We drink a lot of bottled water due my husband's vendetta against tap water (largely related to the amount of chlorine that's in LM's finest, among other things). I'd like to put my big, fat two cents in on this issue.
1) We here in this part of Chicagoland actually do get Lake Michigan water out of our tap, and while I don't find it hugely objectionable (unlike my more rural friend's well water - ugh), the more I drink bottled water, the more I tend to notice the chlorine taste in our tap water. Therefore, I rarely drink tap water anymore (unless it's filtered, which, I think, helps a lot.)
2) There are several distinctions between bottled water and you can usually figure out what they are by looking at the bottle. Spring water, artesian water, reverse osmosis, filtered, distilled. Spring and artesian water all generally has some natural mineral content in it by nature. Spring is "mined" from natural springs below the earth. Artesian water is just spring water that rises to the surface without the use of a pump. For any number of reasons, there are various arguments whether spring or artesian water is 'better' for you. I won't get into that now. In any case, if a bottle is labeled Spring or Artesian, it has to come from the labeled source. Therefore, they can't filter tap water and call it spring. That is illegal.
Reverse osmosis uses pressure to separate impurities (i.e., salt in salt water) by forcing it through a membrane. Given the nature of the process, it's no wonder that RO water has an almost "distilled" taste to it. It tends to remove a lot of the mineral content in addition to any other "impurities" that are being removed in the process.
Filtered water is water that is run through a filter (i.e., a carbon filter) that catches many of tap water's impurities. It is, however, an imperfect process and does not completely remove chlorine and other elements from the water in the process. Bottled water that is filtered is often just listed as "drinking water" on the label. This is what you will get, for instance, if you buy Jewel brand bottled water.
Distilled water is water that is run through a distillation process, that is, the water is boiled to the point of steam and then re-condensed into a sterile container. The main problem I've found with distilled water is precisely what an earlier poster complained about: it's completely tasteless, to the point where (at least for me), it leaves my mouth just feeling cold and dry.
3) We've tested out a number of waters in my household and I can give you a short list of waters I definitely dislike: Evian, Absopure, Nestle, Dasani, Aquafina, off the top of my head.
I find Fiji to be acceptable, but not really my favorite. Ice Mountain is generally fairly decent and suspiciously cheap. Is that just a re-packaged, filtered tap water? I think it's labeled as Spring water, but I'm not sure.
4) Our favorite, which, strangely enough, no one's mentioned yet, is Poland Spring. We can usually get it relatively cheap at Wild Oats (relative being the key word here, i.e., $4.99 for 24 - .5L bottles) and buy it by the truckload. I think it has a pleasant taste that I've really grown accustomed to. I also have found Aqua Panna to be acceptable (I'm pretty sure it's just San Pellegrino's still counterpart) as well as Voss. The latter two are still waters I generally see in restaurants; I don't usually buy them on my own because they're so expensive on the retail market.
We're not huge sparkling water drinkers, so I can't put my opinion in there, sorry to say.
On a final note, though: even before I was a huge proponent of bottled-water drinking, I almost
always noticed a difference between making coffee with tap water and making it with filtered water. The filtered-water coffee always had a much cleaner, sharper taste. Much preferred.
ps: If it wasn't for my husband's wily ways, I would probably just go back to using the 'ol Brita filter, which I always found acceptable for my use. Not only did it make the tap water taste better, but it was always nice to go into the fridge and be able to pour yourself a nice glass of cold water!
-- Nora --
"Great food is like great sex. The more you have the more you want." ~Gael Greene