Research ’boutique’ ChangeWave has recently revealed a survey looking at consumer satisfaction in American smartphone buyers over the last six months, and gleaned some pretty surprising results…

Okay, the first result that isn’t at all surprising, with the iPhone taking the top spot in terms of manufacturer satisfaction and 77% of Apple handset owners giving a ‘very satisified’ response. A welcome surprise in the number two slot is Motorola, with 64% of owners giving the brand the big thumbs up.

Both HTC and BlackBerry makers RIM hover around the 50% mark in terms of consumer happiness, whilst Samsung come in last place by bringing a smile to the face of only 35% of new owners.

Breaking things down by model, the iPhone 3GS is making Apple fans happy with an 81% and 77% rating for the 32GB and 16GB models respectively, whilst the Motorola Milestone / DROID is the crowdpleaser for the fellow American manufacturer, with almost 70% reporting their smartphone as pretty awesome.

In HTC’s case, more entry level efforts like the Touch and Droid Eris were decidedly less well received than the HTC Hero, whilst the US-only BlackBerry Tour beat out the Bold 9700 and touchscreen Storm 2 as texting favourite.

In terms of features, it seems that people love them some apps and hate them some short battery life, with 15% and 12% finding these their biggest smarphone likes and dislikes respectively.

When asked why consumers opted for a particular handset, almost a quarter of BlackBerry users cited the fact that it was provided by their job, whilst almost 40% of Motorola fans chose it due to being on Verizon – the only network to have the DROID in the US – underlining the value of exclusive handsets for carriers.

Once again it’s all about the applications when people choose the iPhone, with 17% of users looking for digital distractions, features and ease of use following closely behind.

When it comes to mobile operating systems, the Apple OS still rules the roost, with the iPhone’s touchy-feely interface making 71% of consumers very satisfied. Android cements its position as the platform of the people, satisfying 67% of Google phone buyers.

WebOS makes a surprising entry at no.3, with 57% of Palm Pre and Palm Pixi users enjoying the intuitive and responsive mobile platform. Limping in last is Windows Mobile, with only 24% finding the operating system any fun to use.

It seems like Windows Phone 7 can’t arrive soon enough for both Microsoft and users alike…