No, it wasn't the same. Before people would only be able to use special mobile pages and scroll through a few options at a time. Looking at a general site like reddit was basically impossible. Reading a news article on a normal site was basically impossible. It was a total game changer and most people went from never using the mobile internet to using it frequently.
You seem to have forgotten Blackberrys were incredibly popular. Most people in the business world browsed and did emails on them. Windows phone, LG Prada, Hiptop - all of these had non WAP browsers well before the iPhone. You've missed the 2-4 year gap between WAP only phones and first iPhone.
And how did you navigate them? With a scroll ball? Even some phones that were single touch with pressure were slightly better but most people wanted nothing to do with that until the iphone.
