[General Topics] snerkler:
Just thought I'd put my two penneth worth in as I'm having a similar dilemma.

Some of you will be aware that I have the iphone 3G, and due an upgrade. I have been considering the HD2 and the iphone 3GS. I am swaying towards the HD2, and here's why.

The iphone is an amazing phone, there's no doubting it. It does everything it says on the tin, and does it flawlessly 99% of the time. Occasionally while inputting text it can stall/stutter. The reason for not upgrading to the 3GS is that I have reached the limits of the iphone and now looking for something new, and something which I can tweak and play about with. I have tried jailbreaking the iphone but it just became slow and buggy and so set it back to factory settings.

I have been sceptical of other touchscreens as none I have tried come anywhere close to the iphones, they just don't feel right and are not as smooth as the iphone's. That was until I had a quick go on the HD2 in store. If anything the HD2's is more sensitive that the iphone's. Coming from an iphone I can imagine that it would take some getting used to, but there are programs to desensitise it anyway if you wish. That's the thing I like about the idea of WinMO phones, if you don't like something then change it.

With regards to the outdated OS on the HD2 it depends how deep you want to go into it. If you're going to be using it similar to the iphone then you won't even see the windows part of the software, HTC have done a great job of masking it and so for most tasks you'll be using HTC's interface, which is great. It's only till you start tweaking the phone (which you can't do on the iphone by the way) that you'll start coming across the windows software. Windows 7 isn't due to come out till the end of 2010 from what HTC tell me, but when it does the buzz at the moment says it's going to be right up there with the best OS's

A lot of the bugs have been worked out on the HD2 (like the SMS problem), but any bugs that are still there will be sorted out in time I'm sure. The only negatives I had about the HD2 when using it instore were that it doesn't feel as comfortable in the hand as the iphone, partly due to the size, and partly becasue the edges are a little more squared off. The other thing is the camera lens has pretty sharp edges, which is a pretty poor effort by HTC imo

Just to throw a spanner in the works, I came across another phone due for release in January, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/02/sony-ericsson-xperia-x10-announced-we-go-hands-on/

The screen size on this is halfway between the iphone and HD2. It is an android phone, and although I don't know much about them, I gather that it will be totally customisable, and can be tweaked around with. Therefore it shouldn't have the limitations of the iphone. I don't know if you'll be able to play about with it as much as WinMo phones though, maybe someone else on here can answer that?

What phone company are you with? I'm with O2 and they offer a 14 day trial period with phones, ie you take out a contract, if you don't like it you can return it within 14 days. I think I'm going to wait for the X10 and have a play with that before making my mind up. If I don't like it I'm going to go with the HD2.

If you're really patient you could always wait for the next iphone (they usually release something new every summer), but you will have Apples restrictions on them :-/