The industry was terrible but there were lots of good phones out there. The Samsung BlackJack was a pretty awesome device, and HTC was making some pretty compelling devices for Windows Mobile. Then the BlackBerry, of course, was a great device in a lot of ways too; very functional given the limitations of a hardware keyboard.
I still look back fondly on my Samsung BlackJack; that phone was fantastic. I still have my HTC Tilt 2 (that was the ATT branded name for it; I can’t remember what HTC called it) and it still works.
There were lots of good/cool phones before the iPhone.