Help deciding on smartphone / mobile network

Hi guys

I'm just coming to the end of an 18 month contract with Orange, so doing the usual look around at tariff deals and handsets before I see what retentions are willing to offer me. Would like some input from you -

I'm now wanting to get some kind of smart phone - what I'm looking for is good battery life, (ideally) wi-fi, email, a light handset if possible. Not bothered whether it has a camera or good MP3 etc.

Handset-wise I'm thinking -

Nokia N75 (mixed reviews, but has wi-fi)
Nokia N76 (seems to be Vodafone only in the UK at the moment)
Blackberry Pearl (no wi-fi but otherwise looks ideal - apparently a followup with wifi is due but not until Q3 this year)
Blackberry 8800 (again no wifi)

..at the moment I'm thinking Blackberry Pearl - lightweight, no camera, but the lack of wi-fi is an annoyance.

Network-wise-

Out of convenience I'd rather stay with Orange, been with them for some years and as my monthly spend is always high, retentions tend to be quite willing to offer me a good deal.
However, I'm thinking of going to T-Mobile as their 'web n walk' package looks attractive (pay an extra £7.50 a month for unlimited mobile internet), however my partner is on T-Mobile and often when I try to call her it takes 2-3 attempts so I'm not too keen on this network.

Looking at the O2 tariffs, you get 1mb allowance included. I believe Orange charge a maximum of £1.50 a day for mobile internet, and on Vodafone the relevant page is 404 so I can't find out what their bundle costs are.

Can anyone comment on the above phones or suggest alternatives? Also would appreciate input on the network issue - anyone here use T-Mobile web n walk?

Cheers
Andy

It's T-Mobile but rebranded.

[RichardMannion]

What about the Orange branded HTC phones?

I have the M3100, so does Sarah - very good phones.

Thanks,
Richard

Thanks Richard - just having a look at the E650 which has good reviews although the weight is a little high.
Also read that Orange are introducing bundled mobile internet, e.g. unlimited for £8 per month which seems OK.
Am I right in thinking that to use the wi-fi I can't just use any wi-fi hotspot? I.e. it has to be an Orange one?

Thanks

Based on our business requirements and the fact that we use a company to get us the bets deal Vodafone has been coming out the best option for the past 2-3 years.

There are so many factors to consider these days including oversaeas roaming.

[RichardMannion]

Originally posted by AndyK
Thanks Richard - just having a look at the E650 which has good reviews although the weight is a little high.
Also read that Orange are introducing bundled mobile internet, e.g. unlimited for £8 per month which seems OK.
Am I right in thinking that to use the wi-fi I can't just use any wi-fi hotspot? I.e. it has to be an Orange one?

Thanks

The E650 is a good phone, first to use WM6 which is better than WM5. Only problem with it is lack of 3G support. This will be addressed in the next few months as there is a new phone from HTC due that is the same size and form factor, but with 3G and a built in GPS chip (HTC Wings). Weight of the 650 is absolutely fine, they must have had some pansies reviewing it. The M3100 is larger and heavier, though I have no complaints with it.

I don't actually use the Wi-Fi bit, though it happilly connects to non-Orange AP's.

Thanks.
Richard

[Scrooge]

I-Phone...shame on all you Apple heads for not bringing this up.

Have you considered the new Sony Ericsson P1i?
Sports a symbian OS, Qwerty Keyboard, touch screen, 3.2mp camera and wifi.
O2 will be shipping it from next month.
Needless to say, its my first upgrade choice.

Sony Ericsson P1i

Kev.

T-Mobile web&walk works fine for me. I use an MDA Vario and never had a problem. You get 25% off the tariff for life if you purchase from an authorised store. Also, I got Copilot6 Satnav built in for free, and it works a dream.

Cheers for the input guys- I was quite taken by the O2 XDA Orbit but O2's data rates don't seem good (£8 a month for 5mb) - Orange's bundle for £8 which was supposed to be unlimited has turned out to be 30mb, so at the moment T-Mobile is looking better - tempted with the MDA Compact III, which has wifi.
Tariff-wise (for calls and texts at least) this won't give me a deal as competitive as I suspect Orange retentions will offer me - Flext 35 on a 12 month contract at £35pm +£7.50 for web n walk, £39.99 for the handset.

