Why, it was simple really ...
My first smartphone was a WM phone. I liked the features - calendar, tasks, Mobile office, music, but the phone was so big and bulky and phone calls were terrible.
I then bought a Storm. I loved the Storm from day 1. It did what I needed - texts, email, bbm, great call clarity, and the battery didnt die without being heavily used in a day's time. I even liked Surepress - it was different. However, it never had enough working memory so even if I wanted to put apps on it, it would just lock up faster. I had the Storm for 30 months waiting for the Storm 3 (aka torch 9850 now) and had finally decided to stop waiting if there was something better. So considerations for a new phone were:
*It wasn't a Iphone - anything but icrap would be ok. Can't do the sheep route and don't like the apps everywhere appearance. I wanted something easily accessible for the main things I do.
*It wasn't Android - Can't tell you the number of times I see co-workers walking around with their chargers around 3 pm. And like my Storm, I didn't want to always be looking to see what app I hadn't killed in the background.
*I had a Zune30 and then a ZuneHD - would be nice to have it all on 1 device and use my Zune pass, but not the end of the world if I needed to maintain the 2nd device.
*Wanted to access spreadsheets and word documents and be able to either start or modify them on the go.
*Wanted to see my today calendar on the main screen
*I am on Verizon
*Touch screen that works - I want the whole screen, can't do the keyboard thing, and don't want the landscape slide as it adds to the bulkiness.
*apps aren't important if the phone has the features already
I started playing with the Trophy in the store, had read the reviews, and didn't see any near time frame hope of RIM getting a new touch screen to market. It had all of the things I wanted feature wise in the OS, but I was unsure about the battery life.
The tipping point was when I saw that the MS store had the phone on sale for a penny!
I love this phone!!!!!!! WP7 NoDo was good and WP7 Mango'd is even better. Battery life is at least 12 hours on a heavy day of texts and emails (which is typically only Mondays). I have my music and podcasts that I listen to in the car. I have a bunch of apps, mostly games, that enhance the phone and they work. The phone doesn't lock up.
All of the things I wanted, very little of the things I didn't and now looking to get the wife one when her next upgrade is ready. I just wish there was more memory for more music. The concept for this phone is brilliant, but needs more advertising to gain market share.
RIM simply took too long for me to consider otherwise, and now I don't know why they were still on the list.
Waiting now for the Windows tablet.