What mobile to get?

[mrpete]

Hi,
I am after a new phone, mainly to go on the net whereever i am (well, more importantly to use gmail easily)

i am thinking of the iphone, but cheapest tarrif is £30/mo. only really want to spend a tenner or 15 a month (thats about all i spend on payg at the mo)

the blackberry pearl looks quite nice. or the n95.

i think i'd prefer something with a full keyboard.

any suggestions?

[davids21]

Get the new 3G iphone! It looks super sex

I want it so badly! But they don't have a carrier for my country yet = (

[charger]

If u can wait for the sony ericsson xperia x1, has a full keyboard and imho is utterly stunning looking windows mobile to and presumably as its a sony ericsson better battery life than other pda type phones. otherwise what about the htc touch diamond?

[Spud1]

The problem is that with a budget like that your going to struggle to get a decent data plan..and if you don't then its going to cost you a fortune in data (as you want this for mobile internet/gmail if i read correctly).

The iPhone is the perfect choice, however as you rightly point out the cheapest plan there is £30/month, and you might not want to spend that much. Plus, the £30 plan is rubbish in terms of what you get, so the £35 one is really the cheapest iPhone plan worth considering.

One option if you don't need 3G is to buy a 1st gen iPhone off ebay or somewhere and use that on a cheap contract - sell whatever phone comes with the cheap contract to pay for the iPhone. You could do something like that wiht T-mobile and get Web'n'Walk - their EDGE coverage isn't that bad either iirc (better than Orange's!)

I've not looked around recently but I would think the blackberrys and N95s are still going to be expensive to buy unless your on a £30+ contract, both are good phones though if you can find them at a reasonable price - I would prefer the blackberry myself as the N95 is huge + heavy, and symbian has gone downhill as an OS since the release of the N73/N80 imo.

Would seriously look at your finances and see if you can stretch to an iPhone though - all fanboyism aside it is one of the top phones available at the moment and once you have one, you won't want to go back to an old fashioned phone with a clunky keypad Remember that most of the monthly cost is just paying for the phone, so rather than £300 up front and £15/mo for a contract its just £99 up front and £30/mo..so about £60 more total than the up front option

edit: forgot about the touch diamond - thats a seriously good phone imo I doubted it when it was announced, but have had a chance to play with one now and while its no iPhone killer, its a really good phone and worth considering as an alternative.

[thebawp]

I'm not sure if other providers have anything similar, but T-mobile used to do something called web n walk which was I think a £7 a month add on for unlimited net access - I have it myself (although I've got a staff line so only pay £3.50) and that plan, coupled with my Prada and Opera Mini make browsing a breeze (I access Gmail through that). I know the LG Viewty has a qwerty keyboard, but I couldn't tell you how well that works with Opera Mini (which is a third party browser).

Anyway, just had a quick look on t-mobile's site, the cheapest you can get is £22.50 a month with unlimited web access plus 100 minutes and 200 texts but the Viewty is £100 so not that great really. =/

[McClane]

I would prefer the blackberry myself as the N95 is huge + heavy, and symbian has gone downhill as an OS since the release of the N73/N80 imo.

Blackberries are horrible phones! Admittedly the new ones look pretty nice and the keyboard is good but I just can't get over the UI. I just find it cluttered and unintuitive. I got an N95 8gb recently (my first Nokia phone in 4-5 years) and I love it. The menu system makes a lot more sense to me and everything looks a lot cleaner. Also, coming from a smaller phone, I much prefer a bigger phone now and it really isn't that heavy!

Back to the original post, have you considered a Nokia E71? My friend at work just got one and it's very nice. I'm really tempted to get one myself!

[RICK...]

I've got a SE C902 and don't rate it much

N95 8GB ftw!

[SSK]

few of my mates have the n95 and seem happy with it...that prob be the safe bet...otherwise you could try and get a demo of some of the blackberrys and see how you find the UI.

the new sony xperia that was mentioed before looks good and does hav a full qwerty keyboard if i remember correctly...though it might be out of your price band

try and stretch your finances if you can...you have alot abit more options availble and also go down your high street and have a demo of some of these phones

[Triplea4UK]

£15 is tough one the best way I can think of is the cash back deals but then you still pay full price then get the money back after set months.

Stay clear of the iphone it is so over rated and not that good at all also it wont be in your budget range.

N95 will do you just fine and has loads of features with a great camera but go for the 8gb version it is a reissue which fixed many problems the standard n95 had before.