First Android?

X8 = SE!!!! NO
Desire = pricey, but excellent value too!
My advice is to buy an Orange San Francisco (ZTE Blade), its free to unlock and is excellent value (half price it should be really)

 

I was wondering what the ZTE Blade aka Orange San Francisco is, since its a phone I don't generally see in this side of the pond. Mostly Europe, not in Asia or the US, despite being manufactured by ZTE which is Chinese.

Researching on it, I think wow. That's a lot of phone for an insanely low price. That's disruptive. That should scare the hell out of Nokia. Should scare the hell out of everybody.

 

I have the X8 and it is surprisingly good for its price but as said before, it's SE so no.

 

Get a G2, Nexus One, or Nexus S -- you wont regret it. (IMO)

Stock Android means faster updates, and you can always instal themes and mods if you want something to look like one of the skins like SenseUI, TouchWiz or whatever the sony one is called.

Edit:
Err sorry, didnt see you were in the UK, not sure if those phones are available there but I would think so. HTC Desire is supposed to be a nice phone as well, but I'd say going with stock Android is a really good strategy if you can.

Edit 2: Also in order from awesome to mostly awesome I would say Nexus one, G2, Nexus S. But I'm pretty biased!

 

Go for the HTC DESIRE better yet the DESIRE HD.