Well, it's less of a phone than it is an internet appliance. It's a small tablet that provides desktop power browsing (check out the animations), has some sort of location awareness built in so you can say "Hey, where's the nearest starbucks" and it will. It integrates Google Maps w/ satellite data, so you can get good visual navigation, with photographic assistance if needed. Imagine a good handheld GPS with an internet connection, lots of neat opportunities here.
It happens to manage your media too. It'll keep you in music, video, and pictures, that's pretty sharp. With the high speed internet connection, you've got lots of options when it comes to streaming too. High powered MPEG 4 decoding so you aren't watching a jerky thumbnail the size of a postage stamp.
It's smart, it has a proximity sensor so that if you hold it up to your ear, the screen turns off (to save battery) and your face won't press buttons by accident. It has onboard accelerometers so it can tell how it's oriented. They had a neat demo where however you held it, it optimized the display. For instance, if you're looking at something that's better shown in landscape mode, just tilt the phone appropriately and it detects it. I have an Elph with that feature, and it's sweet.
I've browsed the web on cell phones and been underwhelmed at the speed and limitations. I've used handheld GPSs and thought "sure would be need if I could access some of the GIS data or get access to all that location specific data out there". I've played with iPods and said "It's kinda neat, but I don't like carrying around an extra device." I even tried out 2005's Motorola 'ROKR' abortion that tried to marry iTunes with a phone, and it was pretty sad. I have plenty of time on kludgy Windows smartphones that just didn't seem to get it and were poor phones and poor computers.
But this... this looks like it gets so much right. We've got a few months before these start hitting actual people, but the demo stuff I saw was pretty impressive today.
