Actually for many people the big benefit to Android is the fact that there are numerous vendors and lots of choices.
The situation is almost exactly the same as the OS desktop wars of the 80's and 90's. Apple is once again playing the part of their OS on their hardware with limited, but quality choices.
Google is now the Microsoft of the mobile world. Lots of hardware choices and they are drawing lots of developers to the platform. What's more, they are upgrading the system at a very rapid pace and have already caught up with Apple for market share.
I suspect we are going to see the same shakeout. This time it will be Google as the number 1, Apple happily in number 2 with those who love their top notch user experience, and MS, HP, RIM, and the rest vying for the remainder of the market.