I’m a serial phone breaker and currently have a Nokia N97 mini that a friend gave me. It is singularly the most unreliable and unusable bit of electronic kit that I have ever had the misfortune to use – no surprise that my mate was glad to get rid of it!

I don’t use it that much and am a joblesstrackworlder on a pre-pay deal so budget is ‘as low as possible’ – I’m after something that works OK for phone/text, has a battery that lasts more than a few hours and will let me do a bit of email/web, usually over WiFi.

Not fussed about the latest & greatest gizmo, just something that works, but I’m not really keeping track of the market so not sure what fits the bill. Or probably what fitted the bill a year or 2 ago so I can find it cheap 2nd hand. Any tips from STW?

HTC Wildfire seems to be going cheap these days

Quite happy with my HTC Desire, bought new off an EBay shop for £101.

Way better than my Motorola Defy I did have.

Orange san francisco is cheap (always was, but now there’s a newer model) and easy to unlock/customise if you want to. Pretty cheap (though white, if you care) at Very – who seem OK; I’ve bought stuff there before and you can get discount via quidco (my referral, may earn me £2.50, or just go there yourself and sign up

My Tesco mobile (O2 network) Samsung Galaxy mini (I think) is £10 a month, includes enough calls, texts and web for me, and is capped so I can’t spend more than that. Very happy with it so far (about 6 months? use).

+1 for Tesco mobile deals. Plenty of minutes/texts/internet for £10 a month plus a ‘free’ phone.

Huawei Ascend for £100 handset only gets good reviews. You can then get a low calls / texts / data contract for about £10 month.

http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/mobile-phones/huawei-ascend-g300-review-50007180/

possibly some useful suggestions here: http://www.reghardware.com/2012/05/19/ten_qwerty_keyboard_mobiles/

Cheers all – the hundred quid mark is a bit steep for me at the mo. Any top tips for 2nd hand bargains?

Vodafone do a PAYG smartphone for 50quid, middle child has one, seems to do everything mine does.