Upgrade Time - Personal Opinions/Experiance Required

[monkeyville]

Hey all. I'm coming to the end of a 12month contract on 3 (600min 400txt ), and time has come to swap the Nokia 6280 for something new. I've narrowed it down to 6 phones i like the look of but i'd like someone elses input.

1. Nokia 8800 Sirocco - Sexy phone, small simple. > Costs loads!, No Wifi
2. Nokia E61 - Wifi, Nice Screen. > Too big, no camera
3. Sony W950i - Large 4gb HD. > Already have Iriver, No Camera/wifi
4. Sony P990i - Wifi, Camera, Touchscreen. > Looks massive, cost
5. Nokia N73 - Good Camera, smallish?, simple. > Flash?, No wifi
6. Nokia N80 - Wifi. > Camera rubbish?, similar to 6280, slow

(Already ruled out the V3x and the k800i as i have owned one and the gf has the other.)

As you can see wifi is something that appeals to me (everywhere i go i seem to get a signal) so i'm tempted to get one with wifi browsing. Unfortunately they all seem too big. If cost wasn't an issue i think i'd go with the 8800 as it appears to be just a phone and nothing else, and the simplicity kinda appeals to me. Otherwise its a toss up between the N80, E61 and N73 all depending on the sizes.

Any opinions would be greatly appreciated as you have to put up with this piece of technology for 12 -18months and i seem to be good at picking duffers. If you think i should really check out another model let me know and i'll add it into the mix.

[ikonia]

Nokia 8800 Sirocco - nope simpley don't

Vodafone gave me the origional 8800 when my phone broke. It still sat in the box after 2 days use.

Heavy, small annoying keypad, not really got the features it should have. Dissapointing screen. Excellent charging style bay.

Its got to be a no go.

[sTrAnGeFrUiT!]

I own a N80 dont get one the camares good but the software is poo and the phone is huge! and the slider is crap to

[clonmult]

You couldn't have the 8800 on 3 could you? Its only a 2G phone. 3 only support 3G phones?

W950 - its not a 4gig HD, its got 4gig of flash. Excellent phone.

Of those, the N73 is probably the best bet overall.

As for size, try them in a store. The local O2 one was absolutely fantastic for that. I'd definitely say the P990 is excellent, but it is definitely a heffer.

On any of the Nokias, do a firmware update, they always seem to be well buggy on initial release. My N73 is now on the v3 ME firmware, and seems to be (generally) very stable. The original V2 firmware wasn't too hot ....

[monkeyville]

E61, N73 and W950i all in the running still. 8800 although very very nice seems to be justifying its price tag just for posers. Although I'd love to be one of them i just don't think i can justify it at the moment. Need to feel the above phones in my hands before i can make a decision although at the moment the N73 is winning.

EDIT: Ohh the reason i could consider the 8800 is that im not necessarily staying on three as orange, t-mobile and vodafone all do better deals for the price.

[Funkstar]

the W950 is a stunning phone.... if only it had a camera!!! And with the cost of most networks data packages (t-mobile is the exception) i see no point in using the 3G for data and as it has no camera for video calls, that feature is pretty pointless too.

I'll let you know what the P990 is likie once i get it. But it isn't as heavy as it looks, had a feel of it in CarPhoneWarehouse a while ago.

[jamena]

once you've singled out the phones with the features you like, and UI that you like / can live with, then pop into any phone shop and have a look at them. I think sony Ericsson is pretty good generally, and personally I would prefer to not have a camera...but then I wanted a cheaper deal so had to bypass smartphones. got a w850i, still getting used to the slider thing but otherwise it's great

[madmaca]

I had a Nokia N70 until recently and after a while it became slow and horrible to use - probably had something to do with the memory filling up. So that put me off upgrading to an N73...so I got a SE W850i and it's an excellent phone. The Walkman features on it are superb, and it's a great phone to boot - quick, easy to use (I ain't touched an SE phone for about 4 years and picked it up straight away), and the software and PC syncing options are great for work stuff too...

