While Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) and Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) are locked in their battle for smartphone supremacy, a new entry into the market has grabbed headlines.

Palm's (NASDAQ: PALM) brand new touch-screen smartphone -- the Pre -- was the surprise event at this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Among other things, the Pre uses the Palm's Web OS, which supposedly can consolidate data from multiple Web sources.

A recent ChangeWave smartphone survey of 3,800 cell phone owners measured customer reaction to Research In Motion's (NASDAQ: RIMM) newest touch-screen phone, the BlackBerry Storm.

The survey was conducted just weeks after the Storm went on sale.

We also compared the Storm's favorability rating to those of the original Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone, taken from a 2007 ChangeWave survey conducted a few weeks after the iPhone's release.

The original iPhone's "very satisfied" rating (77%) was more than double that of the Storm (33%).

Moreover, the original iPhone's unsatisfied rating (5%) was three times lower than that of the Storm (14%).

Dropped calls have been a nuisance since the dawn of cell phones. But which cellular service provider has the best record in terms of the fewest dropped calls?

In a recent survey, ChangeWave asked 3,800 cell phone owners to estimate the percentage of their calls that were dropped during the past 90 days.

The survey, which was conducted Dec. 9-15, 2008, produced a clear winner: Verizon (NYSE: VZ) has the fewest dropped calls of all.

After the stock market meltdown of 2008, Wall Street brokerages aren't anyone's favorites in 2009.

But some customers said they're still happy with their online broker.

A December ChangeWave survey of 3,051 consumers found that despite the extremely difficult financial market, two online brokerages still capture high customer satisfaction ratings -- Charles Schwab (NASDAQ: SCHW) and archrival, Scottrade.

Java junkies are shunning Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) in favor of McDonald's (NYSE: MCD) coffee, according to a new ChangeWave survey of more than 1,300 consumers.

The survey results show a massive shift away from specialty retailers toward less expensive alternatives like McDonald's and home brewing.

Just 4% of respondents said they'll be purchasing coffee more often at Starbucks during the next 90 days, while a huge 26% said less often (net score = -22).

Though 11% of respondents said they'll buy more coffee at McDonald's, only 4% said less (net score = +7).