I have the Aria and I love it.  I am glad I went that way instead of the iPhone.  My girl has an iPhone and she uses my phone more then hers.
You can do all the same things with both phones.  The Aria has better reception and battery life then the iPhone.  Also it seems to be faster.  The camera is a lot better and even has a real zoom.  The widgets are a lot better.  i can have a calender and many home screens on the main display.  Including weather and many times across the world.  There are many cool apps that allow oyu to make widgets to go on the home screen.  Like I use one a lot called colornote.  it's like a sticky note right on your screen.  Pretty sick.  Plus it's a lot smaller and seems easy to text on.  Let me know if you have any questions.