If Orange did offer an equivalent to Web n walk (i.e. unlimited mobile internet) I'd stick with them.

[preiffer]

Blackberry Pearl, Andy - Do it...! [y]

WiFi's for girls. EDGE is SO this year

Seriously though, I have the Pearl. It's a great phone (unlike the previous BB's which were great data devices but cr*p phones), reasonable camera, LOADS of functions, and looks a hell of a lot better than the other smartphone "bricks".

Well I've just been on the phone to Orange retentions, I'm livid with both the service of the CSR (obviously wasn't keen to be working on a Sunday, had a real attitude problem) and the shoddy standard Orange tariffs they're offering (my average bill over last quarter was £85).
Reading what other people are being offered (with lower spends in many cases) over on the MSE boards I'm a little miffed to say the least.
Also, the CSR was trying to slag off the TMobile web n walk package, pointing out that they had a fair usage policy - which they do, but at 1gb is rather more favourable than Orange's 30mb!
My contract isn't up until July 11th so I have a little time yet but at the moment I have to say I'm extremely dissapointed with Orange.

i just got a nokia n95...

i gotta say....its wicked..!
it has all the above functions you are looking for...and with a 5.0m pixel camera....!

just adding my bit...

regards

Cheers ucs4me - how are you finding the battery life? The thing that put me off the N95 is the reviews are really mixed and poor battery life keeps getting mentioned.

funny you should say that.....

my battery does go flat quite quickly....but i put that down to me being a heavy mobile user....
but its nice to get any info about these things....! thanks...

kind regards

Originally posted by AndyK
Cheers for the input guys- I was quite taken by the O2 XDA Orbit but O2's data rates don't seem good (£8 a month for 5mb) - Orange's bundle for £8 which was supposed to be unlimited has turned out to be 30mb, so at the moment T-Mobile is looking better - tempted with the MDA Compact III, which has wifi.
Tariff-wise (for calls and texts at least) this won't give me a deal as competitive as I suspect Orange retentions will offer me - Flext 35 on a 12 month contract at £35pm +£7.50 for web n walk, £39.99 for the handset.

If Orange did offer an equivalent to Web n walk (i.e. unlimited mobile internet) I'd stick with them.

and with the 25% discount for life, thats £31 per month fully inclusive.(remember you have to go through an authorised shop, not a franchise) thats the tariff I have. You can even download a patch to get push email on it, and I use Skype on mine as well for international calls

Cheers stoneman - I'm pretty much convinced it will be T-Mobile now, looking at the 12 month Flext35 with WNW, with the MDA Vario II.
I went into a TMobile place today, they didn't mention the discount so I'm guessing it was a franchise? Is it more Carphone warehouse, that kind of place, I need?
Thanks

about time I put in me twopenneth!

N95 has dreadful battery issues, as does the HTC S610(or 620) I have. However, my sony ericsson M600i lasts 4 days with calls quite happily. I did have the P990 but it was way too big. Which leads me to the P1. It seems to tick all the right boxes, reasonable camera, wifi and runs UIQ3 which is relatively stable (but not when it was in the P990 :-( )

As for networks: I've been with Orange for 11 years. I've now decided that my loyalty hasn't been rewarding. I'll be needing 3G (unmetered) with possible bundled wifi access: T-Mobile!

Thanks woggle - the P1 certainly looks good - any idea of release dates for the UK?
I had a chat with Orange CS tonight and they confirmed no plans to offer unlimited mobile internet so it's a no-brainer - £7.50 for 1GB (t-Mobile), £8 for 30 mb (Orange).

[Scrooge]

...the I-phone comes out June 29th..just thought I would drop that in there.......Who would of ever believed I would bepimping an Apple product !

