Resistive is what was common before capacitive came along - I'm sure we've all played with them extensively at some point. Take my Garmin GPS for example, it's got a resistive screen that, coming from a daily iPhone user, just doesn't work. I have to practically stab it with a fingertip to get it to register, and even then it's pretty consistently wrong, and will often think I'm tapping the button next to it.

Argh.

The iPhone set the bar - and manufacturers have responded. I doubt you will find a single manufacturer now who is trying to peddle resistive touchscreen phones in their new products. Nokia, Moto, HTC, etc, appear to only have capacitive touchscreens on the roadmap - for good reason.

Most tablet PCs are feeling incredibly dated for the same reason - IMHO the next product to enter this field will need capacitive sensing, or die.