Had basic hand me down phones for years and a £10 contract where I have unlimited texts and loads of free minutes. Handset died on me so using a back up but started wondering about getting a smart phone. Given realistically going to pay about £25 a month so have decent internet usage etc and a decent phone eg htc desire is it worth it?

Benefits I can see are: decent camera, get my emails on it, can look stuff up (which would be genuinely handy), can use it as a diary and it would prob have better microphone and speaker so can actually hear people when they call

motorola defy

will save you a few bob and survive being dropped/wet and sporting activities

Yep, I was in the same boat about six months ago.

Now got a Samsung Galaxy S and can honestly say couldn’t live without it.

what are you interested in? google it with android added – eg i like astronomy, so google astronomy android, like wine? try googling wine android. Smart phones aren’t so much about the phones, but all the really cool stuff you get for them

Defy is good if you’re planning on any outdoor usage in poor conditions.

It really is waterproof and screen hasn’t a mark on it despite just being put in rucsac pocket with keys and loose change.

May not have all the latest tricks but works fine for me 😀

conqueror – got a defy, expected it to be good, it’s not it’s brill. close to the how did i manage without it stage
also, a good size, not as huge as some.

Looking at the defy mesel – never owned a smartphone before and it seems like a mtb friendly one.

What is the tipping point, would you say, for getting a contract v buying the phone outright. Say the defy costs £250 and you could get a 10er a month sim only contract with unlimited data. Or, you could get a 2 yr contract for £25ish a month with free phone.

Seems like buying the phone separately sounds best to me (v low user of minutes and texts), but I’ve never had a phone contract before so don’t know what they offer really.

Ye im happy with the Defy

for me it was Defy VS Nokia N8

The N8 seems decent to me despite everyone moaning about the OS/apps

But in the end I decided Defy as it was a fair bit less money and is powerful enough.. the CPU difference between it and the HTCs/Samsung isn’t worth worrying about.. it will certainly outlast both due to its solid build..

For contract comparison, this site is new (and excellent):

Contract comparison

not worried about it being outdoor proof really, more just the concept of a smart phone having lots of features

Swapped a Samsung 600 for an Orange San Francisco a few months ago.
The camera on the Orange is terrible, clarity of speech is poor and battery life is appaling.

I still prefer it to the Samsung, find the Android OS to be very good and love the extra features – it’s a worse phone but a much more useful device.

Desire HD for the win. It just does everything – well.

issue with desire hd and samsung galaxy s for me is size, do i really want a phone that big?

I honestly don’t notice the size, except for the fact that the screen is actually big enough for decent internet use and also makes the keyboard a usable size. It’s pretty slim anyhow.

For contract comparison, this site is new (and excellent):

Contract comparison Nice link mate, thanks.

lol

If I wanted to do more internet based stuff, I’d be looking at the Samsung with a large screen.
I mainly want the email and phone call stuff, so have a BlackBerry.

Anyone got one of the new Nexus S? I kind of whittled down my short-list to one of those or a HTC Desire S.

I have the Defy with 3GB internet, unlimited texts and 100 minutes talk (which I rarely use up) for £10.21 pm. Battery life isn’t good – 2 days with wifi turned off but otherwise it’s excellent and exactly the same weight as my old dumb Sony-Erricsson…

Battery life isn’t good – 2 days with wifi turned off

sounds reasonable to me.. remember these things have significant screens on them.. not like the mobiles we all had a few years ago

if you want extended/good battery life.. don’t buy a smart phone

my missus has just spent the last hour downloading apps for hers and some of them are actually useful!

if you want extended/good battery life.. don’t buy a smart phone

well, I’m willing to put up with the poor battery performance 🙂

Galaxy S 2 out in a couple of weeks and it is a monster! Will cost you approx £500 PAYG though 😯 Desire S looks good and can be had for £320 PAYG.

Desire HD here. It just works. And very well.

I’ve the desire ‘classic’, and love it. My wife has the galaxy s, and wheras it has a better screen, I just get on better with the desire – smaller, I like real buttons and the scroller.
I opted to buy it outright (£295) and pay £10/month with tesco.

Essentially, after 12 months I’m quids in (bearing in mind most phones are now 2 year contracts at £35/mth…)

DrP

Galaxy S 2 out in a couple of weeks and it is a monster!

It certainly is.

Now got a Samsung Galaxy S and can honestly say couldn’t live without it.

I feel the same way about oxygen, food and water. Couldn’t say the same about a phone though. 🙂

My smartphone (currently an iPhone 4) is without doubt the best ‘thing’ I have ever owned. I could give up TV, PC, radio (which the phone does all of), even my bike, but I could never ever be without my phone. I hardly ever use it as a phone BTW.

