1. 3GS has a 600 MHz CPU vs. the 3G's 412 MHz CPU.

2. 3GS processor has been optimized from 90nm to 65nm.

3. 3GS has double the quantity of L1 cache: 32KB up from 16KB.

4. 3GS has 256MB RAM vs. the 3G's 128MB RAM.

5. 3GS has OpenGL ES 2.0 vs. the 3G's OpenGL 1.1.

6. 3GS pipeline depth has been boosted to 13-stage from 8-stage.

7. 3GS has a PowerVR SGX graphics core which is far superior to the MBX in 3G.

8. 3GS has an average data speed of 1568Kbps vs. 3G's 1165Kbps data speed.

9. 3GS has a 19 sec. system bootup vs. the 3G's 48 sec. system bootup.

10. 3GS has a fingerprint resistant oleophobic coating.

11. 3GS has a warmer display tint for easier reading.

12. 3GS applications and games load and run 14% to 72% faster.

13. 3GS now supports up to DirectX 10.1.

14. An average web page load is 5-6 seconds faster than the 3G (yes, with same OS 3).

15. SunSpider Javascript speed benchmarks shows the 3GS at 16.7 ms vs. the 3G at 41.4 ms.

16. The 3GS performs page renders 21% faster than Palm Pre, and 122% faster than the 3G – bench by Anandtech.

17. 3GS shutdown time is shorter.

18. iPhone OS 3.0 is more optimized for the 3GS over the 3G.

19. 3GS now has video ability and a better camera. If you want pro pics, then go buy a Nikon D300 at 1600 bucks (and that doesn't include the lens). No one is expecting to take studio level pics with a phone.

20. The 3GS overall performance increase is has been clearly tested by Anandtech, ArsTechnica, and CNET. If you want better performance, then the 3GS is worth the upgrade.

Also, people like to pick up and play with the devices before deciding whether to buy it (especially one as rare and obscure as the $700 N97). Unless you live near a Nokia flagship store in Chicago or New York City, you'll have to buy it online. This ensures that the N97 will NEVER become popular in America.

generation. Apple set the smart phone World on fire, and the resulting competition is win for the consumer whether you iPhone or not.

In other countries like Japan, Korea, China and other countries in Asia, people can choose phone from many brands which is OK and a lot cheaper than iPhone. The price, interface and features is also good. Just open your eyes and see how other choices.

Android is going to do just about as well as Linux and open source, which is to say it will have its loyal fan-base amongst the pure geeks and it will survive due to the low cost of its business plans. But it will NEVER take a large market share, because it takes real $$$ and vertical integration skills to drive the kind of innovation that has already taken place, and is about to accelerate, in the iPhone world. Google has the dollars, but they won't invest enough of them in integration to send Android mainstream. They are going to count on hardware vendors to try to make do with their API. Apple has the advantage of making both hardware and software work together in harmony.

Astonishingly, because Google doesn't need Android to be a hit in order to survive, I predict that Android will emerge as the number two mobile computing platform, far behind iPhone OS. Microsoft can survive with crap too, so they will likely persist. Palm and RIM are going to be in trouble in this space within a few years.

Thompson

Let's see some stats instead of just supporting whichever side of the argument you want to support without using any real data to compare.

ex ped: Wired did a pair of AT&T 3G surveys. Here's a link to the most recent:

http://gizmodo.com/5239323/take-wireds-3g-smartphone-speed-survey