Try http://www.appcelerator.com/ - you can easily have a basic app up & running with JS in no time. Take a look at the kitchen sink demo and just rip out/adapt the parts you need.
PhoneGap wraps everything inside a webview so there is no actual native code. Titanium maps to native elements so you can use real UI elements and in my experience at least (based off an older PhoneGap version admittedly), Titanium apps run much faster and smoother.