I have noticed my old school Samsung Rugby did get better reception than my iPhone 3 did, but both the iPhone 3g and 4 get better service than the Rugby.

Deploying for wildland fires sends us to remote locations in different states, our firefighters have a number of different phones. What I have learned about reception (besides the differences between the service providers) is don't but Blackberry or Palm smartphones (in my opinion, this is one of many reason to avoid these brands). iPhones and Droids both seemed to do as well as the old school "dumb-phones".