Who in your opinion is the king of the smart phone market? I've tried the HTC Desire & HTC Mozart v Samsung Galaxy S & Samsung Omnia 7

On the android side of things HTC Sense is hard to beat, Touchwiz isn't bad but I found it slowed the Galaxy S down a bit and it became a bit unresponsive on occasions. HTC are let down by there cameras on both the Mozart and the Desire, the photos just look a bit under saturated or washed out, Samsung definitely do better cameras. Samsung also win on battery life, the Galaxy S lasts about 25-30% longer than the Desire, and the Mozart well its the worst battery life I've ever seen on a phone, as I mentioned before first phone I ever had that never made it past lunch time, the Omnia 7 lasted until 7pm with the same sort of usage as the Mozart. Something also noticeable is the FM radio, HTC reception is one of the worst i've ever come across, where as Samsung probably is the best reception i've ever had on a phone. The Galaxy S also has 2 years manufactures warranty.

So to sum up, In my opinion HTC do the better software, Samsung is all about the hardware.

I've been happy with my HTC Desire. It's my only example of Android so I can't really say what's better than regular Android.
I stuck the Froyo upgrade in and debranded it a few months back too.
The handset is a nice size, feel and weight that doesn't look scratched or used even after all this time.
My wife has just decided to get one too. Usually a good sign.

I love my Desire. I did a test the other day and with wifi and bluetooth turned on along with the phone automatically syncing news, weather, twitter etc every 4 hours i managed to get 48 hours out of a single charge which isn't bad for a phone with so many features. To be safe i normally charge it every night though.

It seems to be the GPS that drains my battery. 5 or 6 hours (screen off) kills it.

I have had two HTC's (G1 and now the WIldfire) and been happy with them. I had a Samsung Galaxy Portal but sent it back after a couple of days (luckily I upgraded over the phone so was covered by distance selling regulations) as it was very clunky and slow.

I agree with most of your post. However imo, I think that HTC handset's have far superior GPS chips in them. What I have read of Samsung's handset's, notably the Galaxy S and Nexus S, is the signal is either non existant or very weak and takes ages to lock on, Whereas the HTC handset's I have owned, original Desire and Incredible S, lock on in around 3 seconds.

Samsung handset's also have better codec support than HTC.

Just to throw something into the mix, have you looked at the Samsung Nexus S? It's basically the Galaxy S but without any of Samsung's software on it, so you get what I think they call a 'pure' Android experience. It also means any updates from Google are available for the phone straightaway, you don't have to wait for the manufacture to get their paws on it to the put their software on it as well.