I am due an upgrade and I'm a gold customer whatever that means so I can have pretty much whatever O2 sell I'm told.

I'm after a phone that has

Good battery life at least a couple of days
A simple to use phone
A decent and simple GPS I can use in the car due to my frankly laughable navigating skills and possibly use for waymarking bike routes in the future if it talks your route so much the better.

Thats it everything else is completely unimportant to me. Ideally it would be tough too.

really appreciate some advice on this.

Any ideas I haven't a clue really.

Nokia 6700 and a tomtom. The 6700 does have GPS mapping, but using a phone as a satnav is a bit ofa joke (bandwidth issues) and only the very high end phones do it. And they suffer from battery life issues due to giant screens and processing power…

Only weakness I can see for the 6700 as a phone is that it doesn't allow setting alarms on a day by day basis, whereas a Sony and most others can be programmed to wake you up at different times on different days.

Decent GPS + decent battery life = not happening

Latest smart phones are intuitive but could be overkill.

You could try the SE W995 – a "normal" phone but with decentish battery life and both GPS and wifi. I've still got mine and use it PAYG now I have a Desire. It's also pretty tough and has a very good camera. And a proper torch.

Thats not the best news. So what is the best I can hope for battery wise for example that HTC jobbie seems to get good write ups but looks complicated and baffling.

Decent GPS + decent battery life = not happening

+1.

Get a fag light charger if using GPS.

I have a Hero. If you don't use it much, it might last 2 days from one charge.

but using a phone as a satnav is a bit ofa joke (bandwidth issues) and only the very high end phones do it.

Not true. Loads of nokias do it now and you can save the maps for the whole world onto the sd card if you like… and all free

I've got a nokia 5800, which is great at mapping, decent battery even using gps, screen is OK. It would be a waste for you as it is free to 'normal' customers. Not sure what is higher in the range.

Yeah, but the 5800 is a wee bit poxy as smartphones go. Hell, the Hero is and I've got one. The iPhone is the obvious daddy, but it's also damned expensive.

Absolutely. The 5800 is not the smartest of smartphones. It is cheap and will easily do everything the original poster needs. Might be too cheap to make the most of the deal he could get from o2. I would thoroughly recommend the 5800 as a cheap multifunction phone but there are better phones if you want to spend some some cash.

Not bothered about prestige just want one that does those things, can transfer a saving onto my contract if I don't go top of the range I'm told.

Will look at a 5800.

Jools – The Desire lasts a day with reasonable useage. Better than an i-phone. My W995 lasts up to three days. However the HTC receives GPS MUCH better than the W995 and gets better phone reception too – no idea why!

Prestige + a mobile = not happening