Enough time has passed for early buyers to have acclimated themselves to the Palm Pre and the Apple iPhone 3GS, so in early August ChangeWave conducted a survey of new owners to see what they think — including which features they like best and dislike the most.

The survey of 198 Apple iPhone 3GS owners and 38 Palm Pre owners also looked at overall customer satisfaction and how well each has lived up to or fallen short of user expectations.

The initial customer satisfaction results for the new Apple iPhone 3GS surpass that of any previous smart phone model we've measured in our ChangeWave consumer surveys over the past eight years, with 82% of new owners saying they're Very Satisfied and 17% Somewhat Satisfied — for a combined near-perfect satisfaction rating.

While the initial Palm Pre numbers are not as high, the new model's satisfaction rating is exceptional for a new product release. Nearly half (45%) of Palm Pre owners report they are Very Satisfied with their new smart phone and another 42% say they're Somewhat Satisfied — for a combined 87% Satisfaction Rating.

To put this in context, BlackBerry manufacturer Research In Motion (RIMM) and Apple (AAPL) are the only other smart phone manufacturers to attain such high Very Satisfied levels — and in this case Palm (PALM) is accomplishing it with a brand new product release, a very significant achievement.

Meeting Owner Expectations

Apple iPhone 3GS. In another example of the widespread approval among early 3GS buyers, nearly two-in-five (38%) report the new iPhone Exceeds their expectations and another 56% say it Meets their expectations.

Palm Pre. While less robust than the 3GS, once again the Palm Pre results are quite positive — with 18% of Pre owners saying their new phone Exceeds expectations and another 58% reporting it Meets expectations.

Thus, the good news for Palm is its new Pre model has outperformed mightily in terms of customer satisfaction — thereby entering the pantheon of the smart phone industry previously inhabited only by its top two manufacturers, Apple and Research In Motion.

But what is it about Pre and the 3GS that leave their owners so highly satisfied? To find out, we queried users on the features they like and dislike most. Here's what they told us.