I get a phone with work, and I don’t have an awful lot of choice in the matter – certainly nothing flash. No iPhones and no data contract, so any use of a “smart phone” will be via wi-fi.

The Samsung Ace is on the very short shortlist that I’ve been given and seems to have a half decent camera (for a phone, of course; it’s 5MP) and looks ok, but has anyone got one?

Having had a Samsung before, I’ve not been blown away by them, but I don’t have an awful lot of choice. Will I regret it? It’s basically just for calls, text and some basic web use (via wi-fi as I say).

Thanks in advance – good thing there’s nothing important to worry about in the world, eh? 🙂

This Samsung looks good but depends what terms You’re getting with it.

This Samsung has a 3.5″ screen so same size as a 3g iPhone. Big enough for browsing etc.

I would have a look at HTC Desire or Samsung Galaxy S if it’s on similar price plans.

Motorola makes the Defy which is a quite robust phone with all the good features of a Android smartphone. It gets good reviews as well.

One fault with Samsung is that it’s slow with releasing updates to newer Android versions.

I really like Motorola handsets as it upped their game a lot and I’m on my second one. I would consider the Defy as it has the same 3.7″ screen as my Milestone and the screen is amazing. 1ghz processor, good camera etc.

Thanks mieszko – really helpful. The Defy is the only other phone you mention that’s on the shortlist and I saw it was touted as being robust. Bearing in mind this’ll be my only phone so will spend time in a Camelbak / back pocket of jersey, maybe that’s worth a punt?

One thing that drew me to the Ace was how it’s possible to switch off 3G etc. I have a morbid fear of racking up a huge bill from web browsing via something other than free wi-fi! Do you know if that’s a feature with the Defy?

Cheers – and thanks again for the input.

I have a Milestone but is running Android 2.2 so same as Defy. The options would be the same. You can switch off the data sync option and the phone will not use internet and untick the background data box and it’s all sorted. Same options on all Android phones. However in my opinion it would be fairly difficult to unknowingly rack up a huge bill for data as syncing email would not use that much and You would have to watch Youtube and stream radio to get some serious usage.

Defy all the way for me as I’m a converted Motorola user from Nokia. Motorola is not the quickest with updates but Defy has Android 2.2 and is a good spec so should be up to scratch to run newer versions of Android. Plus the screen on my Milestone is very responsive as well.

Play with one and see which You prefer but the Motorola has the upper hand with robustness so is mtb friendly.