Here is a summary chart of what I found while shopping online:

As you can tell the monthly cost of ownership between the iPhone and the Storm are pretty close.  The G1 is your best cost saver across the board, except for when you get into the unlimited talk, text, and data.  Once you get to that tier, the Palm Pre comes through as the cheapest.

Now some basic disclaimers.  I tried to put some carrier specific disclaimers on each chart listed below.  These prices were effective on 7/20/2009.  When listing the price for the phone, I took into account what offers the carriers had running at the time, regardless of if it was a mail in rebate or instant rebate.  The prices do not include any state or federal taxes.  Finally, all of this is based on signing your life away to a 2 year contract as a new subscriber.

Here are the rest of the charts:

[View with PicLens]

Here are some things that I would think would need to happen before people start bailing on the iPhone for the Pre:

1. Device Maturity – this is a first generation device and based on the reviews and from my experiences with the device there is room for improvement. If you think about the changes from the original iPhone to the 3G iPhone, it was pretty drastic and I wouldn’t expect anything less from the Pre. The keyboard needs to be improved for sure, and the over all quality of the device needs to be improved. Visual Voicemail is missing, video capabilities, and what about the possibility of a virtual landscape keyboard? The good news is that most of these features, and many others will arrive through software and device updates.
2. Lack of SDK and App Store – so it appears that they followed the same model of the iPhone. The first iPhone was released without an official SDK and we know one will be coming from Palm. Palm knows the importance of this and once they release this they will have to then start a the process of trying to get developers on board. This is something that all the new smartphones are playing catch up on when it comes to try to tackle the iPhone. Because the iPhone was first to market with this, they were able to jump out in a huge way with their AppStore and this has given them a good advantage over the competition
3. Better Carrier – If people continue to bitch and moan about AT&T, people could be more open to looking at the Pre if it was on more carriers. It has already been confirmed by Verizon that the Pre will be coming to their network in 6 months, and once that happens there could be a chance that more people take a more serious look at the device. This will give a lot more exposure to the device and would rather choose a Pre than switch to a Blackberry or over to AT&T for the iPhone.
4. Need to innovate, not just copy – What also made the iPhone so successful is the innovation that was brought to the smartphone market. An awesome AppStore, full web browser support, gestures, touchscreen, a real OS and a real music player. Apple saw a lot of potential in the smartphone market that others like windows mobile and Palm have missed out on. The Pre has to come up with something that really makes it stand out rather than just playing catch up.

Out of all of the bullets listed above, I think number 2 is by far the biggest thing that sets the iPhone apart from the Pre and all of the other smartphones out there. The SDK and the AppStore is huge, and even with all of the complaints about how Apple micro manges the AppStore, people are still spending a lot of money there. I think for any smart phone to really compete with the iPhone, this is an area they need to target and develop quickly. They need to target the developers and provide an SDK thaty makes it easy to leverage the hardware in the device and help the developers create some really powerful apps for their device. Apps that are fun and comical, but also apps that will help the consumer be more productive by owning a smart phone.

What are your thoughts on what it will take to de-thrown the iPhone?