You know, I've noticed a very common element/theme in all of these discussions. It seems like most of these discussions stray from the actual objective analysis of hardware and features and delves deep into the subjective realm of what a particular person thinks is a good phone for them. Reading through this thread, and the other apple product related threads, all I see in every person's post is "I".

You'll be able read on the train without carrying a book, but I like books and I really don't believe the experience is the same.
he one thing I want from a phone is the ability to make phone calls and a very long battery life.
I want the 4S because it offers a heap of features over my current smartphone, and those are indeed valuable to me.
Not going to bother going through the rest of the thread because it would be pointless to do so. Buying a phone is like so many other consumer devices in which you purchase something that suits you. You may not care to use voice software, but to someone else that may make their lives much easier. You may not care for a camera in the phone, but for me that might mean a decision in choosing one over the other. Reading through this discussion I'm not seeing discussion on why the hardware/technology is better in one phone over the other. Rather I'm seeing a lot of subjective opinions on what people think is a good phone for them and why the iPhone is not that choice. If you don't want or need the features that a smartphone offers, well of course you're not going to be interested in the device.

So far I haven't really seen any replies that talk about the device itself. Just a lot crap about peoples perception of apple. They market their devices in a particular way and it really hacks people off and it's interesting to see how that perpetuates in their discussion on the device. You end up with this, where people just trash the thing for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with the hardware or really any logical reason on why the device is a poorer choice over another. With the last iPhone you had the antenna "problem", but with this release all you hear about are "It looks the same", "It's not really that special" etc. You also get review sites like gizmodo which bash the device for it's form factor in one article, yet two posts down are singing its praises on why its such an awesome device because it has a nifty camera.

It's pretty amusing honestly. Smart phone discussions have almost dwindled down to the "my team is better than your team" argument. It's great and all that you don't need a phone to browse the internet or take pictures, but that has little bearing on whether or not the phone is a solid device. It just means that for you, the consumer, it is not a viable option because you don't need those features and don't want to pay for them.

I'm interested in seeing the speed and benchmark tests that will be coming out to see if the phone really lives up to it's claim. Personally I'll just be happy to have a device that works like it should instead of fighting with the damn thing for 10 minutes to send a two line text.