[Darren Wheeler]

Originally posted by Scrooge
...the I-phone comes out June 29th..just thought I would drop that in there.......Who would of ever believed I would bepimping an Apple product !

Yeah yeah. Believe it when I see it.[:?]

Apple say it's released then but all the networks will need to do testing to ensure compatability and identify bugs. If the bugs are big and affect use, the networks will not approve it. Therefore if you have issues you are on your own.

[preiffer]

Originally posted by Darren Wheeler
Apple say it's released then but all the networks will need to do testing to ensure compatability and identify bugs. If the bugs are big and affect use, the networks will not approve it. Therefore if you have issues you are on your own.

Umm... I'm pretty sure they've already been doing that, as they're launching with Cingular.

[mcmbenjamin]

Originally posted by Scrooge
...the I-phone comes out June 29th..just thought I would drop that in there.......Who would of ever believed I would bepimping an Apple product !

Scrooge,

Please be advised that only the most proper Queen's English is allowed on V-Flyer. Anything other is simply uncalled for and therefore I must post "Huh [i] [?]." (Just wishing people would get off their high horse when I use the word 'pimp'.)

Anycase, the new BlackBerry 8830 is both CDMA and GSM so it roams worldwide (NOT Argentina, damn it (unless you get it unlocked)). Better coverage in the USA and normal coverage elsewhere.

PimpNumOne

Benjamin,

No need to dis Scrooge! Homeboy getting the flo: 'P' be on top 'L' on the keyboard, so da man meant to type "Who would have ever believed I would blimping an Apple product", him gorilla pimping blimping like advertising in this case.

You would still be right to pick Scrooge up on the use of the Queen's English as 'blimping' is not an accepted word and probably should have a double P anyway. I am also surprised Scrooge was not able to use a spell checker to avoid this kerfuffle - he must be dyslexic, or perhaps he's blunted by him white lines and herbals.

Originally posted by woggledog

I've been with Orange for 11 years. I've now decided that my loyalty hasn't been rewarding. I'll be needing 3G (unmetered) with possible bundled wifi access: T-Mobile!

Do you not find patchy reception with those networks? I have just moved to Orange, and certainly find it far from perfect (AKA some days I cannot get a signal in the house)

Originally posted by stoneman
T-Mobile web&walk works fine for me. I use an MDA Vario and never had a problem. You get 25% off the tariff for life if you purchase from an authorised store. Also, I got Copilot6 Satnav built in for free, and it works a dream.

I also use a Vario II on a T-Mobile web n walk tariff. The tariff I have includes up to 10Gb per month for £50, although even with rather heavy usage I've yet to hit 3Gb in a month for which there is a cheaper rate (ISTR £25). This data allocation also gives you a tmobile WiFi account that includes global WiFi coverage as well as domestic WiFi roaming with BT Openzone and other providers.

As far as I know, other service providers are no where near as generous with their domestic data provision.

For roaming on 3G/GPRS, it's a disaster, at £7.50 per Mb. That's right, in less than a minute you can spend £50 on a 3G download. So I also have a Vodafone Traveller account on an integrated 3G adapter in my Dell lappy that includes 100Mb of 3G/GPRS roaming on selected networks on top of 1Gb domestic 3G/GPRS data, but no WiFi access at a shocking £100pm.

The Copilot is OK except that the original Bluetooth GPS was faulty (only worked sporadically) and it wasn't until I purchased a new one that I realised it wasn't merely operator error. I also have yet to figure out how to make Copilot work with the back light permanently on. Picking up a rental car at night at an unfamiliar location makes this all rather frustrating so I still usually resort to planning my route using conventional maps.

The Vario II is a bit buggy but is as good as it gets for such technology in my experience. It has some annoyances, in particular the plethora of buttons around the unit are all too easy to press accidentally as you pick up the phone or lift it out of its belt holster case.

Having a 'real' keyboard is the most useful facet, and it seems that the tide is turning on this one, with more and more PDAs having them. The touch screen always has been a real PITA, but maybe I just need to evolve more pointy fingers.

Cheers, Howard