Here is a picture of the HTC Mogul PPC-6800 which came out before the first iphone. It was arguably far more capable than the first iPhone, most notably it had 3G internet connection speeds which were typically 20 times that of what the iPhone was capable of. It could also be easily tethered to a computer eliminating the need for a separate 3G PCMIA cellular card. It also had a very useful slideout keyboard which most people found to be much easier and quicker to use than the quirky onscreen keyboard on the first iPhone.
It had a 2 megapixel camera that would take video and stills. The phone was capable of displaying phots, playing music, and videos d photos encoded into dozens of different formats. The list of useful features and functions that it had compared to the first iPhone is long. The first iPhone was not as capable of a device as many others already on the market when it came out. Strangely enough it also had the familiar rectangular shape with rounded corners that Apple's attorneys claimed Samsung stole from them.