I have to agree the Galaxy S 2 looks a cracker! Though I’ll just wait for the iPhone 5 no doubt, which I really hope is getting a bigger screen.

Another Defy user here, my first smartphone. Got it last Nov and the novelty hasn’t worn off yet 🙂

All I’ve got now is an HTC wildfire but it’s still awesome. In a way it’s much better than an iphone, but it’s hard to describe.

Lets say the iphone is Denise Richards. At her prime, stunning to look at and clearly a lot of fun but you’re going to have to get a shower every time you want to get to grips with her.

Android phones are more like Helena Bonham Carter in fight club. Still looking great but scruffy around the edges and you’re going to come away with permanent scars, that you’ll look back on with pride.

I’ve got a Helena Bonham Carter (HBC) Desire, it’s proper bo. If you’re on a budget the HBC Wildfire ain’t bad. Slight reduction in screen and camera but very good none the less.

Coming from the other side of things I was an early adopter with the desire, got one the day they came out. I love it. However, it has been away having a warranty repair after the screen failed for 2 weeks now and I realised how much I used it just because it was there.

In reality you don’t need to check your email constantly, the beeb website or stw or whatever. Maybe it hasn’t been so bad because I’ve had the iPad for couch surfing and the like but it did make me question ever bothering to upgrade in the future!

it would prob have better microphone and speaker so can actually hear people when they call

That’s really not my experience

I have a [work supplied] iphone, and I can honestly say it’s the worst phone I’ve ever had, it may even be worse than the analogue ones we had a while back.
I’m not particularly interested in mobile internet etc. so – for me – I’d rather not have a smart phone thanks.
I really wouldn’t go and buy one and expect the phone performance to be better than a standard phone as you may well be disappointed on that front.

I like the idea of smartphones but I destroy phones at an incredible rate due to either irritation and throwing them at walls, or just wear and tear.

I bought a JCB tradesman phone which is certified to ip67, it’s been through the washing machine and came out still switched on and still working,My partner swears he heard it ringing in there but didn’t realise till afterwards. it’s got bluetooth so all the clever whizzbang browsey and app stuff is done throught my Palm tx which cost 25 quid s/hand.

It’s been working three months for me so far, which is actually a new record.

I don’t get that people say the iPhone is so bad as a phone. That’s not my experiences or of any of the many people who I know who have them. I’ve had a mobile phone constantly since 1993 and it’s no better or worse than any other. First analogue phones excepted of course which were utter shite!!.

Defy and San Francisco are probably the best value smart phones.

Iphone, Samsung and HTC stuff might be good.. but is it worth 300-400 quid? and a lot more money than the Defy or SF

That’s something you have to decide.

To me I couldn’t justify that spend on a phone and don’t think they represent good value. Other people might and that’s fair enough.

You don’t have to go all out. Something like a Nokia 5800 will do all that stuff you want and still be £10/mo probably and likely free to upgrade too.

Has all the stuff the fancier phones do but automatic email notification is more difficult to set up (depending on what you’re using), there are fewere apps and the UI isn’t as nice. But hey, it’s free. Oh and you get decent free satnav in perpetuity too, without even data costs if you pre-download the maps.

Just a thought 🙂

I don’t get that people say the iPhone is so bad as a phone. That’s not my experiences or of any of the many people who I know who have them

2 phones sat here right now both on O2 – Nokia 6210 and a iPhone
The iphone has one bar of signal sometimes dropping to no service, if I connect it to the PC that goes up to 3bars for some reason
The Nokia is just stable on 5 bars

BTW – I have 2 iPhones and they’re both the same

i like my desire so much i bought one twice ( see the stupid things you’ve done while pi55ed thread 😳 ).
never really interested in phones at all before. GF insisted i have one a few years ago and bought me a crappy little thing on PAYG. 10 quid credit lasted about 2 years i think.
the desire is ace though. does all the good stuff. just a very nice thing to have.
FWIW when i was looking, the only phone that worked out cheaper to buy outright ( back in october last year ) was the iphone4. anything else can be had for less on an 18 month contract. i’m paying 24 quidsh/month, unlimited data, 600 minutes, 600 texts on tmobible through buymobilephones.net.
it’s a redemption jobby, so a bit of a PITA to get your money, just because you have to stay on top of the paperwork, but seems to have worked out ok so far.

hmm maybe a wildfire on a £12 contract might be the best way to go for now…

how much internet allowance will i need/should i aim for?