I'm not big on PDA's, don't need one for work, don't use one... so my reply is limited to non-PDA type cell phones. I'm quite the opposite of Narada on this subject...
Sony Ericsson T306
This was my first phone when I finally got to the point of needing a cell phone. I had done a bit of research, and knew the Sony Ericssons typically had a history of having the most flexability on options. At the time I was also looking for long battery life, which the T306 definately had (mostly due to the slower processor installed). It also had IR, which I used to play with my laptop and upload custom made color backgrounds, and midi. Has a full capacity of about 1MB (about 700kb usable), and while the specs don't mention anything, I've found good support for IMAP, something I can't live without. Turns out to be a nice first cell phone, and still works to this day even though I made an upgrade.
The T306 is hard to find anywhere now, which is sad because they now sell the T226 and T237 in it's place where both of which in my opinion of even worse.
Sony Ericsson T637
Currently the best 610 based model out right now, it features a nice 128 x 160 TFT display, can take 288x352 effective pictures (software enlargment to 480x640 built in), has IR (I'm a big fan of IR if you can't tell), Bluetooth, supports Java, better support for online surfing, also IMAP support. Has a full capacity of about 2MB; a little sad comparing with some of the new verizon phones with upwards of 6MB, but I have yet to run into problems with space on my phone. Yet again, Sony Ericsson pulled off another phone with good battery life (and even better if you upgrade the battery from the original).
This one being one of the first Sony Ericsson camera phones, I will admit I wasn't big on the camera-in-a-phone idea either except that I have a number of friends that also like the Sony Ericssons and have a single combined "moblog" site where interesting/funny daily pictures are posted. So we make use of the camera a lot more than most people do anyway.
Specs on all mentioned phones:
http://www.sonyericsson.com/spg.jsp?cc= ... e=pp&lm=pp
I'm not a fan of Nokia phones. The fact that it is the more popular almost generic phone most people get is enough to turn me off. From friends that have them, I've heard of them constantly running into limitations of the phone that shouldn't even be a limitation (sometimes due to the provider, Verizon sucks btw in my experience, so does Cingular which sucks for me since I'm a customer with AT&T who was recently bought out by Cingular, luckily I upgraded my phone and signed a new contract before the merger as Cingular no longer offers the T637 anymore last I checked). Nokia phones just seem to be the cheapest crap providers can throw at people signing up for the free phone with service deals. I won't say they're that bad though, because I know of worse. Cricket with their Kyocera phones... now that's bad. I will admit there's one Nokia phone model I do like, but not more than most Sony Ericssons -- I think it was the Nokia 7250.