New phone - £350 to spend...

[Larkspeed]

I got the Xperia T around 3 month ago now sim free and loving it.

Nice sized screen, high resolution camera, Playstation Mobile, Netflix and recently using Flixster as you can use the Streaming service with it for your Ultraviolet Collection. It is also DLNA certified and can wirelessly push content from your phone to your TV if both are on your home network.

It also has NFC so you can get the tags and place them in the car or round the house with instruction to say turn on hands free if in vehicle etc.

Has 8Gb built in memory and also an SD card slot which I have another 8Gb in there.

http://www.sonymobile.com/gb/products/phones/xperia-t/

I have the same phone and It is a good phone with one major failing if you shoot a lot of video on your phone.

There is a known fault that after about 7 minutes of HD video recording the phone overheats and shuts down the camera.

It has happened to me, I was recording my drive home one day when the phone suddenly beeped, stuck and error message on screen saying the temperature of the phone was critically high and it was shutting down the camera until the phone cooled down.

If video recording is not something you do with your phone then this is not an issue but could be a major problem if you do shoot a lot of video.

[fatguy666]

There's no sd card in the Nexus 4 from what I could see which is a big thumbs down for me.

The S4 looks good but it's not a huge leap from the S3, which I own. Running CM10.1 just to get rid of the crap that Samsung put on the phone, got a not expensive Cruzerlite case on it and even without a screen protector there's not a mark on the phone. 32GB sd card packed with about 300 albums, it'll definitely keep me going until the S5.

[Smudger]

Quick question for N4 owners: does the phone take normal-sized SIMs, or micro-SIM?

[jimborae]

Forget the N4 get this.

LG Optimus G


For £299 quid it's a no brainer, basically the same spec/phone as the N4 but double the onboard storage of the N4 16GB, LTE enabled, more screen space and better looking screen, better camera, better build quality etc etc.

I have both phones, and have put Cyanogen on the Optimus G to get the pure(ish) Android experience. I don't use my N4 anymore and will be selling it.

Seriously the Optimus G running CyanogenMod is the best phone I've ever used. No lag or crashes etc, unlike the S4 I used recently. The only phone that has come close is the HTC One and that's way more expensive.

[jimborae]

Quick question for N4 owners: does the phone take normal-sized SIMs, or micro-SIM?

Micro

[Agent]

I just cut down my sim to fit - takes all of a few minutes.

[TheAnimus]

Nokia Lumia 820.

Why? Because Sat Nav. Is bloody brilliant. I've used Navtech maps (free, with their Drive+ app) across EU, Morroco, Vietnam, Thailand, on a variety of transport, from car to bicycle to motorbike to light aircraft (I wasn't lost, just wanted to know the name of the monument!). The vector mapping system works brilliantly offline too, even has POIs just no reviews of them, you can go to a remote part of Vietnam and find the nearest petrol station, but also restaurants! The data collected is really good, it has speed limits, and if on data, traffic etc.

It comes in £100+ under budget. Giving you plenty of cash for games/apps/music/drink.

It does have spotify, but you can also have the cheaper xbox music (pretty much the same, supported platforms different, but much cheaper than spotify premium, costs me £6 pcm for same features).

When it comes to photo transfer, it will just present itself as a USB device, so really easy, but it also has microSD slot for space if you're planning to fill it.

Downside, its 0.4" smaller than you wanted. Plus side is it runs all the games properly. On android I find, even on the Nexus 7 (which they must have sold a gajillion of) many games just don't run on anything but an S3.

You can also get a wireless charging shield.

[ajones]

I just cut down my sim to fit - takes all of a few minutes.

We trashed a fair few SIMs during my days a Moto trying to cut them down, since some of them have contacts quite close to the edge that can get crushed - not all SIM cards are the same.

The alternative is to pop in-store and get a micro SIM from your provider. I've done this a couple of times with O2. No charge or hassle other than the switch to the micro SIM Card when it's activated.

To the OP: I'm currently thinking about the Huawei Mate (have always liked the Note form factor). The biggest complaint is that some folks think it's too big (6.1" screen) and can be difficult to use as a phone, and unwieldy in the pocket!

[Agent]

We trashed a fair few SIMs during my days a Moto trying to cut them down, since some of them have contacts quite close to the edge that can get crushed - not all SIM cards are the same.

How?!

Even the contacts on the edge should have plenty of cut space in them due to the placement of the internal connections. See: http://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Con...ate/td-p/27024 & http://www.airportal.de/nanosim/ (better IMO)

They're not all the same I agree, but they all need to follow the same standard for SIM cards, which should mean you don't have an issue with most.

I've lost count how many I've done for friends and family and never had an issue. It should be a simple thing for 99% of SIMs.

Most stores should be fine, but it's a bit annoying if you're with Giffgaff or someon that only do web based communication, which is what caught me out

But if someone's unsure, then they should order one, yep.

[Dooms]

We had a staple like device that you just slipped the sim into to cut it down, some sims were REALLY close to the contacts, in fact some even had bits of contact taken off but they all still worked

[Agent]

The internal connections should be at the centre, or very close so shouldn't normally be an issue.

Cutting is hardly the ideal way, but it is fast

[butter30]

Nexus 4
Note 2
Htc one

[circuitmonkey]

How about the Oppo Find 5?

[YEHBABY]

I like the HTC One

[Andeh13]

Thanks for all the replies guys, I settled on the nexus 4 in the end. Got it for a smidgen over £200 second hand/next to new so very happy with it.