Just left a job and now have no phone. Had an iPhone 4 which was good but loath the thought of a 40 quid contract and saw tesco are doing the lumina for £17.50. Over all reviews look good but what’s singletracks first hand experience of these? Worth a punt or stick with apple?

Can’t comment directly on the Lumia 800. I have a Lumia 700. But I think a lot of what I say carries for the 800.

The build quality of the phone is very very good.
Gorilla glass and an excellent screen (on the 800 = LED?)
The CPU speed was a cut above any other phone at the price.
The OS is very slick. And very well designed. In particular, it’s intuitive. And not laggy.
The camera quality is excellent.
The App store is good. And the quality of some of the games is amazing.
OS is very stable.
The free Sat nav although not as comprehensive as the older symbian version – is still very good.
Battery life is very good. A whole day on a single charge with a significant amount of fiddling.
The Nokia Music app is excellent. Free music downloadable to your phone.

My gripes –
The OS is not true multi-tasking.
I’m still awaiting for the ability to use my phone as a wifi hotspot.
I’ve heard the OS will not be upgradeable to the next version of the OS – at least on my phone. Check for yours.

Some views on a thread a few months back. There are other phones for a little more that are much better in my opinion. The Galaxy S2 can be had for a little more and is way better and there are some great deals on the iPhone 4. T-Mobile is doing it for £26 with ridiculous minutes and unlimited internet if you can find stock for example.

Had my Lumia 800 for 6 months now on Orange Panter £20.50 plan. No real complaints only sometimes when ending a call the display doesn’t come back instantly & you have to press a button? Otherwise software faultless and Nokia Windows apps very slick and fast – much better than my Ipod which seems to crash often & now won’t even load up the diary.
Screen resolution very high much better than my partners HTC. Also the bundled Nokia Satnav apps are excellent really easy to see & use on the go and all free for UK and you can also download Europe etc for free as you need them.
Some of the apps you get in Android aren’t available yet but seem to be in development or others available. Deezer gives you free music downloads on Orange which you would have to pay for on Apple.
So yeah I would recommend it. Battery life is fine I tend to charge every 48hrs with quite a bit of WiFi 3G use in between.