to check what's new on func. This post is written on the phone in fact. Things like google maps, car navigation, dictionary, and calendar in sync with computer are most usefull to me. 

... understand me correctly: I just get an iPhone yeterday, and yes I am happy... but it is not because you do not have iPhone that de facto you are excluded from this thread ;)
Far away from me to have this intention. I know some people do not like iPhone at all and prefer standard mobile... though... 

for electrical components, piezo elements and stuff... 

 

I have a Nokia E63 which I quite like. My wife just got a 5800 though, and I'm a bit jealous... 

Nicely designed, big keys, predictive text is designed by a fucking spastic and it doesn't save words you spell and save. 

 

have it for more than 3 years and it still looks as new, thanks to metal case and overall nice design. 

... the iPhone from the alternate first person perspective.

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy describes the MePhone as the logical extension of invention of the iPhone and a step back from the annoying second person perspective YouPhone and certainly less intrusive than the third-person based TheirPhone. And with better marketing. 

The only other phone I've owned, which had even worse predictive text, quite probably programmed in fucking Russian as it certainly didn't recognise a word of fucking English...

...Motorola SLVR L7. I wouldn't use it to stick up a hos ass let alone as a phone. 

when you are anally penetrating a lady of the night with a foreign object, that object must meet high industrial design standards. It's just one of those life rules. 

when you are anally penetrating a lady of the night with a foreign object, that object must meet high industrial design standards

... at least the lady will have fun if the vibrate is on :P 

Bonus points if she answers it and talks dirty to you during the happy ending. 

My verdict is as following:

Nokia N95 8gb: best enterprise phone with good PDA features
iPhone 3GS: best consumer phone with good PDA features
Nokia N900: best PDA/minicomputer with phone features

For what it is ment to be, the N900 is absolutely fantastic. The UI is smooth and easy to use, the screen is great, the web browser is essentially Firefox. The device is surprisingly powerful, I decided to see just what it would take to bring down this thing by opening everything and anything possible:

5 apps running: no change in performance
10 apps running: a tiny slowdown
20 apps running: the device is now rather sluggish
40 apps running: the device still runs but is _SLOW_
40 apps running + 1 incoming SMS: the device crashed and rebooted itself :) 

I can't see any human mortal being having the need of 40 apps running at the same time on his phone... or then this guy is a mutant :P 

You ain't going to be running 40 applications on a phone/PDA simultaneously under normal circumstances (most likely you wouldn't be doing that on a full-blown PC either), but it's nice to know that you can. It shows the hardware performance potential. 

an iPhone myself. I can't see myself going back to any other phone because their UI systems were all braindead. I tried Siemens, Nokia and Samsung. The Nokia UI was the best, but it was still completely idiotic - menu structures etc. Sometimes I looked for a setting and even though I knew it was there, I could not find it in the menus. Might be different nowadays though. My only gripe with the iPhone is its lack of speed (I have a 3G), but I guess that's taken care of with the 3GS now. 

Question that's been bugging me recently; (and yes I know I could google this, I will in a second in fact).

Is it possible to jailbreak an iPhone to work with any random mobile SIM that has support for web access/phone calls/etc?

I only ask due to the dumb exclusivity deal that O2 have in the UK and their exhorbitant tariff pricing on it. 

OK, ignore me. Found them.

And I thought the tariff's were overpriced...