I'm after a new phone that I can also act as my primary device for accessing my personal gmails (as access to gmail is banned at work)

It will be my only phone – i.e. I don't have a separate work phone

I don't envisage ever needing to use it with work email (so it doesn't support for Exchange servers etc.)

Might be quite to use it for playing music, and also have GPS capability, etc. although they're nice-to-haves

Any recommendations?

N96? mines linked with my gmail and it runs fine, depends how much you want to manipulate your mail though.

iPhone or Nokia E71. I don't like Blackberries.

htc magic?

LG gt505

There are loads out there these days.

I have an HTC which is fanatstic, has MS Office, Outlook, GPS etc etc

My nokia 5800 handles my hotmail really well. Does the gps and music stuff, too

Blackberry Storm, great for email, can store up to 16gb on micro sd so lots of tunes and mine came with gps etc all preloaded.