I considered the W950i, but the lack of camera (you just never know when you'll need one) and the size put me off.

[monkeyville]

Went for the E61 as i got 10months half price on a 12 month contract. Its a nice phone and the wifi is sweet. Now just gotta figure out a way of not trashing it

[monkeyville]

I didn't realise this at the time but three offer an email service called 3mail. Not that special really except its completely free to receive emails to your email through this account. Seeing as its £2.50 a month for POP access i simply changed my mail server settings to forward a copy of everything i receive to my domain to the 3mail account and bang....free email.

It does cost to send emails......10p (0-10kb)..25p(11-50kb)...50p(51-500kb + extra per kb but i cant remember how much) however you don't need to send a reply.

Personally i think three should advertise it more as its a fantastic service and i'd of had no problems going with them if they'd let me know this was available

[hsncool]

you cant go wrong with a sony ericsson. i was upset wen you ruled out the K800 , but it hasnt got wifi, so fair enough. back to sony ericssons....go for the P990! its a far better fone....and although big....it luks like an expensive business fone, so still gets the same "respect", where as the W950, jus luks like a cheap fone from a distance.

only advantage of the W950 is the 4GB memory. a 2gig sonyproduo card is around £20 ish from ebay. i got one last week, for £17.50, including VAT. so memory wont realy be an issue.

the W950 is just a walkman fone. big memory, so its like an ipod but a fone. and next year, when apple's iphone comes out......(YES!U HEARD IT FROM ME FIRST! APPLE RELEASING AN iFONE) people are going to favour its large touchscreen, sleek slim looks, and its 2MP CAMERA! all starting at £130 ish over a W950.

soooo, go for a P990i!

[chrestomanci]

I work for Nokia. The N73 was recently added to the list of phones that employees could order for them selves to use as company paid mobiles. Three of my colleges have got them, and like them. It is fairly small; I would say it is slightly smaller than your 6280, though I have not seen the two side by side. It is smaller than other Nokia smart phones such as the 6680 that I have, the N70 or N80. The screen is quite large, high resolution, and looks very lush. One college has one in Red and it looks nice if you like the colour. Unlike the other Nokia phones on your list (I don’t know about the Sony-Ericsson ones), the N73 has a mechanical shutter. (I don’t mean the lens cover). This will get you much clearer photos of anything moving, as it means that the action can be frozen by a fast shutter speed, and the data read of the sensor afterwards. Camera phones without a shutter have to take video and then extract a frame, which means the fastest shutter speed you can have is about 1/30 second and you get motion smearing on the picture. I would definitely recommend it if photography is a priority.

The N80 is a much more general-purpose device, with as many features crammed in as possible. If you need Wi-Fi, then it is the better choice, but bear in mind that it will be fairly tricky to use it as your network will configure the phone to use GPRS in preference so as to drive up their revenue.

I can’t comment on the E61.

The N73, N80 and E61 all run the Symbian operating system. (Series 60 variant) This means that the phone is portable computer, and you can install third party applications such as satellite navigation software, or third party games. Unfortunately this also means that the phone takes about a minute to switch on, and in some places the software is less mature and has bugs. The Sony P990i also runs Symbian, but this time the UIQ variant. Similar third party software will be available but will not be directly interchangeable. I have also read reviews suggesting that there are bugs, but I don’t have any first hand experience.

The 8800 and your 6280 run a Nokia propriety OS called Series 40. Other than Java midlets you can’t get third party software, but because Series 40 is simpler, the phone will switch on much more quickly, and has fewer bugs. I don’t know about the Sony W950i.

[Funkstar]

The W950 also uses Symbian UIQ3. This is the same for the M600 as well.

I would expect more SE phones, especially the high end ones, to adopt UQI in the future considering SE bought the development team from Symbian.

[hsncool]

isnt the M600 basically just a W950 with less space and no wifi?

[Funkstar]

and different skin for the UI, different (not as good) media player, integrated keyboard/keypad, and a M2 memory slot.

the basic hardware platform and core OS are the same.