That depends on what you use on your phones. If you enjoy smartphone features then by all means get this. Android maqy not be quitw caught up withb iphone OS, but it is getting there. My only gripe is with the physical keyboard... the fact they fit it into a phone this thin is astounding but it is so flat it is impossible to toucbh type.

It is expensive but unlike the iphone it FEELS expensive in the hand.

This post was a bitch to type on it.

I own a Motorola W260g
http://www.aboutcellulars.com/wp-con...g-tracfone.gif
makes/recieves calls with a few texts here and there. I'm not cool and/or crazy enough to put down nearly a grand for a modern phone.

But nobody actually pays for a phone do they?

Handsets are always, always free, unless you're an idiot and get a pay as you go one, in which case the extra money you spend on credit rather than having a contract suggests you're made of money anyway.

Either that or you just like unlimited data and don't plan on talking very much.

I don't see your logic. How is Pay as you Go better in that case? Surely a cheap contract with an unlimited data add-on, given that'll you'll get a free top of the range phone when you sign up is a better option?

Phones are not always free. You may always have a free option, but there's plenty of phones that cost money with contract. Droid is 200 with, 580 without, for example.

I'm fairly sure we had this discussion previously and we told you the same thing Merv just did. Overseas perhaps, but here in America a majority of handsets need to be purchased at a subsidized price. The only phones that are free are the very basic ones.

Actually you're right, you can't get a Motorola Milestone (As the Droid is called here) for free but only because it's not available from any providers direct, you have to buy the handset seperately at the moment. They were supposed to be available on T-Mobile but they're not listed on their website yet.

Never the less, you shouldn't ever pay for a handset. If you see one you like and a provider is trying to charge you for it, you simply ring a competitor and tell them the deal the other was offering, then ring back the original ones with the counter deal. You should never, ever accept the first deal you're offered with mobile phones, play a couple of companies off against each other and I can guarantee you'll get any handset you want for free and probably pay far below the listed contract price.

The N97 I've got is supposed to be £200 with a contract and Three tried to charge me that so I rang Vodafone, asked if they'd give me a free one, they said yes so I rand Three back, told them I was leaving and they counter-offered me a free handset.

Seriously, don't ever pay for a phone.

Edit: I think we did, Sprout, but I still think you shouldn't be paying and I reckon with a bit of phoning around you could get what you want free over there too.

It's unfortunately not that easy. With Berries maybe, but many phones (and nearly all of the high-profile ones) are locked down to certain carriers over here. I read about a lawsuit or something that's being thrown at the FCC that would make phone/carrier exclusivity a thing of the past. Google's Nexus One is starting to pave the way for the much sought-after "any carrier you want" thing, allowing you to buy it unlocked for a premium, or subsidized from T-Mobile and soon Verizon.

Well when you buy a phone here they're normally operator-locked (Although it's a piece of piss to unlock them, nomore than five minutes on Google) but most operators sell most phones. I guess exclusivity costs too much for the operators to bother. Either that or the phone makers themselves prefer their phones to be more widely available. As such, there are three or four people stocking each of the current best phones available so it's very easy to play them off.

I'm on pay-as-you-go on O2 with my iPhone. As long as I have credit, I have unlimited data. I inherited the handset from my brother, but 3G iPhones aren't hugely expensive on ebay.

If I had opted for a contract I'd be locked into paying at least £1000. I doubt having this phone will cost me more than £50 a year with top-ups.

Fair enough, if you can get given the phone then Pay as you Go isn't quite such a bad option. I still maintain that if you're having to buy the handset a contract is cheaper in the long run.

Yeah, Shin, the big thing about phones here is that a lot of times you have to pick a carrier and then pick one of their phones, whereas in Europe it works the opposite way. Over here the carriers have no reason to try to get you the phone for free because they know if you want the phone you HAVE to go to them anyway.

That's why the basic sets ARE free, because those tend to be the ones multiple carriers have.

Ah, in which case I apologise for my naivite, I assumed the business model worked the same way there as here.

It's interesting that no company has picked up the Milestone yet actually. In general I couldn't really find any carriers touting Motorolas so perhaps the brand as a whole is out of favour here at the moment or something, or they're between deals. Either that or each carrier is limiting themselves to a couple or so smart-phones to avoid stock obsolescence.

I've still got my G1. Fuck yeah Android. Though I don't use the stock firmware. Been running Cyanogenmod for a while now.

Still, it's getting a bit dated. I'd like to get a DROID, but fuck Verizon, so I'm considering a Nexus One.

Not that I have money.

I intend to use mine for as long as possible. It's a Palm Treo 650:

https://images.jiwire.com/images/rev...front-back.jpg
A good old fashion TANKING smartphone, which is great because I drop it often and it's virtually unbreakable. I love it because it's so easy to keep track of my schedule and integrates well with everything else in my daily life. I don't text that often, but I do like having a keyboard that's actually easy to type. Mine's an old hand-me-down from a friend, but I don't foresee myself replacing it unless it dies and/or the battery on it explodes and it costs me more to replace the battery than to buy a new phone.

I love it because it does SO WELL in preserving its battery life. My boyfriend has the Palm Treo 680, which is the next model up, but his runs out of battery life twice as fast than mine.

It won't. When I had to replace the battery on my HTC I just looked for a replacement on eBay and I found a seller that sold me a battery/home charger/car charger package for a little over $10.

I have the Sony Ericsson W980:

http://tech-faq.phonedog.com/r/c/984...75-250x275.jpg

It's a walkman phone with 8gb of memory. I don't care much for the mp3 playing ability, I just wanted a clam shell phone that looked good and wasn't to thick.

Add another Sony Ericsson user to the pile:
http://www.att-cellphones.org/wp-con...on_w760a_1.jpg

The Sony Ericsson W760a. It wasnt exactly what I wanted when I went for a new phone, but I had it in my heart to get a sliding phone, so I picked it up. I've really grown to like it since then. No additional memory cards, dont really use it to play music or anything like that. The few times I have, the qualities been surprisingly good.

Been using an old Razr for a while now and am happy with it. The battery was getting really weak a few months ago, and I asked myself what I’d want in a new cell phone. Got a new battery instead. :D

And another Sony Ericsson:

http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/4162/1517y.jpg

I have a Sony Ericsson K770i.
It supposed to be my mother's new mobile phone, but she gave it to me instead. I really like its bright display - no problems with reflections either! You can see everything without problems... even on the sunniest day!

http://i47.tinypic.com/mhvo6p.jpg

I use a Samsung Rogue. It's a nice phone, has plenty of bells and whistles, and it has an actual keyboard which was a must for me getting any sort of touchscreen phone.

Kinda kicking myself for not holding out for a few months for the Droid phones on Verizon, but my old phone was all sorts of dead so I had to get something.

Seeing these, I should've made a poll instead a regular bumpy thread...oh well...

There are surprisingly lots of people here using Ericksson :tpg:

Nokia, go to hell (diss this if you disagree^^)