iPhone the best? Which phones are close?

[bjb.butler]

This is a serious post, not trolling or flame bait.

Do you guys consider the iPhone the best phone on the market? If so, why?
What phones are there that you would consider close competitors, and where do they succeed/fall short?

 

[MasterTick]

The Palm Pre is the only serious competition.

 

[kuaizi8]

I'll try to keep this post very short. There is not a single competitor to the iPhone. The device is gorgeous, the OS is gorgeous, the App Store is gorgeous. I couldn't use anything else.

 

[Doju]

It is.

People get caught up in hardware. That's not the deal.

The iPhone has an incredibly powerful operating system and UI, however, unlike other phones, it comes with Apple's unique simplicity that makes doing these things NOT a headache.

Not only that, there's an app for anything. You discover another treasure every couple days.

Plus, if you have a Mac no other phone works with it better.

So all in all, killer UI, powerful, fast phone with the Apple touch. And you're always carrying an iPod.

 

[Doju]

Palm Pre may come close, or the Google phones (HTC Hero looks neat, if gimmicky and slightly too overdone aesthetically).

But, nothing on iPhone. I'd have one of those if I didn't have an iPhone. Blackberry is old tech that people hang onto because they ignore the future.

 

[maflynn]

As time goes on and the competitors start catching up, you're going to have even more selections on which phone is the best or closest competitor.

Right now the PRE is but there's a slew of Android phones getting ready to hit the market. Some of them look pretty cool and have great features.

 

[Morn]

Palm Pre.
The only phone that seems to be designed by a company that cares as much about the UI as Apple, after all the company is run by Jon Rubenstein himself, who used to run the iPod division at Apple.
However it's got a less capable javascript development platform, less capacity, has a tiny impossible to use physical keyboard, smaller screen.