We used both of these travel book brands, but I prefer Lonely Planet much more (with a few cons though):
Lonely Planet (LP)
- most of all: well organized, easy to use
- options on budget: low, mid, high (but mostly skewed towards backpackers)
- lots of options on food, accommodation, activities
- more comprehensive on coverage than Rough Guide
- background reading available
- widely used: when you go to the places recommended by LP, there are inevitably dozens of other tourists there, also paging through the book
- sometimes we felt the language could be more direct; at times it was passive - for example, half-heartedly recommending one thing, but then saying another item was not that great.
- their website is terrible, hard to navigate and search
Rough Guide (RG)
- good background information
- relevant - had tips and things to watch out for that were more relevant than the LP
- fair selection on restaurants and accommodation
- things I didn't like: poor organization (hard to use and locate things quickly), no clear organization by price
Though it was burdensome, using the combination of both RG and LP was helpful because the India LP was not the most up-to-date version (2007), while the RG was the latest edition (2008). And in India, where things are growing so rapidly, in the two year difference, prices had changed significantly and a good number of stores and accommodations had changed or closed.
I also picked up a Frommer's for Australia just to browse through, and wasn't impressed. Seems more skewed towards an older, wealthier crowd (maybe those that watch Samantha Brown on the travel channel) because their recommendations regarding food and accommodation skewed towards the higher ends and had very limited selections.
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